Jamie Oliver campaigned for children to eat healthier food, organic and fresh.
Meanwhile, Marcus Rashford campaigned to feed children who had nothing to eat.
Who was right?
Is the main problem, as Jamie Oliver says, that children are eating crisps and sweets?
Or is it, as Marcus Rashford says, that when the school are shut they have no food at all?
Everyone in marketing is middle class, they grew up in a world where they could choose what they wanted, so they assume that’s the whole world.
But to understand advertising’s place in the world, let’s look back a few years and see how advertising came about in the first place.
Today, we only know a world where the question is, “What do I want?”
But before the 1950s, and for all of human history, that question didn’t exist, the only question was “What do I need?”
People used something until it wore out, maybe a pair of shoes, when they wore out they got a new pair of shoes and wore those until they wore out, until they needed another pair of shoes.
The concept of having several pair of shoes didn’t exist, why would it?
The same with shirts, suits, hats, dresses, coats, pens, food, furniture, cutlery, crockery, carpets, soap, curtains, everything. You bought things as you needed them.
Why would you buy things you didn’t need?
At most, you might have a set of clothes to wear for work and a set for Sunday best.
My Dad told me his dad would get his best suit out of the pawnshop to wear on Sunday, then on Monday pawn it again so they had enough money to eat until he got paid on Friday.
(This practice was so common there was a popular rhyme about it, “Pop Goes the Weasel”)
There’s an Adam Curtis documentary called ‘The Century of the Self’, the first part is called ‘Happiness Machines’ and concerns us.
Edward Bernays invented the consumer society.
He was the first to popularise the concept of making people want things they didn’t need.
His mantra was: “People must be trained to want new things even before the old has been totally used.”
Something we now take it for granted, but it’s what advertising is based on.
If we look at Mazlow’s Pyramid, the ‘Hierarchy of Human Needs’, we see the bottom level is comprised of food and drink, then shelter and clothing, then safety.
Those are the levels that are essential for human life.
Above those levels are relationships, and fulfilment, the things that make life enjoyable.
Marcus Rashford is concerned with the lower level, Jamie Oliver with the higher level.
Jamie Oliver’s life has always been about making food more enjoyable, that’s his job.
All of his restaurants, his books, his TV programmes are about making food more enjoyable,and healthier, it’s natural he would think that’s important.
His appeal is to people who already have enough food, but they will pay for something special.
But Marcus Rashford is concerned with children who don’t have enough food.
Whether the food is healthy, wholegrain, organic, free-range, or processed isn’t the point.
When the schools are shut, they don’t have ANY food.
Jamie Oliver is trying to solve a middle-class problem: children should eat better food.
Marcus Rashford is trying to solve the problem of children going hungry.
In advertising, we talk a good game about brand-purpose, and making the world a better place for everyone.
But in our hearts we know the truth.