(2004-01-12) Ford Advertising Meta

Paul Ford [on](http://www.ftrain.com/Advertising Copy.html) writing Advertising copy. Sometimes I have the fantasy of teaching a group of kids - say, around ages 12-14 - how to create advertisements (Educating Kids). We'd divide the class into art directors and copywriters. I'd be the client. We'd have meetings and review sessions. They'd pitch me their ideas, and I'd choose the one I like the best, and from there we'd develop it into a full-fledged campaign, brand and all. Assuming I could pull it off, the kids would emerge as full-fledged critics of advertising as well as capable practitioners with a basic understanding of production. Something tells me that you could do this, that you could convince kids in their early teens, who are seen as pure Consumer-s with no creative power of their own, and thus targeted mercilessly by advertisers, to push back, to question why a Fendi bag is so urgently necessary. I'd like to see those kids, whom the advertisers see as powerless, given access to the same tools, and witness what emerges... To reintroduce rhetoric to the curriculum, in all of its modern forms, to give the techniques of persuasion to everyone - not simply by teaching the five-paragraph structure of the critical essay, or the funnel style of a news article, but by opening up students to form as a discipline, getting them to write TV commercials and Banner Ad-s alike.

And Steven Johnson on getting citizens involved in crafting (Presidential Election) campaign messages. But Johnson doesn't go to the Meta Level, focusing on a process of bring Human Voice to a form of Advertising without apparent consideration for the underlying "product".