Imogen Wethered – 6th December 2011
SCA let’s save the world
I am sorry to be bleak, But its leading to 2012, and while I used to think that people who predicted the end of the world were a bunch of nuts old dramatists, in the last few months I can’t help but think that this fate is already upon us. Every time I read the newspaper and every TED talk I watch seems to confirm this more and more. For example, I watched a TED talk about the fact that the world is going to run out of oil soon and that there is absolutely no way around it. On QI the other day Steven Fry was saying that in 50 years time we will all have to be eating insects because their won’t be enough other forms of protein on the planet. The world is running out of fish and once this goes there will be catastrophic consequences for the rest of the planet. Whats more is that on top of this, the press releases each week worse and worse news about the depth of the global economic crisis, it really seems as if it just couldn’t possibly get better. Brands are dying out it started with Woolworths and this week even the kings of high street retail Topshop had to shut 260 of their stores.
To me its as if humans and brands have caused the end of the world on our very own through our greed and obsession with perfection and luxury. I keep expecting some kind of superhero to fly through the air and give us more oil and more fish, but the truth is that this is all happening because the world doesn’t exist the way that it naturally was meant to. I don’t believe in an ‘almighty creator’ but I often muse on the idea that if there were a God then he is utter amazement whilst also despairing at us. To me he looks down on the way we use the earth’s resources, such as oil to drive our cars and heat our homes, and he shouts in despair: ‘I didn’t intend for that!!’, as well as “Stop Fucking eating everything!!!”.
I am a very very environmentally conscious person, and I think and worry about these issues every single day. Now some people might say ‘chill out there is nothing you can do so stop worrying’. However, though I do try my best to do my bit (by diligently recycling everything i can and turning lights off) I feel that as a creative I should be using my abilities as my own super-powers in order to start saving the world!
At school we are working on a project with Dave Birs that predicts the unfortunate death of Advertising. (Another thing that fits to the Mayans very accurate predictions for the coming years).
At school we are constantly learning that brands need to change their marketing strategies to put something back in to society and to offer something more to their customers.
This is where i believe the future of brands and advertising lies, in working to start saving the world? Brands should finally give something back to the world, rather than taking all its resources and finance. For example Nike plus are already helping our nations health issues by encouraging people to run, and Velvet are also planting a trees for every pack of toilet rolls they sell. This is a fantastic start and the way I feel all brands should begin to act.
But some brands however are selfish and greedy. Those that strike me as being most selfish are ironically the ones that sell fish.
Let me explain. Fish are dying out, we eat fish in such a mass that the ocean is running out of the poor things. In a few decades tuna will cost £50 a tin. However, there is a way to help resolve this: customers need to buy fish with the MCS logo on the front, this means that the fish are responsibly sourced. But how can customers get this fish when the greedy selfish brands are pushing their non-MCS fish in our faces? The brand do this because all they ultimately care about is making money. Customers don’t take time to differentiate because A) a lot of them don’t know about this issue and B) because the brands don’t let them differentiate because they don’t really care which brand they buy.
Many brands are sending people the wrong messages because they are greedy and want money.
So ultimately I believe that humans have caused the end of the world through our own greed and obsession with luxury. But most importantly I believe that equally greedy and obsessed brands capitalise on this critical flaw of our race, and it is them ultimately these brands that have caused the desperate fate of the world. They have caused our environmental issues through the unnecessary branded packaging they wrap our products in and the image cars they give us to pollute the environment with. They have also added to our economic issue through the financial pressures they allow us to have because they manage to make us think that we have to buy the newest pairs of shoes or watches.
Many brands don’t deserve to exist and advertising that promotes these sinful ideals of brands doesn’t deserve to exist either.
But to me their is a way out of this mess that could potentially save many brands as well as our world. The future of advertising should be focused on the concept of doing something for the greater good. So rather than manipulating people to buy products that the don’t ultimately need, brands should start doing things to help solve the worlds problems. So that then people will also start to buying brands for the sake of saving the world.
So this is where I believe the future of advertising should be heading in the next year: towards using brands to start saving the world!!
