When people go into journalism, or advertising and marketing, I’ll bet very few of them would be bold enough to state up front: "I want to change the world."
Advertising and journalism as tools for change
Advertising is cool people and parties and loud, bright colours, isn’t it?
Journalism is sticking a microphone in the face of a politician or the thrill of seeing your “byline” on the front page as the papers hit the streets at dawn.
The reality, of course, is different.
Journalism, as I have discovered, is long, hard, often dangerous graft for very little money – interspersed with shots of adrenalin and excitement you’ll get in few other places.
But it is dying.
Advertising is also long, hard graft, interspersed with awards and rejection slips or divorce notes from clients.
And it too is dying – at least in the sense of human beings using myriad forms of persuasion to get other human beings to buy things they probably don’t need.
Now, it’s AI wearing the robes of Death advancing on agencies.
As much as pure, hard-scrabble journalism has helped alter the course of history, so too has pure creativity in advertising risen above the marketplace of the mundane, into the realms of nation-building.
Think about Yebo Gogo and how, once white people got over their initial outrage in those heady, hopeful, post-apartheid years, they discovered they could laugh at themselves and laugh along with the other citizens of this country.
These days, I seldom see local advertising which tries to make a difference to the lives of ordinary people – as opposed to just the shareholders of a brand.
Lil-lets breaks the cycle
One such is the campaign running at the moment by tampon maker Lil-lets and its local agency, Retroviral.
It’s called Break the Cycle – a clever play on words which at once focuses on the 28-day menstrual cycle and the cycle of society’s squeamishness, which ensures girls often hate themselves and their bodies because they go through frightening and seemingly unnatural changes.
What stands out is that it has almost a documentary tone about it.
Real girls and young teenagers, and their mothers are used, and their emotions are real.
The message is: We can be the change; we can break this awful cycle of embarrassment and fear. And we can make girls accept their bodies for the wondrous things they are and not hate them.
Retroviral’s Mike Sharman – the father of two young girls himself – wrote in a LinkedIn post that he had come away with profound insights: “about 30% of girls stay home from school each month when they have their period. This problem is layered – from awareness/availability to cultural stigma (University of Pretoria research) and everything in between. As a result, these barriers have made it increasingly difficult for teens to open up about their period to their parents and guardians.”
By putting this topic right out there, Lil-lets has done more than clever marketing; it has set itself up as a mentor and helper for young girls and their mothers, helping to reduce the unwanted stigma around a basic bodily function.
This campaign is going to change lives – although I think the various problems women and girls deal with in this country are vast and daunting.
This, though, could be a starting point: Demystify and normalise this, and other things will slowly start to change, too.
So, Orchids to Lil-lets and to Mike and his team. Bet you all feel a whole lot better about the work you do.
Unethical marketing from estate agents
Estate agents are some of the worst violators of the supposed laws around outdoor advertising – perhaps made more noticeable because it happens almost right outside my door.
Maybe I am getting tired or more mellow as I age, but I have almost given up removing these illegal signs in my area and depositing them in the nearest rubbish bins.
But I did – silly me – think that my home and, more so, my always-on-cellphone were at least safe from the depredations of the “lovely fixer-upper” crowd.
Not so.
One Suzette Liebenberg of Keller Williams real estate butted herself into my private space this week to roll out her wares, which included her alleged excellence at flogging properties in our area.
I certainly have had no interaction with the company, nor have I given permission for my private number to be used in this devious way.
I am pretty sure it is a violation of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
Peeved (to put it mildly), I responded, "Where did you get my number?"
And, surprise, surprise – crickets. The only conclusion I can draw is that Liebenberg is well aware this is unethical marketing and that she got my number in a dodgy way.
And buying numbers from brokers – and then using them without the express, written permission of the person being targeted – is illegal.
Not so long ago, estate agents would pop flyers in our letter box – and these were quite effective attention grabbers because they would often have a little chit-chat about happenings in the area as well as examples of houses which had sold recently.
This new sort of unethical marketing conduct, though, raises a huge red flag for me: If you’re prepared to give a finger to POPIA, what are the rest of your selling practices like?
A bitter Onion to Suzette Liebenberg and an even bigger one to Keller Williams for permitting its agents to act like this.
