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Friday 5 December 2008

Powers of Persuasion: The Story of British Advertising

Who is selling what to whom?

Powers of Persuasion: The Story of British Advertising by Winston Fletcher

The impression you get from reading this book, which covers post-war advertising until the present, is of a chaotic, self-serving, occasionally brilliant, but ultimately shallow business. It is full of accounts of crassness, of overstated promise, of meaningless awards, fly-by-night companies, promotion of the semi-talented and clashing egos. It’s quite comprehensive and at times entertaining, as we hear of the hubris of the ridiculous Saatchis, the naivete of politicians and the endless attempts by ad agencies to carve out a little philosophical niche for themselves, be it the derided USP or the idea of account management. Fletcher also includes a rather dutiful section on advertising in history — Montaigne noted it, Johnson liked it — and a tour d’horizon of early exponents of the dark art.

The one thing you won’t find in this book is any comprehensive or interesting theme: the problem is that Fletcher has for a very long time been an insider and a practitioner. His credo is that creativity is what makes advertising worthwhile, although he cannot find an absolute link between creativity — whatever that is — and sales. But you also get the overwhelming sense that advertising operates mostly for the benefit and fulfilment of the operators, which chimes with my own youthful experience. So the book falls somewhere between a gossipy account of what’s been going on in this world, and an analysis of the imagined benefits of advertising.

My first, and only, proper job was as a copywriter in the Seventies, in what Fletcher, I see, describes as a kind of golden age, when British creativity was at its height, British ads set the standard, and young directors like Alan Parker, the Scott brothers and Hugh Hudson were cutting their teeth on commercials. Almost the first television campaign I wrote, for an agency that thought awards were a sign of frivolity, won a Lion d’Or at Cannes. I was almost trampled in the crush of my colleagues jumping on the stage in Cannes, as the trinket was handed out. It all seemed too easy. Very soon I was promoted and found myself in endless meetings. The male clients were always very interested in what the female actors or models were going to wear. I quickly saw that advertisers were concerned with an alternative universe, where kitchens were tidy, women were cheerful, children were charming, and lots of products washed whiter. The last thing advertising wanted to think about was the state of society. Any benefits that accrued from consumer choice were, I thought, largely accidental. Advertising, the product of capitalism, can only justify itself on the premise that the market is a force for good. That weasel word ‘choice’ looms large.

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