The role of advertising in society ‘Do you think advertising is a moral activity’, I recently asked the 30 or so graduates I was addressing at a seminar. The graduates had been working in advertising agencies for two or three years. There was a stony silence. ‘What do you mean by a moral activity?’ one of them asked, eventually. ‘Well... do you think advertising really does good for the general public, for ordinary people, for men and women in the street?’ The graduates looked bewildered . ‘There’s the “Don’t Drink and Drive” campaign’, someone eventually said thoughtfully. ‘That does good. That’s moral.’ ‘And the Give Blood ads’, piped up someone else. ‘They’re good too. And some charity adverts I suppose.’ ‘Anything else?’, I asked hopefully. But that was it. Nobody could think of any other advertising which they thought moral, or which did any good for the general public, the men and women in the street. I felt profoundly depressed. Here was a group of lively young people, about to spend their lives working in an industry which, as far as they were concerned, provides almost no worthwhile benefits to society. With the exception of a few government and charity campaigns – a minuscule proportion of total advertising – they could think of nothing morally good to say about their chosen career. As we have seen, they are not alone. They were all well educated, with good degrees from good universities. Most educated, intellectual people are innately hostile to aspects of advertising. Some, like Lord Reith, are innately hostile to all aspects of advertising. It would be astonishing if anyone as hostile to advertising as Reith would choose to work in the industry. But without being as hostile as Reith, many of those who work in advertising have personal qualms about their job. And whether or not they personally have qualms, they soon become used to being verbally attacked by advertising’s critics at social events – and quite adept at answering such critics, and fending off their attacks, whatever their own qualms. However, few of them are much good at turning the criticisms on their head, and showing advertising to be a highly worthwhile, indeed moral, business – a business that ordinary men and women in the street benefit from directly, every day, in countless ways. People in advertising get pretty good at defensively arguing that it does little, if any, harm, but – as the graduates at the seminar demonstrated – they seem unable to show it does any positive good. Yet it does.