An Email Conversation with Brian Sterling - Part3
This is the third in a series of email conversations between myself and Brian Sterling of the OOH industry. If you haven't been following our conversation you can see the first post [HERE] and the second post [HERE].
Brian Sterling Response:
Jordan-
The way I see it, your argument boils down to two segments which I think you are incorrectly mixing: moral and social problems within the psyche of our human population and an overall disdain for OOH.
The bottom line is that while I share your concerns of over consumption and the problems with the social fabric of our generation, I have a hard enough time attributing these problems to larger, more prevalent forms of advertising (TV, radio, etc). I think you're giving this industry and advertising in general way too much credit: if all adverting had such a large impact on everyone, the company who makes BlackBerrys would not be on the verge of bankruptcy. Advertising at best can influence and reenforce tendencies and norms within our society; these tendencies and norms do not come from advertising.
I think the impact of Channing Tatum using an iPhone in a movie or the cool kid in school using one at lunch is exponentially greater than anything a billboard can project. While OOH may support and reenforce certain tendencies, we all have to look much deeper in ourselves as to what drives us to act in certain ways. Come on...is that Bacardi wildposting panel going to make you go to the liquor store and buy a bottle? Even when you don't even like Bacardi?!?!
Secondly, I also agree with you that there absolutely has to be limits and regulations on all forms of media, including OOH. If they left it up to us, you would be walking down a branded sidewalk every day! I absolutely, unequivocally reject the comparison of OOH to a coal plant. OOH does not cause bodily harm and the notion that ANY social norms that any advertising supports, for better or for worse, can be equally damaging as breathing in pollution is absolutely absurd. No matter how much you hate watching commercials, they will never directly give you cancer.
Which brings me to my last point: don't use the state of our social well being to support your personal disdain for OOH. If you don't like signage because you feel it degrades our physical surroundings, then just say that. Don't use "over consumption" to unfairly attack the specific OOH industry when the problem lies much, much deeper. You are mixing two very, very different discussions and issues into one attack and you are, quite simply, very wrong for doing so. If you removed virtually every single piece of OOH from the world, you would definitely have a neater, and arguably enhanced physical landscape. But the problems you talk about would still be there. When you go and illegally deface and vandalize phone booths and other transit media, don't pretend you are doing anything more than mounting an attack on what you personally believe to be ugly urban blight. If you really want to help improve the human social condition, go kill a few rappers. Stop TV shows and movies from depicting false realities to kids. Teach parents how to better prepare their kids for the real world. Because NO advertising has a stronger message than those three things.
Brian
On a side note- I think you're smart enough to know I'm never going to tell you where I work or divulge any personal information about myself, including my real last name. I'm sure you're a perfectly nice guy, but I would prefer to keep things at this level.
Jordan Seiler Response:
Brian,
I think we have come to the heart of the matter. While you seem to be concentrating your counter arguments around the fact that specific advertising campaigns may or may not "work", I am not talking about specific campaigns but the larger role advertising as a form of messaging (private or publicly transmitted) has on increasing our attention to consumer ideals. You say "Advertising at best can influence and reinforce tendencies and norms within our society; these tendencies and norms do not come from advertising." While I would tend to agree with this statement, the reinforcement might be exactly the problem with advertising, and our ability to opt out of that system of reinforcement a vital right.
Speaking about tobacco advertising and to this very point Rory Sutherland says, "While I can accept that the purpose of tobacco advertising was not to encourage people to smoke. I find it astounding that anyone could barefacedly suggest that cigarette posters seen everywhere did not serve to normalize the habit." To this point you may not see a Bacardi advertisement and run out for a bottle of rum, but the repetition of alcohol imagery does encourage a continued thought process around the consumption of alcohol. Similarly, and taken from a more macrocosmic view, the repetition of images that all point to consumption in its myriad forms encourages consumption more generally. Now this is not to say that consumption is bad, but given your opening statement you do agree that there are issues to be faced surrounding this topic.
You also say "While OOH may support and reinforce certain tendencies, we all have to look much deeper in ourselves as to what drives us to act in certain ways." I couldn't agree with you more. In many ways every person has to constantly negotiate the inner and outer moral landscape and come to their own conclusions about what being a reasonable and responsible person entails. I would tend to argue that with the prevalence of advertising as a medium in our lives, it indeed plays a role (however insignificant) in this very moral negotiation we are describing. With evidence (from previous conversations) pointing to advertising making this moral negotiation more difficult (and the fact that so little research has been conducted into the actual burden advertising puts on our social and ecological morals) it would seem that we might want to allow individuals to opt out of advertisings influence in an effort to retain control of these moral negotiations.
Now this is where I believe you find my opinions to become "comical" and "overly idealistic". I would argue that un burdening public space from commercial messages would allow us all an easier time negotiating the moral dilemmas that are at the root of our social and environmental issues. (I also believe that it would have other dramatic affects on public interaction and aesthetic transformations that would positively affect the city but that is for another argument) I do agree that I am making a bold statement and also an idealistic one, but that is not an argument to refute my claim. My statement only seems idealistic in a society where advertising, and particularly outdoor advertising is so entrenched in our expectations of how public space is used. With the PublicAdCampaign project I hope we can look past what we have come to expect from public space and forward to how we might make it more conducive to the society in which we all want to exist.
Back to more specific issues. You say "Secondly, I also agree with you that there absolutely has to be limits and regulations on all forms of media, including OOH. If they left it up to us, you would be walking down a branded sidewalk every day!" Yikes! this coming from inside the industry. I must say I have found over the years that you are most likely correct in this statement. Battles between city governments and the OOH industry have cost tax payers millions of dollars and are all an effort to defend public space from the desires of an industry intent on "branding every sidewalk". Seems like a senseless war most taxpayers would probably not want to wage if given the choice. An interesting example of this in NY is the wildposting business. A while back a company named NPA operated illegally in NY, recklessly ignoring the law and littering public space with OOH ads in the form of wheatpasted posters. The city cracked down on them several years ago levying fines and demanding they stop their illegal activities. At that point NPA dissolved, fired a whole bunch of people, and then re-opened as Contest Promotions with a smaller but legal inventory. As recently as last week I spoke with a Contest Promotions employee who was removing another companies posters that had been placed over their ads on thier legal wall. He told me that the renewed wildposting and the inter business rivalry that had brought him out to fix this location, was being done by other rogue companies likely made up in part by ex NPA employees. Does this sound like an industry that we can regulate or one that by its very nature will break the rules in an effort to control more of our visual environment.
It seems that my comparison of the advertising industry to the coal industry did not sit well considering you "unequivocally reject the comparison of OOH to a coal plant." Stating "OOH does not cause bodily harm and the notion that ANY social norms that any advertising supports, for better or for worse, can be equally damaging as breathing in pollution is absolutely absurd". I admit that the two industries have a much different direct correlation to health, but if by the logic put forward before, advertising can reinforce tendencies which are already harmful, it might have a correlation to our health worthwhile considering. If our obesity epidemic is causing us serious bodily harm and advertising is increasing our tendency to eat in unhealthy ways, we might consider curbing those messages. We have done this in the past with alcohol and tobacco. The funny thing is I'm not even that extreme. My request is not to ban specific types of messages, but simply to omit advertising in public space, un burdening us from the worry of it increasing our tendency to become obese. If you wanna soak up McDonalds ads over the TV, go a head fatty, but I would kindly ask that I retain the option to remain outside of that influence.
And to wrap this whole things up. You seem to suggest that my disdain for OOH advertising is in some way misguided and that the real issues I am interested in lie within the social sciences and other activist campaigns that might more directly deal with the societal issues that I am blaming on advertising more generally. You say "If you removed virtually every single piece of OOH from the world, you would definitely have a neater, and arguably enhanced physical landscape. But the problems you talk about would still be there". I tend to agree with you on both points here but these problems, as you mention, are not isolated issues. The state of our social fabric is the result of an infinite number of small decisions and actions that we collectively make. Removing OOH advertising from public space seems like a step in the right direction albeit a very small one. That said it is the lens through which I have chosen to pursue my fight for a more properly functioning public space and by that a better society. I do think that advertising degrades our physical surroundings, but I also think it promotes a consumptive catharsis that has a net negative overall affect on all of us. However small my contribution to addressing this issue, there is at least a contribution.
And last, while I know you will not let our readers know your real name, this is an honest and productive conversation we are having. It would seem you share some of my own concerns about society and that there are real issues which must be dealt with. The fact that you are unwilling to reveal your name only makes me feel like you either do not fully believe what you are saying and are thus unwilling to stand behind your statements, or that there would be negative ramifications for you as a result of engaging in this type of dialogue. Either way is very troubling and speaks either to your disingenuousness, or to an industry which punishes its insiders for thinking about the industry that they are working within. I think the OOH industry can do more. When I "illegally deface and vandalize" phone booths and other transit media, I am not mounting a personal attack but trying to use my medium to create meaningful dialogue around this issue. Oddly enough it seems to be working. I use my name to speak to the sincerity of my beliefs and my interest, and however small my impact might be I believe it is worth my effort and a meaningful contribution to the fight for a more just and verdant world. I will leave "killing rappers" to other "activists".
I look forward to your response!
Brian Sterling Response:
Jordan-
The way I see it, your argument boils down to two segments which I think you are incorrectly mixing: moral and social problems within the psyche of our human population and an overall disdain for OOH.
The bottom line is that while I share your concerns of over consumption and the problems with the social fabric of our generation, I have a hard enough time attributing these problems to larger, more prevalent forms of advertising (TV, radio, etc). I think you're giving this industry and advertising in general way too much credit: if all adverting had such a large impact on everyone, the company who makes BlackBerrys would not be on the verge of bankruptcy. Advertising at best can influence and reenforce tendencies and norms within our society; these tendencies and norms do not come from advertising.
I think the impact of Channing Tatum using an iPhone in a movie or the cool kid in school using one at lunch is exponentially greater than anything a billboard can project. While OOH may support and reenforce certain tendencies, we all have to look much deeper in ourselves as to what drives us to act in certain ways. Come on...is that Bacardi wildposting panel going to make you go to the liquor store and buy a bottle? Even when you don't even like Bacardi?!?!
Secondly, I also agree with you that there absolutely has to be limits and regulations on all forms of media, including OOH. If they left it up to us, you would be walking down a branded sidewalk every day! I absolutely, unequivocally reject the comparison of OOH to a coal plant. OOH does not cause bodily harm and the notion that ANY social norms that any advertising supports, for better or for worse, can be equally damaging as breathing in pollution is absolutely absurd. No matter how much you hate watching commercials, they will never directly give you cancer.
Which brings me to my last point: don't use the state of our social well being to support your personal disdain for OOH. If you don't like signage because you feel it degrades our physical surroundings, then just say that. Don't use "over consumption" to unfairly attack the specific OOH industry when the problem lies much, much deeper. You are mixing two very, very different discussions and issues into one attack and you are, quite simply, very wrong for doing so. If you removed virtually every single piece of OOH from the world, you would definitely have a neater, and arguably enhanced physical landscape. But the problems you talk about would still be there. When you go and illegally deface and vandalize phone booths and other transit media, don't pretend you are doing anything more than mounting an attack on what you personally believe to be ugly urban blight. If you really want to help improve the human social condition, go kill a few rappers. Stop TV shows and movies from depicting false realities to kids. Teach parents how to better prepare their kids for the real world. Because NO advertising has a stronger message than those three things.
Brian
On a side note- I think you're smart enough to know I'm never going to tell you where I work or divulge any personal information about myself, including my real last name. I'm sure you're a perfectly nice guy, but I would prefer to keep things at this level.
Jordan Seiler Response:
Brian,
I think we have come to the heart of the matter. While you seem to be concentrating your counter arguments around the fact that specific advertising campaigns may or may not "work", I am not talking about specific campaigns but the larger role advertising as a form of messaging (private or publicly transmitted) has on increasing our attention to consumer ideals. You say "Advertising at best can influence and reinforce tendencies and norms within our society; these tendencies and norms do not come from advertising." While I would tend to agree with this statement, the reinforcement might be exactly the problem with advertising, and our ability to opt out of that system of reinforcement a vital right.
Speaking about tobacco advertising and to this very point Rory Sutherland says, "While I can accept that the purpose of tobacco advertising was not to encourage people to smoke. I find it astounding that anyone could barefacedly suggest that cigarette posters seen everywhere did not serve to normalize the habit." To this point you may not see a Bacardi advertisement and run out for a bottle of rum, but the repetition of alcohol imagery does encourage a continued thought process around the consumption of alcohol. Similarly, and taken from a more macrocosmic view, the repetition of images that all point to consumption in its myriad forms encourages consumption more generally. Now this is not to say that consumption is bad, but given your opening statement you do agree that there are issues to be faced surrounding this topic.
You also say "While OOH may support and reinforce certain tendencies, we all have to look much deeper in ourselves as to what drives us to act in certain ways." I couldn't agree with you more. In many ways every person has to constantly negotiate the inner and outer moral landscape and come to their own conclusions about what being a reasonable and responsible person entails. I would tend to argue that with the prevalence of advertising as a medium in our lives, it indeed plays a role (however insignificant) in this very moral negotiation we are describing. With evidence (from previous conversations) pointing to advertising making this moral negotiation more difficult (and the fact that so little research has been conducted into the actual burden advertising puts on our social and ecological morals) it would seem that we might want to allow individuals to opt out of advertisings influence in an effort to retain control of these moral negotiations.
Now this is where I believe you find my opinions to become "comical" and "overly idealistic". I would argue that un burdening public space from commercial messages would allow us all an easier time negotiating the moral dilemmas that are at the root of our social and environmental issues. (I also believe that it would have other dramatic affects on public interaction and aesthetic transformations that would positively affect the city but that is for another argument) I do agree that I am making a bold statement and also an idealistic one, but that is not an argument to refute my claim. My statement only seems idealistic in a society where advertising, and particularly outdoor advertising is so entrenched in our expectations of how public space is used. With the PublicAdCampaign project I hope we can look past what we have come to expect from public space and forward to how we might make it more conducive to the society in which we all want to exist.
Back to more specific issues. You say "Secondly, I also agree with you that there absolutely has to be limits and regulations on all forms of media, including OOH. If they left it up to us, you would be walking down a branded sidewalk every day!" Yikes! this coming from inside the industry. I must say I have found over the years that you are most likely correct in this statement. Battles between city governments and the OOH industry have cost tax payers millions of dollars and are all an effort to defend public space from the desires of an industry intent on "branding every sidewalk". Seems like a senseless war most taxpayers would probably not want to wage if given the choice. An interesting example of this in NY is the wildposting business. A while back a company named NPA operated illegally in NY, recklessly ignoring the law and littering public space with OOH ads in the form of wheatpasted posters. The city cracked down on them several years ago levying fines and demanding they stop their illegal activities. At that point NPA dissolved, fired a whole bunch of people, and then re-opened as Contest Promotions with a smaller but legal inventory. As recently as last week I spoke with a Contest Promotions employee who was removing another companies posters that had been placed over their ads on thier legal wall. He told me that the renewed wildposting and the inter business rivalry that had brought him out to fix this location, was being done by other rogue companies likely made up in part by ex NPA employees. Does this sound like an industry that we can regulate or one that by its very nature will break the rules in an effort to control more of our visual environment.
It seems that my comparison of the advertising industry to the coal industry did not sit well considering you "unequivocally reject the comparison of OOH to a coal plant." Stating "OOH does not cause bodily harm and the notion that ANY social norms that any advertising supports, for better or for worse, can be equally damaging as breathing in pollution is absolutely absurd". I admit that the two industries have a much different direct correlation to health, but if by the logic put forward before, advertising can reinforce tendencies which are already harmful, it might have a correlation to our health worthwhile considering. If our obesity epidemic is causing us serious bodily harm and advertising is increasing our tendency to eat in unhealthy ways, we might consider curbing those messages. We have done this in the past with alcohol and tobacco. The funny thing is I'm not even that extreme. My request is not to ban specific types of messages, but simply to omit advertising in public space, un burdening us from the worry of it increasing our tendency to become obese. If you wanna soak up McDonalds ads over the TV, go a head fatty, but I would kindly ask that I retain the option to remain outside of that influence.
And to wrap this whole things up. You seem to suggest that my disdain for OOH advertising is in some way misguided and that the real issues I am interested in lie within the social sciences and other activist campaigns that might more directly deal with the societal issues that I am blaming on advertising more generally. You say "If you removed virtually every single piece of OOH from the world, you would definitely have a neater, and arguably enhanced physical landscape. But the problems you talk about would still be there". I tend to agree with you on both points here but these problems, as you mention, are not isolated issues. The state of our social fabric is the result of an infinite number of small decisions and actions that we collectively make. Removing OOH advertising from public space seems like a step in the right direction albeit a very small one. That said it is the lens through which I have chosen to pursue my fight for a more properly functioning public space and by that a better society. I do think that advertising degrades our physical surroundings, but I also think it promotes a consumptive catharsis that has a net negative overall affect on all of us. However small my contribution to addressing this issue, there is at least a contribution.
And last, while I know you will not let our readers know your real name, this is an honest and productive conversation we are having. It would seem you share some of my own concerns about society and that there are real issues which must be dealt with. The fact that you are unwilling to reveal your name only makes me feel like you either do not fully believe what you are saying and are thus unwilling to stand behind your statements, or that there would be negative ramifications for you as a result of engaging in this type of dialogue. Either way is very troubling and speaks either to your disingenuousness, or to an industry which punishes its insiders for thinking about the industry that they are working within. I think the OOH industry can do more. When I "illegally deface and vandalize" phone booths and other transit media, I am not mounting a personal attack but trying to use my medium to create meaningful dialogue around this issue. Oddly enough it seems to be working. I use my name to speak to the sincerity of my beliefs and my interest, and however small my impact might be I believe it is worth my effort and a meaningful contribution to the fight for a more just and verdant world. I will leave "killing rappers" to other "activists".
I look forward to your response!
Labels: criticism, industry, public advertising, random thoughts
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