Why Advertising Sucks: I couldn’t have said it better myself

From “e2”, a novel by Matt Beaumont, page 379

Situation: This is an inter office email from one friend to another. They both work in advertising. Here, Friend A has just successfully pitched a campaign idea and is bragging about how awesome he is. Friend B hits him this rude awakening:

“It’s [advertising] all bullocks. These precious moments of triumph we award ourselves, utter bullocks; self-serving sop to get us through a working day that would otherwise be futile drudgery. Face it, our lives are without merit. We just take from the world and give nothing back. We are leeches. That we read the Guardian and are appalled when something barbaric goes off in Gaza or the Congo, and that we choose dolphin-safe tuna and buy Fair Trade at Starbucks doesn’t mean a fucking thing. In fact, it makes us worse than the leeches that truly don’t give a fuck. At least they’re honest. We, on the other hand, are fraudulent hypocrites. We believe we can fool ourselves with the same lies we feed the world in our advertisements.

As yes, those ads – you know, the ones we sweat over, argue about and fight for as if they actually matter. Well, they do matter. In a bad way. They make us the standard bearers for the cunts that are raping every living, breathing thing on the planet.

We are their bitches.”