By Alex Pugh

Share this post or you’re in trouble

Chain letters feed on people’s fears and superstitions, manipulate their emotions and promise financial rewards. 

Sound familiar? 

Advertising, whatever that means these days, has to compete not with other advertising, but all of the other swill in the media landscape. It has to be something interesting that people want to talk about with their mates down the pub, or under hushed breath at church, or during class. 

A good measure of whether our communications have succeeded is whether it gets shared amongst our fellow human beings. We are a gregarious lot. We love to gossip and shoot the shit. Language evolved as a means to gossip. Gossip maintains social equity, fairness, and underpinned our 100-strong nomadic groups. Without gossip we would not have Shakespeare, Joyce, King. Without gossip, no poetry, literature or rap. 

The key is to make something people want to share with the fellow or lass next to them, or on the other side of the planet, not something they feel compelled to share out of fear of retribution, whether that be divine or otherwise something more mundane.  

Don’t share out of fear. Share out of love. When the final bell tolls and judgement rains down upon us all, advertising will have a lot to answer for. It drives so much of what is wrong with our 21st century society. But advertising, like technology, is just a tool. A tool is a human construct that can be wielded for good or ill. 

Agencies could do so much more with their power than shift product. Don’t be mistaken; there is nothing wrong with selling. But there is room for so much more. Let’s spread a little love. 

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