• by Christopher Bacon , Op-Ed Contributor, December 13, 2017

Have we reached a point of such social divisiveness that all advertising is doomed to offend someone?

I ask myself this question each time I watch the news or browse my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

The New York Times published a piece last month about how advertising must be mindful of politics on both the right and left of the spectrum.

Consumers posted videos of themselves destroying Keurig coffee machines when the company said it would no longer run commercials on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. And a #BoycottJimBeam hashtag began appearing across the web after actress Mila Kunis, a spokeswoman for the product since 2014, disclosed on a talk show that she made donations to Planned Parenthood in the name of Vice President Mike Pence. 

Boycotts are nothing new. As my colleague Horst Stipp noted in a 1991 article in the Journal of Media Planning, boycotts and public furor rarely amount to real market impact. But that was then, before the general public had access to or had even heard of anything called the Internet and its spawn, social media. Now, videos go viral, users generate content, and presidential policy is promulgated in 140 characters.

Believe it or not, some advertising during the years of our nation’s most tumultuous social upheaval and polarized politics went down in pop-culture history as messages and images all people could unite around. By 1971, two TV spots appeared that transcended the cultural divide to become iconic.

During the Vietnam era of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the cultural divide was vast — young vs. old, black vs. white, women vs. men, gay vs. straight. A “silent majority” felt empowered by a new president (Richard Nixon).

“Crying Indian” premiered on Earth Day in 1971 as part of a partnership between Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council. The spot showed a man in Native American dress, paddling a canoe in polluted waters with a smog-filled city in the background. When he sees garbage flung from a passing car on the highway, the spot zeroes in on a lone tear running down his cheek. The ad has been parodied over the years, including on shows such as The Simpsons, Married with Children, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. 

But the ad has also been cited as an inspiration to the nascent environmental movement, and Ad Age recognized it as one of the Top 100 commercials of the 20^th Century. The tagline, “People start pollution, people can stop it,” is a classic in two ways: You have problem and solution, and you have a powerful call to action. But in this case, the message is not for a toilet bowl cleaner. It’s for protecting Mother Earth.

Mad Men was a fictional depiction of the ad industry during that era, and so was the storyline that Don Draper created the “Hilltop” spot for Coca-Cola. In reality, the late Bill Backer, creative director for Coca-Cola at McCann Erickson in 1971, developed this legendary commercial along with Billy Davis, Roger Greenway and Roger Cook. The core idea of Coca-Cola uniting people in refreshment came to Backer as he waited for his diverted London flight to leave Shannon Airport in Ireland, according to a Washington Post story about the spot last year.

The concept of hope — young men and women of all nationalities wanting to “buy the world a home and furnish it with love” — was a relief from news images of Vietnam, riots and protests. Naturally, an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola could also provide some respite, the spot implied. While not as blunt as “Crying Indian,” the message fit the brand identity of Coca-Cola.

The ad told consumers that Coca-Cola could bring people together in a world of harmony, peace, and understanding. Coca-Cola received more than 100,000 letters after the ad ran, probably the equivalent of a million social-media actions today. The remixed single, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” became a Top 10 hit in the U.S. 

Yes, times have changed, but ads that move people emotionally still resonate. In 1971, when the world seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket, and some of us had our consciousness raised at an early age, “Crying Indian” and “Hilltop” successfully traversed the cultural divide. They inspired action. They became icons.

We can do it again; that is, create advertising that resonates and unifies people but on a more modest scale, considering media fragmentation. Perhaps the only way to reach as many people is during the Super Bowl. And are people too jaded these days to really embrace an emotion-laden spot that celebrates the values of love, decency, compassion and understanding? 

I sure hope not.