A Love of Advertising, in a Fake News World

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About seven months ago I left DC, my home for eight years. Like many of my similarly-employed friends, I was facing professional burnout and the ever-increasing cost of living, but there was another reason that I gave with an almost intentional naivete: I was sick and tired of “the noise.”

Protests every week and weekend. Doomsday headlines along news tickers on every screen. There seemed to be less air in the city, and what remained was colder. I cared in the way only the blissfully unaffected can, posting outrage on Facebook when it fit “my brand” or threatened those close to me. I went to several marches but missed the trivialities of restaurant openings and the ambitious energy that once filled the streets. The city I’d fallen in love with years ago no longer sparkled. It just made me feel tired.

I moved away. Despite every attempt to immerse myself in a new city and an almost entirely new life, I focused on my old one more than when I was actually living it. Albeit retrospectively, what I gained was some desperately needed awareness and perspective. For the first time, I saw my complaints about unrest in DC for what they really were: privilege.

I began to worry that I gave up something valuable in leaving DC. While I was certainly not in any position of power, I had proximity that I took for granted. Before you scoff, I’m not saying that my 20002 zip code would have prevented Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation or the longest government shutdown in history, but the feeling was something akin to rushing to the hospital when you hear someone is in emergency surgery. No one is going to hand you the scalpel, but you’re there in the waiting room regardless, just in case there is anything at all to be done to help.

It still bothers me to not to be there. And out of all the headlines I actually read these days, what I find truly haunting are the concerted and continuing efforts to permeate the media with false information in order to manipulate. Because it makes me shudder. Because I began to worry, again, that I was part of the problem.

Because…I work in advertising.

Sure, we have standards and some safeguards in place to ward against outright lies, but the very definition of advertising is “the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.” Spin. We’re paid to convince. It’s grey area at best.

It used to be that my work wasn’t something I felt compelled to examine all that closely. Jokes about a lack of ethics in the ad industry were thrown around (perhaps too) casually, but what was the harm? The effort was more rewarding when we were amplifying the voice of a client I believed in, but at the worst, we’d maybe steer someone towards one product, one destination, or one brand over another. Hardly life or death. Now? Not so much.

The proliferation of fake news combined with the subtleties of promotion, persuasion, and deception can call even the most altruistic campaigns into question. To quote a friend, “Confusion abounds.” I literally just said that I consider false content a huge threat to society. So, why do I still choose this line of work? Do I have a soul?

It took me several months to answer that question. In short, advertising is my thing. It’s what I geek out on, what I don’t tire of thinking about. I love figuring out what motivates people, what inspires them. How decisions are made, how opinions are formed. I love surrounding myself with creatives who look at the world and see a potential for beauty I can only begin to imagine. I am happy to spend my time searching for ways to make their ideas reality. Is there an agenda? You could say that. But when your clients and teams share the same vision, I’ve found something larger and decidedly less sinister in it: a purpose.

Are a lot of ads crap? Absolutely. But some are art. Inspirational. Tearjerking. Hilarious. And at the end of the day, someone always has to foot the bill. Maybe there’s a parallel to be drawn here to commissioned artists throughout history, but that’s a stretch even for me.

The danger is real though, and I think the best thing we, as advertisers, can do is acknowledge it. With a lower tolerance for paid ads, methods of getting the attention of consumers are getting tricky. As in literally tricking you. As far as I’m concerned, native ads are the reformed older sibling of fake news. And not everyone has the public’s best interests in mind. Even if they do, who should decide what is best?

It’s inherently risky territory, but I’d rather live in a world where I pause to decide if I’m being sold something through creative than live in one with none at all.

So what’s the takeaway here? I’ve decided that “checking my privilege” is not just about showing up to marches and making donations. It’s about using whatever power you have to live your life in service to objective good. For me, that looks like demanding more out of my industry and the clients we work with. It’s about embracing authenticity and marketing based on actuality. Advertising isn’t going anywhere, but the people who make up the agencies and companies that keep it churning are evolving all the time. In other words, it’s up to us to not cross the line, ad friends. We can do it.