RSA Advertising Association Debate

Advertising in society: what's the deal?

To its critics, the advertising industry fuels the fires of consumerism, plants seeds of discontent and unhappiness and distorts our cultural values. It is blamed for everything from environmental excess to the commercialisation of childhood.

But the industry argues that it works for people: engaging, informing and entertaining, encouraging competition, pushing prices down and – as a by-product – funding culture, arts, sport and most of our media.

In the middle, is the consumer – ready to accept and often embrace advertising alongside favourite blogs, soaps and newspapers, but equally able to feel bombarded, irritated and resentful of commercial messages they neither like, trust, nor find relevant.

So what is the unwritten compact between society and marketer and does it need to change? The RSA and the Advertising Association bring together a high-profile panel to ask if it’s time for advertising to strike a new deal with the society it serves?

Speakers: Mark Lund, co-founder and managing partner, Now agency and former CEO of the COI; Patrick Barwise, Emeritus Professor of Management and Marketing at London Business School and chairman of Which?; Jon Alexander, communications strategist, National Trust and co-author of the WWF-UK/ PIRC report “Think of Me as Evil? Opening the Ethical Debates in Advertising”;  Ed Mayo, Secretary General, Co-operatives UK

Chair: Matthew Taylor, RSA Chief Executive