What is Vert, Who am I, and What am I Doing.
Advertising aims to draw your attention towards something. Namely, this summer Shark electronics released a high-tech fan, perfect for commuters stuck underground in 36-degree heat. Compliance software for your business, weight-loss drugs, period pants, it all amalgamates to one mass of normality in today’s world. But stopping to consider them sometimes, has led me to learn a lot about cultural priorities.
VERT is interested in how advertisers execute their missions, and what the demand itself says about society, because more recently, I have found adverts that could be treated as breaking barriers.
In my writing, I often refer to these as a ‘moment in time,’ because they represent a shift. Maybe an old conglomerate starts using modern terminology, or a bold statement about social justice is made against the grain.
And I picture a History or Media studies classroom in 100 years’ time and wonder what they'd think of us.
Because isn’t that what we do? We analyse how generations past behaved. How their money flowed, what they found attractive, acceptable, usual. And from that, we can compare our humanity today and look at the progress. Certainly in advertising and media, even the last century gave incredible shifts in art, fashion, technology. Which means we can look at adverts today as a very rich bank of culture, just hanging opposite us on the commute.
Advertising on public spaces is this publication’s chosen lens to critique society. It literally contains direct messages about what products are popular enough to warrant expensive marketing campaigns. Which, in a city like London, says a huge amount about what we are paying attention to, how people spend their money, and what vulnerabilities exist today, ready for exploitation.
But VERT has another purpose too. It has been born inside an unprecedented world of content. Product placement is inescapable, it is on almost every website, each major social media platform. Not to mention the fact, that in today’s world people are literally paid to pretend they like products on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. It is now everywhere, and when something becomes part of the natural order, it is ironically less likely that we stop and consider it. What does this actually say? What is the point of this?
VERT hopes to encourage this kind of thinking.
I have seen adverts that are arrogant, ludicrous, brilliant, lazy, and brave. All worth looking at for why they seem this way, why they land, or don’t. I want to call us forward to look behind the scenes and scrutinise them together.
Because many of us who are Gen Z and below, have had childhoods within the world of the internet and mass consumption. As generations go, we are the most educated, technologically oriented, and virtually connected to date. Yet to me, we look exhausted, and sometimes misguided. I wonder how constant flows of content partakes in this.
A publication in itself cannot equip young people for the problems of the day. Economic turmoil and political volatility feel to be dividing us farther than we’ve been. But I wonder if discussing and analysing what we’re being fed is a decent place to start.
Stepping out of the advertiser - consumer relationship, even for a short moment, to think deeply about what you consume, to me, is a critical skill in a densely mediated world.