If Advertising Were Abolished…

Notes

If advertising were abolished, the world would not come to an end

A few things would change. We'd watch less television. We'd use local businesses more. We'd no longer be plagued by corporate propaganda. Our cities and our countryside would be beautiful again.

Maybe we'd all buy a little less, but I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing, seeing as buying things does not make us happy.

People who work for advertising agencies would have to find some other way to make a living. Who knows, they might find themselves happier as artists, writers, teachers, nurses and plumbers than they ever did as manipulators of consumers' minds.

Just about the only negative impact would be that people who own large buildings in cities or tracts of land beside highways would no longer be able to make money for nothing by putting up billboards. Generally, though, people who own large buildings and tracts of land are not short of money.

Actually, I'm not in favour of abolishing advertising. What I am in favour of is banning non-consensual advertising.

Advertising on television, in newspapers, in magazines and on the web is consensual, in that if we don't want to see it, we can just switch off the television, or subscribe to a commercial-free movie channel, or not buy the newspaper or magazine, or visit a web site with no ads.

Advertising on billboards, on public transit and on the sides of taxis, on the other hand, is non-consensual, in that when we're in public places we're subjected to it whether we like it or not.

Ever more jurisdictions are banning this latter kind of advertising, recognising that it's not only visual pollution, it's sensorial bullying. In a few decades time, it will seem barbaric that we could have allowed the rich, powerful few to pollute our world and bully the populace in this way.