Bad Ads

I tend to focus on the brighter side of life, finding the positive in the seemingly negative, but at the same time I realize the necessity of acknowledging what is undeniably wrong in order to facilitate change. Today, in creativity class, our professor (what up, Dr. G) wanted to show us a "painful (but necessary) overview of bad advertising," making it clear that inherently "good" advertising that is well-circulated within society falls to a meager 2, maybe 4% of all advertising. Discouraging, yes. Motivating? Oh yeah. If it was easy to do the "good stuff," said Dr. G, everybody would be doing it, and that goes for every profession, I think. Ethics comes into question in every field, and it is just oh-so-much easier for bigger corporations to look towards the quick-and-dirty approach to a problem as the most efficient way of finding a solution. This especially is true for how most people view the institution of advertising, and Superbowl ads this year (namely Sketchers, Groupon.com, and Godaddy.com) were able to further claims that "all advertising is terrible." What people need to know, is that the size of the publication or air-time of a commercial is in no way indicative of an ad's quality or goodness. It is clear that advertising, and what people think of it will not change unless people in the business want to change it. I like to think that a little bit of a creative revolution is upon us, that my generation of college graduates will be able to slowly but surely make the change in advertising that has been so desperately needed and displayed. It's not like there's no hope out there today; innovative, radical ad agencies have been going at it since day one. The campaign by Casanova Pendrill (located in Costa Mesa, CA) was the creative genius behind UNICEF's Dirty Water Project, see for yourself what an impact it had on the American public:

Campaigns like these are what drew me towards advertising in the first place: advertising for a cause, creating public awareness about local and global humanitarian issues is important to me, and what I hope to be doing with my future. Of course, to make good advertising, it's not necessary to save the world (I want to make that very clear). There are plenty of campaigns and solitary ads that are inherently good, with inspired creativity apparent and abundant. Take some of the Superbowl XLV ads for example: