Alice Fortuna
Make me fall back in love with you.
I have been studying your discipline for the last three years, and as I find myself a step away from entering in the industry I have always aspired to be part of, I’m starting to realise it will not work.
I have always considered you one of the most powerful tools humanity had to shape its future. With Westinghouse Electric’s ad, “We Can Do It” you were able to spark a newly female-powered economy, and 50 years later that image is still the strongest icon of the feminist movement. You invented the idea of coffee breaks during work. It was you who established the association between a diamond and the promise of eternal love. You turned George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future into the birth of tech leaders inspired by computers as creative forces for good. You shaped our behaviour, our political preferences, you entertained and empowered us. You made us feel insecure, convinced us to buy useless stuff we do not need, only to be thrown away a week later.
You have been part of the problem.
Now please, be part of the solution.
Make me fall back in love with you.
You are powerful. With power comes a huge amount of responsibility. Why are you not taking it?
In a world where reality is manufactured daily, the truth is never advertised. But the truth is what can unite us in our diversity under the same purpose. Please put people and the environment at the centre of our conversations.
We are facing a crisis that requires a revolution. And I would like to see you; Advertising, drive this revolution. Not taking advantage of people’s cry for change to shift more products, by hopping onto the bandwagon with your beautiful words, but not actually doing anything.
I know you have a big ego; Advertising, but self-interest only is the fool’s foundation for a healthy society. You are the industry that’s most densely populated with brilliant creative minds. Why don’t you join forces? Start collaborating. Both among yourselves and with your clients. Why not start creating work that answers positively to the question “Will this ad help my client exist 100 years from today?”. If the answer is no, you are not doing what you are born to do.
People have stopped caring about you. They block you. And why shouldn’t they?
You stopped caring about them.
Please Advertising, be part of the solution.
Give me the chance to fall back in love with you.
Sincerely,
Alice
