Posts Tagged ‘advertising’
01
Feb
2010
The Century of the Self
How smoking became cool, or why politicians want your brain for breakfast.
The BBC is known for its shrewd, insightful documentaries and cultural explorations on anything from the life of birds to how art made the world. But one stands out as perhaps the most ambitious, comprehensive and provocative of the bunch.
Written and produced by legendary British documentarian Adam Curtis in 2002, The Century of the Self offers an utterly fascinating four-part probe into the depths of consumerism and democracy. Though it focuses primarily on how those in power have used Freud’s theories to manipulate public opinion and perception, the series delves into the richest and most profound layers of 20th century culture, from the hidden mechanisms of advertising to the civil rights movement to the inner workings of political belief systems — all whilst managing to avoid the trap of conspiracy-theorism with incredible elegance and dexterity.
Mixed throughout the documentary footage are exclusive interviews with cultural influencers, ranging from Edward Bernays, the mastermind of modern Public Relations, to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, by way of Philip Gould and Freud’s infamous daughter, Anna.
The Century of the Self reminds us of Naomi Klein’s No Logo in its relentless investigation of the crafting of consumer culture, with all its whims and whimsy, only layered on top of the complex political, psychological and sociocultural forces that shaped it.
The series consists of four parts — The Happiness Machine, The Engineering of Consent, There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed, and Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering — each an hour long but well-worth the time and thought. Here’s a start:
And though Google has kindly made all the parts available to stream for free, we suggest you do your personal collection and cultural savvy a favor, and grab a copy of the DVD — settling for flimsy footage and pixelated politicians is no way to take a stance against consumerism.
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18
Dec
2009
DoGooder: Do Nothing, Change Everything
How to bypass annoyance with slick design and serious dogoodness.
This week, a new report found that the average American guzzles more than 34 gigabytes of data per day. And anyone who’s ever been online can attest that a hefty portion of this comes from advertising, which, with the exception of the best-curated sites (ahem…), can be anything from a distraction to a nuisance. This has led many to the infamous Adblock Firefox plugin, eliminating ads altogether. But why take your negative experience and turn it neutral, when you can turn it positive?
Enter DoGooder, an ingenious new browser plugin for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer that turns your ordinary browsing into donations supporting sustainability initiatives and movements — with no cost to you and no change in browser performance.
Here’s how it works: DoGooder hides all the ordinary ads and swaps them out for simple daily green tips, health and wellness ideas, and well-designed messaging for meaningful initiatives from the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) category. Half of their profits then go to a thoughtfully curated list of charities and nonprofits — which means DoGooder has the potential to generate thousands of dollars a month for good causes.
If you’re a publisher, there’s nothing to fear — DoGooder doesn’t block ads from being served on your site, it just changes the end-user experience, so your CPM earnings remain unaffected. (Think of it as slipping a nice cover over a questionably designed couch.) If your run a charitable or sustainability-related site, you can even drop DoGooder a line and they’ll whitelist you and “exempt” your site from ad-blocking.
This is what a couple of popular sites look like goodified:
In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you can even keep track of how many ads have been swapped.
And if for some reason you’re particularly enamored with the regular ads on some site, you can always disable DoGooder there simply by right/ctrl-clicking on the site and selecting “Show Original Ads.” The right/ctrl-click is also the way to let DoGood Headquarters know about a good cause they should consider featuring — just select “Suggest a Cause to Support.”
Genius, or what?
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