OPINION: The problem with Singapore advertising is not its advertisers

Of course, key to Jack’s thinking was the assumption that the public is smart enough or care enough to hold advertisers to account.

I wonder what Jack would make of Singapore advertising? I think he’d pick the problem right away.

Censorship.

Not direct censorship of advertising. Rather, the effect that censorship of the media has on the public and by dint, advertising.

It’s widely acknowledged that the government tightly controls the media in Singapore. The effect is puerile, toothless news and entertainment. It is embarrassing and cringe-worthy to read the papers here or watch the pathetic attempts at social or political satire on television. What’s less widely acknowledged is the effect this has on advertising.

A society that does not debate in public, that will not allow public figures to be put up to ridicule and that, in effect, has no sense of humour, will not be able to self-regulate the quality of its advertising – or any other media output for that matter.

Case in point. A government agency produces a public information campaign of such banality and childishness (NEA, the ARMY, take your pick) that in any right thinking society would be parodied and skewered relentlessly.

Not in Singapore. In Singapore no one says boo. So the campaign runs without comment. And everyone thinks nothing of it.

But it's self-perpetuating. And since the last campaign was so “well received” the mandarins do the same again. Obviously under the impression they are rather good at this advertising lark.

You can see where this is headed. Without satire and ridicule nothing is held to account, by the public at least. So the dire standards set by the government agencies begins to infect the rest of the advertising community.

The path of least resistance is followed. Superlatives are piled on superlatives, thereby losing any meaning. Differentiation is sacrificed on the altar of expediency, underwritten by the complicity of the public.

The scam scene in Singapore is an extreme reaction to this situation. Such an oppressive and unresponsive environment forces the naïve to enter into the Kafkaesque situation of producing ads no one pays for that no one will see.

But that’s the least harmful effect of the blinkered media environment in the city-state. Far more destructive is the numbing effect it has on individuals, who lose the critical faculty of discernment. They are unable to judge for themselves, or simply can’t be bothered.

Such pervasive disinterest in the public broadcasting environment is an indictment on a media culture that does nothing but tow the party line. And a ringing endorsement of Jack Wynne Williams’ opinions that were articulated almost 50 years ago.