This is nothing new; however, it seems that – more than ever – well-funded marketing campaigns are being used to sway judgement on important matters of social and environmental justice. People are being sold messages about these issues in the same way soft drinks and fast food are marketed: by saturation.
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The more people hear a message, the more believable it can seem. Yet the amount of times a message is commercially broadcast is dependent on the amount of funding there is for it, not on the basis of truth, justice or representativeness.
An example reported by The Guardian last week is that the ‘No’ vote campaign is spending five times more on television advertisements than the ‘Yes’ campaign. Refusing to reveal their sources of funding (suspected by some to be evangelistic, US-based), the No campaign’s ads are misleading and downright insulting to the intelligence of the Australian people. Nevertheless, we are more likely to be exposed to these damaging mis-truths. Over 350 marketing professionals are “Saying no to No” ads because they refuse to create ads that are harmful.
We need to have a healthy suspicion about well-funded commercial marketing campaigns on ethical issues, whether it be the No campaign to make discrimination and prejudice seem acceptable or campaigns to justify destroying our environment for the sake of profit for a few. We need to remember that the amount of money a small group of people are prepared to spend promoting a particular message may have nothing to do with truth or justice.
