Advertisers Are Like Prison Cafeteria Cooks

So last night was the Brit awards apparently. I say apparently because I hadn't a clue it was even on until a load of people started talking about cloaks and falling over.

Obviously, in this modern era of reatime marketing, the world was then deluged with brands making tenuous and extremely lame falling over related content.  

This is modern advertising's greatest grand fuck-up, not just in this low-rent, twitter and facebook stuff, but in proper, grown-up advertising too.

This belief that you can just push whatever you want at people ('consumers') regardless of whether it's any use or benefit to them.

The best advertising should start with people - the customers - what do they want, what's in it for them? Why should they care? About our product? About what we have to say?

The onus is on us to show them what's in for them.

But most advertising appears to be the result of advertising and marketing people just deciding what they'd like to say, whatever makes them feel better in the board room or agency, and just saying it.

In that sense, modern advertisers are like prison cafeteria cooks – ladling out whatever slop they decided to cobble together that day, regardless of whether it makes us gag.

Advertising is increasingly, insultingly lame in the way it underestimates its audience, much like it was in the 1950's before the creative revolution gave way to a more honest approach that credited the audience with intelligence. Strange it seems to have gone backwards.

At least, thankfully, most advertising these days is barely noticed.

Time for another creative revolution?