Stuart Elliott: Is Madison Avenue History Repeating Itself?

And there were other reasons agencies continued to work with cigarette makersamp160 I heard for many years that one giant tobacco firm kept paying its principal shop a 15 commission on billings long long after lower commissions and feebased compensation had become commonplaceIt took decades for attitudes to change so that Mad Men and Women working on cigarette accounts was the exception rather than the ruleamp160 A major turning point arrived in 1998 with what was called the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement further restricting cigarette marketing tactics and funding a youth antismoking initiative now known as the Truth Initiativeamp160 You can draw a straight line between those steps and the measures proposed last month by the Food and Drug Administration that include banning menthol cigarettes goodbye Kool and Newport and restricting sales of sweetflavored vaping liquids for ecigarettesIn fact the delegitimization even demonization of smoking has become so accepted as a societal norm that it39s sometimes hard to remember that tobacco products once were openly and regularly advertised in mainstream mediaamp160 Endorsed by actors athletes and medical professionals praised in commercials featuring the casts of the TV programs they sponsored and occasionally peddled by cartoon charactersThese days even cigarette companies declare they39re against cigarettes as witnessed by a campaign introduced in September by Philip Morris International that was kicked off with Don Draper would be so proud a fullpage openletter ad in the Timesamp160 The ad proclaimed that smokers quotdeserve better alternatives to cigarettesquot a quotmanifestoquot on the firm39s website promises that smokefree products quotwill one day replace cigarettesquotWhat39s prompting me to think about how drastically opinions about smoking have changed in the span of a generation or two is the recent flood of negative coverage of social media platforms in general and Facebook in particularamp160 Each headline it seems is worse than the one before quotHow Facebook39s Attack Dog Tried to Undermine Senatorsquot quotFacebook Uses Holiday to Drop Bad Newsquot quotFacebook Film Holds a Warning for Todayquot quot39No Morals39 Advertisers Voice Criticism of Tech Giantquot quotSheryl Sandberg Is Said to Have Asked Facebook Staff to Research George Sorosquot quotZuckerberg Snubs a Multinational Inquiry Into Facebook39s PracticesquotAs damaging as the headlines are the accompanying articles are perhaps even more damningamp160 Not only has Facebook quotrepeatedly breached its users39 trustquot wrote Farhad Manjoo a tech columnist for the Times but the internet ad business quotlies at the heart of just about every terrible thing onlinequotPause to consider that for a momentamp160 Consumers long have complained about TV ads and junk mail but flatout identifying them as the root of almost all evil in mediaamp160 I don39t think soAlso a Times reporter Nick Confessore accused Facebook39s top leaders of a coverup doing quoteverything they could to keep people from knowingquot the quotdark side to the thing they had builtquotamp160 And an opinion piece by a philosophy professor S Matthew Liao which asked bluntly quotDo you have a moral duty to leave Facebookquotamp160 He concluded that it39s okay to stay for now but quotif new information suggests that Facebook has created a moral red line we will all have an obligation to opt outquotCompare all that with how warmly Facebook and other social media platforms were welcomed not that long ago and how their top executives were showered with praise lionized for leaning in and whatnot and it39s not hard to see the makings of another massive shift in the zeitgeist similar to what hit Big Tobacco right between the buttsEvery time I see photos or video of senior managers of Facebook or other platforms on the hot seat in front of Congress the UK Parliament or the European Union it reminds me of the nowinfamous images of leaders of seven cigarette makers appearing before a House subcommittee in 1994 and swearing their products weren39t addictiveamp160 Their lies earned them the nickname quotthe seven dwarfsquot which they their firms and their industry never lived downMaybe I39m too eager to spot patterns and identify an instance of history repeating itself when it39s not the caseamp160 Or maybe all that39s gone on lately represents growing pains for Facebook and the rest which in retrospect we39ll realize were bumps in the roadamp160 After all plenty of folks were ready to count out the internet after the dotcom bust but of course it rebounded and then someStill I can39t help but whistle a vintage cigarette jingle or two and ponder what their contemporary equivalents might beamp160 Anyone for quotFacebook friends good like social media shouldquotNoteamp160 This is the final Stuart Elliott Reportamp160 Thanks for reading commenting and sharing for the last three and a half yearsPhoto credit Amritanshu SikdarUnsplashClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160

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Stuart Elliott: Is Madison Avenue History Repeating Itself?

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