Crass and stupid ads fail to appeal

We are surrounded by visually and spiritually debasing content. Ads can be both.

I am daily bombarded with such nuisances in the underground parking lot of my office building. The electronic screens on the walls incessantly show ads that are, without exaggeration, a weapon of mass disgust.

One of them is about a wedding photo service. A group of young men and women are pictured in wedding suits and gowns, bellowing at each other to decide where to take their wedding photos.

A man in the foreground belts out “In Greece,” “In Paris” and “In Rome.” Finally, it’s settled. As with most matrimonial disputes, the women win, and it’s decided that location is insignificant; what matters is to choose the particular service.

Another ad about a job-finding platform features a chorus of mainly middle-aged or senior people, singing lyrics about whom they should talk to in seeking a job.

In front of them stands a Caucasian-looking woman, striking a flirtatious pose before revealing the final message: Job-seekers should use the platform in question to talk directly to the boss.

These are but two examples of how crass ads can be. They rely solely on repetition, brainwashing, or, as clear as day, being repulsive. I’m curious if young lovebirds would consider the wedding photo service after seeing the ad. The way it is structured reminds me of many beauty salons in China, who force their hairdressers to stand in lines every morning on sidewalks and shout out slogans of passion and commitment. Passers-by often stop to enjoy the show.

Likewise, I’m curious if a foreign face is enough to raise a company’s profile.

These crudely shot ads are an indication of how bad taste is still a hallmark of many ads we see today. We first saw it decades ago, when a fabric maker and a tonic supplier used mindless repetition and information bombardment to promote brand awareness.

Things haven’t changed much in the sense that brainwashing continues to be the modus operandi in ad circles.

Heavier punishment called

Last year, the national TV broadcaster was in the public’s crosshairs after it allowed a program meant for schoolchildren to be preceded by the likes of the aforementioned ads. They lasted over 10 minutes, leaving many parents fuming about the negative effects of lengthy exposure to them.

Media reports show that quite a few of these ads are the work of a businessman named Ye Maozhong, who said he came up with the idea from repetitive voice messages broadcast in airports.

His logic is straightforward: As long as brands are remembered, for better or for worse, these ads are successful, however aesthetically annoying.

Instead of feeling ashamed at how the public reacted to his works of genius, he was said to be very smug about his creativity.

And creativity, like beauty, is really in the eye of the beholder. The agency behind the ad of the aforementioned job-finding platform said it was disgraceful to mention their works in the same breath as Ye’s, as theirs is “much better in terms of artistic quality.”

Ironically, however much the public resents such ads, they seem to be well accepted by the companies that commission them. And the tactics of being crass and stupid appear to be working. Statistics have become the benchmark against which a lot is judged today. They can be clicks, page views and traffic. Fixated on generating traffic, many creators of supposed artwork start to have no qualms about pandering to the crassest tastes of the lowest common denominator.

The latest corporate big name to be thrust into the firing line because of vulgar ads is Coconut Palm, a producer of coconut milk based in China’s southernmost Hainan Province. Their ads are sexually explicit, to say the least. One of them features a scantily clad woman climbing up a coconut tree. The tagline: “White and tender, I become bigger by drinking this (milk).”

Despite this obvious double entendre hinting at the beverage’s ability to augment breasts, the company hit back at criticisms after market regulators raided its office in a February crackdown on allegedly fraudulent advertising. It retorted, saying the tagline was misunderstood, as it originally meant “I grew up drinking this (milk).”

With companies like these, which are wickedly adept at playing the word game to beguile consumers and outwit watchdogs, you can expect more of them being emboldened to run sexually suggestive ads while having the nerve to play innocent.

With luck, they might be let off the hook, but the lack of legal punishment so far doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be pilloried in the court of public ethics and morality. Think of our children. Do we want them to grow up in a world filled with filth and obscenity?

So what can we do? As customers at the top of the pecking order, we can hit where it hurts, specifically, by withholding our money from companies that keep churning out risqué and vulgar content to insult our intelligence and pollute our eye.