By Ted Leonhardt
Marketers, designers, PR pros and ad people: As communicators, what should we do with our world in turmoil?
Make an ad? Launch a campaign, design a logo, create a brand, influence the influential.
The pandemic continues to infect and kill.
Awareness of the effects of a militarized police force is on the rise, along with a heightened acknowledgment of the daily dangers of being Black in America; Black Lives Matter protests are of unprecedented size.
Are we on the brink—the brink of a dystopian world?
The effects of global warming are becoming more apparent. Mass migrations are growing as farms dry up. Radical white supremacists are photographed openly carrying guns. Ideologies are becoming more radical, with no conversations across beliefs.
The middle class is shrinking as capital becomes increasingly valuable and the work that creates capital loses value. Capitalism’s promises of a “shining city upon a hill” and plenty for all are proving to be a mirage.
We’ve spent 200 years using the land, the water and the air as dumping grounds in the quest for corporate profits. And the result is global warming and civil unrest.
Climate advocates join animal-rights proponents in attacks on butchers, markets and slaughterhouses. Animal agriculture is not just mass animal genocide, it’s a huge contributor to global warming, too.
Coal and oil still produce much of our electricity—and more than a quarter of our greenhouse-gas emissions. Stylish electric cars won’t save us.
Forests and the animals that inhabit them are decimated for lumber, mining and corporate farms, reducing their natural ability to absorb carbon emissions—and perhaps releasing a steady stream of pathogens that will lead to global pandemics far more deadly than COVID-19.
The oceans fill with plastic, and microplastics show up in human poop. Right-wing leaders use racism to rise to power and to stay on top.
From promise to despair
The industrial revolution altered the centuries-long cycle of poverty.
Once we chose coal and then oil as our energy sources—and chose capitalism as our economic system—it seemed as though wealth for all, with no downside, was a real possibility.
But there is a downside: The planet has limits. Our disposable lifestyles have taken a toll and the increasing temperatures are changing everything.
Abundance on the one hand, and poverty on the other. Deaths from starvation are on the rise. It’s predicted that with COVID-19, 265 million will die from malnutrition, due to the disruptions in the global food supply.
And there’s greed. It turns out the great surge that built the middle class has limits in the minds of the rich. They want more. They’re in control. That means we get less.
Contributor
As a designer, I supported the oil industry, mechanized farming, automobile and offshore manufacturing, fashion, plastics, financial industries and much more, without much of a thought about the world-changing nature of what I was doing.
Why? Because large corporations were the only source of income I knew of for my skills and experience. And that’s still true for the creatives who are my clients today. They all work for the brands, large and small, keeping the status quo the status quo.
When I ask myself how marketing can change the world, I don’t have a good answer. Is that because it betrays my desperate need to be seen as more than a feckless shill? Maybe my excuse is that I only had limited control over what my design clients made and did in the world.
Maybe, instead of excuses, I need to look inside myself. Look inside and decide what I should stand for. Reflect on what matters. Identify what I believe I can contribute that’s of value. And then go out and do it.
How about you?