creative direction

Everybody loves Black Friday.

Or so it would seem from all of the ads we’ve created this year. Some people love it silently, like the woman in the Walmart ad, entranced by the latest 1080p flat-screen TV.

Others love it with a gusto normally reserved for life’s more intimate moments, like the orgasmic lady in the latest round of Target spots. 

Great, I get it. We want to help our clients sell stuff. So we show people going gaga for their products.

Except maybe it’s not so great. Because our celebration of insanity on TV inevitably leads to (surprise!) insane behavior in the real world. 

Between our absurd portrayals of shopping ‘enthusiasts’ and the media’s incessant parroting of our ‘shop like a maniac’ message, it’s hardly shocking that more than a few folks went a little too far this year. 

Yesterday, (actually Thursday night, because Black Friday can’t start on Friday anymore) violence broke out at stores across the country as people made the mad dash for this year’s hottest items. This isn’t the first time this has happened during the rush to start the holiday shopping season. And it won’t be the last.

Not as long as we continue to encourage people to engage in ‘competitive shopping’. Not as long as we continue to perpetuate the myth that a Christmas without presents bursting out from underneath the tree is hardly worth celebrating. Not as long as we continue to show disdain for the poor and middle class by forcing them to sacrifice their dignity and potentially their safety in pursuit of the almighty deal.

I know this may all sound pretty surprising coming from an ad guy. But I’m a human being first and foremost. And I believe that we can act in our clients’ best interest and the interests of society at the same time. 

We can encourage people to consume without encouraging reckless behavior. We can celebrate the joy that a new purchase can bring without allowing that joy to define who we are. We can entertain and inform people without creating a culture that values the deal more than anything.

If we truly believe that our work can influence people to do things we want (and if you don’t you shouldn’t be in this business), we must also recognize that it can have the opposite effect as well.

That’s a pretty heavy responsibility. Perhaps it’s time we started treating it that way.