art not ads

This one hove into view a few days ago as I was walking to the shops in Hampstead. The ad was a typical football related piece of pap: logo and name of bank on top, and “COME ON ENGLAND!” underneath. Inspired indeed. I’m sure the advertising gurus will be praising that one for weeks. But of course the question has to be asked again: who’s selling our skies??? And who gave them permission? I don’t remember anyone asking.

Apologies for the terrible picture, I only had my mobile phone at the time. It’s not really clear from this photo how enormous these banner adverts are, although you can compare it with the size of the helicopter, which is visible as a small black blob to the top right of the banner.

Just about everything I can think of currently has an associated football-related advert. What a hideously insulting situation. Is it really likely that I’ll buy something that I wouldn’t normally buy just because the product has a football waved over it on the telly? Really? Seriously? Are the marketing agencies really of the opinion that I’ll switch my choice of bank/razor/shoes/mobile phone/supermarket/drink/newspaper/mortgage/magazine/whatever simply because it’s plastered with football regalia for 3 months every 2 years? Or perhaps they feel that they will cement my brand loyalty by offering the message, “see, we like footy too! Who’d have thought it!!”

And so the merry-go-round chunters on and on, round and round, and everyone’s convinced they’re having a good time while in fact they’re busy being sick all over each other.

Look. Liking football is, in itself, no bad thing. It’s fine to like competitive sport. But there’s a sickening cycle here (and obviously we’re not referring to Sunday-league or school football here, we’re referring to the cash-cow that is major-league footy). The greater the quantity of people that “love footy”, the more it will be exploited by manipulative marketing. And so people will be increasingly exposed to simple-minded “WE LIKE FOOTBALL” banality. There’s no option. Do you like football? Of course you do. Why on earth wouldn’t you? Where’s the harm in it? It’s just a game! Why on earth would you chose to alienate yourself from the majority of the populous? Why wouldn’t you chose to be part of the herd? Why wouldn’t you choose to have pappy “WE LIKE FOOTBALL” pulp shoveled into your soft-toothed maw every second of the day? Why wouldn’t you choose to eat candy-floss all day? Would you like fries with that?

Back in the days when Julian Cope was still good, he wrote a tune called Elegant Chaos. The lyrics seem appropriate here:

Busy at home
I was happy for a while
But the joke is over
Looking down
At the carefully laid out infamy
Take a scythe, take a scythe,
To the rotting core
Of man-vegetaton
Now I sigh
At the cool cool attitude to ignorance
…
People I see
Just remind me of mooing
Like a cow on the grass
And that’s not to say
That there’s anything wrong
With being a cow anyway
But people are people
With the added advantage
Of the spoken word
We’re getting on fine
But I feel more of a man
When I get with the herd.