Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down by Jo Brand

Author:Jo Brand
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography
Published: 2011-09-03T15:29:46+00:00

So, my involvement with charity events has led to snogging, singing, sailing, running, dancing and kicking the arses of some quite annoying blokes. It’s been bloody brilliant.

Over the years I have been offered the opportunity to front some advertising campaigns, either in person or as a voiceover. I can’t imagine what on earth I’ve got that might persuade people to buy a product, but who knows how the minds of advertising execs work? At the risk of sounding ‘holier than thou’ there are many reasons why I will never do ads.

First of all, the words of George Orwell, the Uber-leftie author of 1984 and Animal Farm, often resound in my head. He said that advertising is ‘the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket’ and I can’t help but agree with him.

Our system needs to advertise things to sell them (obviously) and if there is not a market for certain products, they will create one. For example, many products have appeared on the market recently aimed at very specific age groups of children, and once some products are spotted by children because of ads, a huge demand is created. Even worse, children feel that they are not a fully paid-up member of their peer group unless they own that particular product. I don’t like this. It puts pressure on parents and kids and is not fair.

Also, many electronic products now have built-in obsolescence so that they have to be replaced every few years, and advertisers have to make it sound as if you’re getting something new for your money when in fact your old whatever-it-is would probably do just as well. The world of fashion is a really good case in point. Each season a whole new raft of clothes appears on the catwalks, some of them utterly bloody ridiculous, but some stupid arses go ahead and buy them because they think they must —although I have to admit I have never seen anyone wearing any of the more wacky designs that make them look like a bush on legs or a zombie with liver disease.

One of the other main reasons I don’t do ads is because once you spout support of a company for money they sort of own you, and should you ever have occasion to slag them off, or any of their products, you simply cannot do this. I know it is a small thing, but to me as a comic, it’s very important not to be owned by anyone and to be able to say what I like when I like and wherever I like.

Having said all this, I wouldn’t criticise people who do choose to do ads, because that’s up to them as an individual — and it’s hardly killing your grandmother, is it? Perhaps those who said they would never do ads and then did them are slightly more culpable, and I find it completely puzzling that some comics would slag off others for doing an ad when they themselves do advertising voiceovers. Is it any different if people can’t see your face?

I don’t think so.

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