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Andrew Cracknell looks at what Radio 4's Down with Advertising had to say about the ad industry
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It was less than two minutes into the argument before Fairtrade coffee got a mention. Less than a minute later, the question as to why ads never show the living conditions of the manufacturers of the advertised products was raised. From last week's Radio 4 debate on advertising, it soon became clear that the problem is not so much advertising, but an ideological distaste for capitalism and globalisation. But advertising is that system's outrider.
It's right to be scandalised about aspects of globalisation such as, for example, the destruction of third-world farming by subsidised produce from developed countries. But what's that got to do with advertising? Never mind that the bulk of its activity facilitates daily transactions by billions of people. To its critics, effrontery at the perceived blot of globalisation is projected on to advertising, so its morality is reduced to a battle between international coffee producers and local co-operatives.
Well, that's not quite the only problem. Susie Orbach, the author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, contributed her well-documented view that advertising is responsible for bulimia. Three years ago, Orbach told me of a concerted effort by food companies to get women to eat less. Apparently, clients spend billions on campaigns to persuade people to buy less of their products. It would help if the critics could decide whether the business is responsible for obesity or anorexia.
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