34 Comments

These corporations get away with their nonsense because of the relative indifference of center-right people. Oddly enough, this is easily addressed. Even mildly effective consumer protests are extremely effective. The politically correct Pepsi corporation, for instance, loses hundreds of millions of dollars if their sales drop a mere percentage or two. There is one corporation that particularly needs to be slammed good and hard: General Electric! Its CEO Jeffrey Immelt needs to become the poster boy of fascist economics. He openly asserts his desire to suck up to the reigning political establishment in Washington, DC. We should encourage the legitimate notion that GE is a contemptible company. Its brand name deserves to be severely damaged.

[...] Ed Driscoll highlights an important theme here. (Not just because he features ME!! in the video.) The increasing comfort that the unfailingly anti-American left feels in spreading political messages through any and all available media is disturbing. [...]

[...] Ed Driscoll highlights an important theme here. (Not just because he features ME!! in the video.) The increasing comfort that the unfailingly anti-American left feels in spreading political messages through any and all available media is disturbing. [...]

We “center-right” people are busy being producers of useful stuff, and have no time for the indulgences of the parasitic class.

[...] and a couple of others along similar lines are the subject of my latest Silicon Graffiti video. Click here to watch! Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Liberal Fascism, The New Puritans, The Return of the Primitive, [...]

[...] a new edition of Ed Driscoll’s “Silicon Graffiti,” which Ed assures me is “seven minutes of your life you’ll never get [...]

Wow Ed, thanks for proving you have zero clue how advertising is created. Clients approve a creative brief with tone, target audience, key message and more before an agency ever gets started. And they approve every round along the way to production. To try and blame ad agencies is just ignorant.

And then your examples prove what exactly? Do you want me to list the right-leaning ads like the newest Chevron campaign or the U.S. Army campaign that tries to convince mothers their sons will be safe in Iraq? I guarantee I can match you a “conservative” ad for every “liberal” ad you can present.

Before you take the time to put yourself in front of a green screen and make this crap, maybe you should spend some time on your argument and make sure you have one.

Ad (Hominem) Guy,

Awesome rant! Take tu quoque out of petty cash.

Ed

[...] link of the night goes to Ed Driscoll’s latest video. The latest edition of Silicon Graffiti explores a troika [...]

Obviously not my real name… I work consistently in many different advertising agencies, mainly large ones, in Southern California, and have for twenty years. I merely wish to point out that as a whole, the atmosphere in advertising has been, since the day I started, relentlessly left-wing. Several places went really over the top with the Obot cult since last year, and I personally guarantee that you will never, never see a picture of any sort of Republican in anyone’s cube, RINO to super-con. Unless the picture is intended to mock, with a chimpanzee body wearing Bush’s head, or a picture of Cheney plastered with “FAIL” and a KKK hood. On the other hand you will, and I have, seen literally dozens of Teh Messiah’s images, often dressed up with graphic devices intended to make His Oneness look ubercool. Advertising is a real cesspool of narrow-minded leftard conformity. And an interesting post-election turn is that few words are heard about politics in passing discussion. That puzzles me only because I assumed these sycophants would revel in praising their new boyfriend in DC for every word that his teleprompter emits. But when they moan and wring their hands about the economy… I hear not a word about the responsibility of their dreamboat in the White House. It’s as if the White House and the economy no longer have any intersection in the Venn diagram. Lots of cognitive dissonance to go around in advertising.

A lot of advertising has become lefty annoying since the election. USA channel has some preachy ads in their character theme. Not really a good time to be alienating your audience, it’s not like there is much good TV on anyway. Or that you can’t get the decent shows via iTunes or just DVR them and skip the ads. Wouldn’t it be sad if the networks and other advertisers who have embraced “change” find themselves in the same place the NYT and MSNBC find themselves.

Faraday, I’ll take that bet. How much cash are you putting up?

I personally worked for 3 years at a now defunct agency in San Francisco (of all places) called Gardner Geary Coll (which later changed its name to Maiden Lane). Bob Gardner, the president and founder, was a speech writer for Nixon and other Republicans and was a lifelong friend of Dick Cheney. He even helped Cheney with his political advertising. Bob’s office was decorated with signed photos from a number of very prominent Republicans.

Back in 2000 (1999?) at an agency morning meeting, Bob told all of us ahead of the official announcement that Cheney was being picked by Bush as VP. And at subsequent morning meetings he’d blather on and on about what a good guy Cheney was.

And before that, I worked at Elgin Syferd Drake in Boise, ID – which did political advertising for both Mike Crapo and Larry Craig. The vast majority of the people there were Republicans.

Go ahead and Google both agencies and Bob’s name to prove I’m not lying. I’ll wait. No really, I’ll wait.

So once again, before you go rant about how the sky is falling, maybe you should rethink things.

Does this mean that Hate is the new Chic?

If so, it is time to remind the Tre Chic crowd of a word that they have long forgotten, an ancient and honorable word: Shame.

I shut an anti-semite up in a hospital waiting room by asking him politely but insistently to repeat what he had said. I don’t know if he felt the weight of my eyes, or of many more eyes around him, but he was not very comfortable. It was a start, and maybe the best thing I have done in my life.

Groupthink sells.

If you want to “belong” you get a Che Shirt.

Continually bashing America is a safe bet and it is ‘cool’.

(Looks like comment #12 confirms the Ad Hominem tactics of Ad Hominem Guy)

My Dad owned an advertising firm and ran it for several years. By the time he retired it had accounts for several big outfits including Northwest Airlines. He was a big Rush fan and often ranted against Clinton and Carter.

However, every single employee under him was a Greenpeace-loving, tree-hugging, Gaia-worshipping lefty.

The business ownership of advertising isn’t necessarily always leftward. But the creative side definitely is.

If you are correct, Gideon7, that copywriters and art directors at ad agencies are left wingers, that explains the illogic and historical ignorance of Ogilvy’s “history is written by the winners” campaign. Lefties generally know little history and that which they think they know is mostly propaganda.

Winners write history, but so do the losers. I myself have read several histories of WWII by German authors including Albert Speer’s “Inside the Third Reich.” How many American histories of the Vietnam War are in print today and available in public libraries? The Confederate States of America lost their Civil War 150 years ago and haven’t shut up about it yet. The author of “history is written by the winners” was George Orwell (Eric Blair) who fought on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War and wrote “Homage to Catalonia” about it. He also had a number of acute remarks about advertising; he said it was the sound of a stick rattling inside a swill bucket. Wonder if Ogilvy is offering their clients that quote from Orwell as they do the one in their ads?

“that explains the illogic and historical ignorance of Ogilvy’s “history is written by the winners” campaign”

It’s not ignorance at all. It’s bragging. They won the Real War of the last ten years, that of ideas and for hearts and minds. Now they’re rubbing it in.

Ad Guy,
Please tell us more about the Chevron campaign and how it is right-wing. The US Army example is idiotic for obvious reasons, so you can leave it alone.

I worked briefly in a marketing department for a midsized company, where the VP of marketing used to say “everybody has a story to tell, and we have to tell our story”. Evidently we didn’t do that too good, or our story wasn’t so hot. He was gone a few years later, and the company ceases to exist.

I have found commercials to be more entertaining than a lot of shows. If I do think a company is promoting a cause I don’t like, I try to avoid it. JC Penny’s new hope and change jewelry collection really peeved me this year. They don’t sell anything I can’t get at Sears, if I had a job and any money that is.

Well the leftist ad campaigns have certainly worked on me. When I first saw that Mastercard ad I canceled my Mastercard account the next day. I told them that their new ad campaign was the reason why. I did tell them that they should be very pleased that I shredded it and recycled the plastic.

When the Absolut vodka ad came out I quit buying their vodka. Stolichnaya Gold is a better vodka anyway.

I also quit buying PepsiCo products after what Indra Nooyi said about the US.

I am going to have to replace the stove in my house soon and I can assure you that it will not be one made by GE.

Ad Guy- I didn’t realize that anti-American was a “liberal” ideology. Thanks for clearing that up.

Ad Guy,

You bring up a point which merits examination. What TV shows do these ads appear on? There is a reason why the network news shows air commercials for Depends Adult Diapers.

Dallas ad guy here, now in corporate marketing.

Ownership – plenty of conservatives.

Production – plenty of conservatives

Creative – no admitted conservatives I can recall. Except maybe me. That’s over 30 years.

The third day on the job here in corporate, my woman boss – upon hearing me mention Bush – lectured me on how much she hated him LOL.

Just my experience in the past 30 years, your results may vary, void where prohibited.

Onboard with the GE comments – getting rid of all the appliances I have and replacing with non-GE. Also dumping the stock very soon.

Newspapers have been doing this for years and corporations are just following them. Since it worked out so well for them and stuff.

@Ad Guy:

Re: “Do you want me to list the right-leaning ads like the…U.S. Army campaign that tries to convince mothers their sons will be safe in Iraq?”

Speaking of not knowing what you’re talking about. Those Army ads do no such thing. They focus on the decision of a young person taking a big step with enlisting and talking it over with their parents. In no way do they give the impression that they will be “safe” every time they go into harm’s way.

If you want to trash the military, try it on a different audience.

Ad Guy is being totally disingenuous. Of course ad agencies and their staff predominantly lean Left…it fits with the other “creative” industries such as Hollywood and journalism. Should that really surprise anyone?

Now, as the former head of marketing for a global company, I worked with many agencies on many consumer campaigns. Without a doubt, the leftist world-view of agencies would seep into creative. It was up to me, as a proponent of my business to keep that in check.

By way of example, we had a luxury brand that appealed almost exclusively to white males but the agency made an effort to throw a bunch of PC diversity into every ad. It was a constant fight and interesting enough, everyone at the Boardroom table when reviewing this creative was scared to tell the agency to get rid of the black guy and the asian woman for fear of being considered a racist. That’s culture for you!

Leftism is a religion, and a fanatical one as that.

That is why they have to insert leftism into places where politics never existed before, whether it be :
1) The Miss USA contest
2) Schools
3) Ads for products that the producers presumably want to sell as many as possible of

The right is very weak against the left. This is because conservatives have jobs, friends, and families, while leftists have none of these things. Leftists, if they have jobs, are in jobs that promote leftism. Thus, a leftist can spend 100% of their time on politics, while a conservative can spend 5%.

Thus, 1 leftist offsets 20 conservatives, in terms of propaganda effort. That is why the left is so powerful, despite the majority of people being center-right.

The influence, motivation, political proclivities and and the like of ad agencies is accurately described by # 28, Solinoid. As an executive at a large privately owned muliti property publishing company for many years and subsequently the owner of a much smaller magazine publishing company, I can attest to the accuracy of others in this thread who have remarked that creatives are just about uniformly leftists. By the same taken those on the business side or our business ( ad sales, circulation, accounting, etc) were almost uniformly conservative. Per #28, those on the creative side were the pot smokers, alternate life-style, mostly singles (often living with other singles of both sexes), unstructured types who belittled conservatives and their value system because they preferred living in a value free environment which did not challenge their particular lifestyles. It’s pretty much adults versus children. The adults (business types) have to have and use the creativity of the children but at the same time keep them under control and reigned in, otherwise chaos. BTW, the children are now in full charge of our political system. Welcome chaos!

[...] Watch video here! [...]

[...] is fair — we just did a video on leftwing politics influencing advertising; Smitty, “The other, other McCain”, spots a case (full of 12 oz twist-top bottles) of [...]

[...] our video look from last month of “21st Century Schizoid Mad Men”, click below: Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, The Return of the [...]

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