“An award for the most accurate, careful and ethical use of advertising.”
“What if we decided that advertising to children was something none of would engage in anymore? Perhaps because we legislate it, or perhaps because we just decide to police ourselves. We can get into the how a bit later. But what if we stopped? What would happen?”
Alex Bogusky has his Pollyanna hat on again. Unless the Feds ban marketing to children, the ad industry will make money at it. Leo Burnett has an entire secure floor devoted to Phillip Morris that’s been there through decades of tighter and tighter regulation.
Police ourselves? How much deviant behavior went on at Cannes this year? Please. For as vaunted as we like to make ourselves out to be, this industry is composed of adult children - no more likely to control themselves and their impulses than the very children they target.
I’m surprised Alex doesn’t have a bullet in his mailbox ala Russell Crowe in The Insider. Count the businesses affected by such a decision: ToysRUs, Turner Broadcasting, Mattel, General Mills, Wal-Mart, Disney, LEGO and PlaySkool to name a handful. You think they’ll take this lying down? They’d create their own agency network in a heartbeat.
