Dry Slot

Ad Astra

Posted by: Bogon, 10:46 PM GMT on October 22, 2010

1. Ad who?

People often resort to Latin when they wish to appear authoritative. Latin has a certain cachet. It is a dead language, but that doesn't stop anyone from exhuming it on demand. Take doctors, for example. I have always thought that the teaching and practice of medicine would go more smoothly if the medical profession should follow the example of the church, which provided an English translation of the Bible four hundred years ago. That would make it possible to discuss parts of the body with common-sense functional terms like 'pump' or 'filter', which are familiar to any backyard mechanic. Instead we get clobbered with terms like 'cardiopulmonary'. This has the effect of elevating the medical profession to a priesthood. It entitles doctors to an obeisance and authorizes them to charge higher bills. One does not hire a doctor, one applies as a supplicant to his office, then waits reverently (hence 'patient') to be admitted to his presence and shriven for sins of the flesh.

And don't get me started on the legal profession, a milieu within which logic goes on permanent floating holiday. A welter of expensive non sequiturs can be disguised by dint of adroit deployment of legalese, choice bits of which are couched in Latin.

Latin shows up a lot in mottos. In Latin the title of today's piece, ad astra, means "to the stars". This phrase has been adopted as a motto by institutions as diverse as Elgin Academy in Scotland and Miami Central High School. There are various other combinations and permutations. Per Ardua ad astra is the motto of the Royal Air Force. Change it around a bit, ad astra per aspera, and it works for Starfleet. The words per aspera ad astra are minutely inscribed within the coat of arms on each pack (or flip-top box) of Pall Mall cigarettes. Beneath the coat of arms it says, "In hoc signo vinces." Doesn't that make you want to light up a Pall Mall?

Yep, that smoke "travels under, over, around and through Pall Mall's traditionally fine mellow tobacco." Those of us who have reached a certain age will remember that cigarettes used to be advertised on television. Salem was "springtime fresh". "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." "Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco." "I'd walk a mile for a Camel." A generation of husky-voiced homophiles will surely recall the Marlboro Man (fondly?). Then there was Spiro Agnew's effete snob, who touted Silva Thins. Tareyton smokers were so sold, they would rather fight than switch.

I dredge up these now because, in English, 'ad' is short for advertisement. And thus we reach the crux of the biscuit.

2. Where's the beef?

We live in a world of advertising. Most of us are so inured that we hardly notice. Ads, to those of us raised in a land of free enterprise, are almost like water to a fish. Billboards litter the landscape. Logos adorn buildings and vehicles. Advertising revenue pays for our television programming, newspapers, magazines and web sites. We get a free ride. All we have to do is suffer constant bombardment from advertisers.

That's okay, right? Advertising works. Ask any marketroid. It's the juice that feeds the goose that lays the golden eggs. So what's the problem?

Well, I could point out that ads are banal and banausic, that they're tawdry and trivial, and that I expect more and better out of life. I could say that I'm sick and tired of listening to "ring around the collar". Does advertising actually work better if I have to sit through the same annoying spot fifteen times during a single ball game? At what point does the annoyance factor constitute negative advertising? I mean, I'm capable of keeping more than one kind of score. If the numbers get too lopsided, I'm just naturally going to start devising ways and means of hawking my own brand of snake oil. Here's the recipe:

It doesn't have to be a universal panacea; it only has to alleviate my immediate symptoms.
For most people it should be no worse than a placebo.
For folks who routinely inflict unnecessary annoyance it will be a royal pain.

What worries me most is that advertising is a subset of propaganda. An ad isn't simply information. It's information with a slant, a purpose, an agenda. Typically the agenda is to convert your money into somebody else's money. The purpose is to create demand for a product and, indirectly, to provide a secure revenue stream for the ad agency. The slant is to elevate a particular purveyor's product over any and all competing products.

That's true of soap and cigarettes, booze and burgers. The return on the advertiser's investment is strictly financial. But there are other kinds of ads to which we are subjected, where the return may be measured in votes or voices or something abstract, such as allegiance or animus. There is advertising aimed at changing your mind about issues of interest to the party who commissioned the ad. There are people messing with your head. How much of what we believe, how much of what we think we know, was cunningly contrived by someone with something to sell? What is real, and what is hype?

3. Leave 'em smilin'