The Gruen Transfer
Wednesdays, 9pm, ABC
The concept behind the ABC's The Gruen Transfer is simple — get a bunch of advertising brains from top agencies, sit them down and talk to them about what makes ads work.
It is a great show — intriguing and disgusting at once. Intriguing because it gives viewers an unprecedented insight into the guts of the advertising industry. And disgusting for the same reason.
Its reveals how advertising has been refined to a science. It shows how much creativity, research and time is poured into enticing people to buy "the product". Panellists describe what techniques they use to appeal to people's emotions, or stop people from changing the channel during ad breaks.
We are exposed to gruesome insider jargon, like "roadblock", which refers to when advertisers try to capture an entire audience at once — for instance by placing the same ad on all three commercial channels simultaneously.
The term "gruen transfer" is even more disturbing — it refers to the impact that an intentionally confusing shopping mall layout can have on a consumer. Host Wil Anderson tell us at the moment the gruen transfer kicks in, "our eyes glaze and our jaws slacken ... we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers, you know when you set out to buy baby food but find yourself shelling out for a case of beer, two pairs of jeans and a plasma instead".
It makes me wonder, why the hell are these intelligent, funny and talented people working in advertising? Why do they want to use their knowledge of how the mind works to sell more products for whichever corporations will pay them? Are they totally immoral? Do they hate the rest of the human race? Do they enjoy manipulating people?
And why are they on the show, revealing their awful secrets? Have they no shame?
Sure, their pay cheque must be pretty great, but its nothing compared to what the companies that employ them make from these advertisements.
Take Dove's "Evolution" ad. In fast-forward, the ad shows the drastic transformation of a model in a billboard ad, from when she steps into the make-up chair to the final photographic image.
Not only is make-up applied and hair teased, but after the photo is taken, her neck is artificially stretched, her eyebrows and cheekbones heightened, her eyes widened, her lines smoothed. It's pretty alarming stuff, especially for women, who experience the visual assault of mass advertising daily.
Dove uses this alarm to market its own beauty products as anti-beauty and "pro-age". The message is that beauty comes from the inside, the industry has taken the idea of perfection too far, cosmetics advertising is out of control and the solution is to use products that are more natural, more honest and recognise the variety and subjectivity of female beauty. And sold by Dove.
The message is, we appreciate your imperfections! We just think you would benefit from some green tea and cucumber moisturiser!
It's the ultimate in cynicism. This is how our society utilises creative people.
Sometimes the panellists admit this. During the July 9 episode, which discussed the effectiveness of government anti-speeding ads, one panellist commented that "ad agencies love this kind of work", because "we spend so much time flogging — whatever, stuff" that it is a relief to try to do something mildly socially useful.
The skill and creativity of these ad braniacs is shown fully in "the pitch", a weekly segment where two ad agencies are challenged to "sell the unsellable". So far, participants in this segment have produced faux ads to make hunting and eating whale socially acceptable ("Whale: The beef of the sea!"), the Democrats electable again ("They are bastards, keep them honest"") and invading New Zealand appealing to Australians ("There's a day off in it for you").
So much humour, so much intelligence and so much creative thinking, wasted on advertising. The unravelling of the advertising science is what makes The Gruen Transfer so wrong, yet so addictive.