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The best advertising often doesn't seem like an ad at all. Maybe that's reason enough to be skeptical.
Allstate Corp. recently launched an ad campaign that focuses on teenage drivers and their high accident rates. It's creative, memorable and intended to do some public good, rather than just sell more insurance.
"If 12 fully loaded jumbo jets crashed every year," the copy says, "something would be done about it."
Nearly 6,000 teens die in car crashes, the ad continues, but the problem barely makes headlines. The tagline: "It's time to make the world a safer place to drive."
Who's going to argue with that? Turns out that some people have serious objections, and their concerns are valid enough to shake up some preconceived notions.
Critics say that singling out drivers based on age, rather than competency, reinforces a stereotype that teens are out of control. A second Allstate ad asserts that 16-year-olds do stupid things because their brains haven't developed fully.
"There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support that view," says Robert Epstein, a psychologist, researcher and former editor of Psychology Today. He recently published The Case Against Adolescence, a book on the negative effects of isolating and restricting teens.
"The Allstate ad is a disgrace," he wrote in an e-mail, referring to the undeveloped-brain claim. "Had I been a customer, I would have switched insurance companies over such blatant deceit and manipulation. Allstate owes teens and their parents a heartfelt apology."
Whoa. Who would have imagined that such a noble idea -- reducing accidents and deaths among teen drivers -- could become a public relations minefield?
The executive director of the National Youth Rights Association says the ads exploit teens, exaggerate the risks and shamelessly tug at the heartstrings of parents.
Traffic accidents are more correlated to income than age, says Alex Koroknay-Palicz, "so why doesn't Allstate do an ad on closing the income gap?"
A harsh assessment, and an angle that I never considered. Maybe I'm naive, but this campaign seems closer to public service than exploitation.
"At times, we push the boundaries," says Raleigh Floyd, a spokesman for the Northbrook, Ill., insurer, the largest publicly traded company in its field. "If it has people thinking and talking about this issue -- that's our design. We want to be part of the conversation."
The print ads have been running for about a month, usually in prominent locations in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek and National Geographic. I was moved by the content -- why, indeed, can't we reduce traffic deaths? -- and the company's aspirations.
Allstate is spending a lot to create the ads (by its agency, Leo Burnett) and place them in some of the most prestigious publications. Kudos to any company that puts the greater good ahead of its bottom line.
Not that there aren't corporate benefits for the insurer. The campaign bolsters Allstate's image by associating the company with safety, and Allstate stands to gain if teens have fewer wrecks and fewer claims.
The ads are also likely to instill pride among its workers, because they'll view their employer as trying to make a positive change for everyone.
"Both the company and society can be better off, if they discover that this kind of campaign works," says Bill Cron, who teaches marketing at Texas Christian University.
He recently reviewed a research paper, which has not been published yet, that found that advocacy ads make salespeople feel better about what they're selling.
Most image ads are so self-serving, though, that they're meaningful only to the company itself. The Allstate ads are different.
Allstate compares them to its past corporate advocacy campaigns on seat-belt laws, air bags and other safety issues. And if it went too far with the brain claim, for instance -- doesn't advertising often go to extremes to grab attention and make an impression?
That seems like a fair trade-off, if it puts a spotlight on the problem. At least that was my assessment until Epstein argued that such characterizations can actually make the problem worse.
"American teens often act irresponsibly, because they are infantilized and isolated from adults," he wrote, "and not because they have defective brains!"
He says teens should be treated more like adults, and then they'll act more adultlike. Instead, American society tries to control them with dozens of restrictions, from zero-tolerance on drinking and drugs to stricter dress codes at school. He says that teens have 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many as active-duty Marines and twice as many as incarcerated felons.
This argument may sound way out there, but a similar debate is growing over underage drinking. John McCardell Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont, is spearheading an effort to lower the legal drinking age to 18.
McCardell says that drinking is a fact of life for older teens. Outlawing alcohol simply drives teens underground, and it pushes more immature behavior and rebellion. "Binge drinking is this generation's protest of an unjust law," McCardell told Newsweek.
Writers as diverse on the political spectrum as George Will and Anna Quindlen have taken on the issue recently, highlighting the unintended consequences of a no-drinking law that aimed to make teens safer.
In its ads, Allstate urges parents to support graduated driving laws, which give drivers more freedom as they get older. The idea sounds good, but it should be framed differently; require all new drivers, regardless of age, to wait six months before they can carry passengers, so the rule is based on experience, not age.
In the same vein, wouldn't it be better to talk about doing something to reduce all types of fatal car accidents, not just those involving teens?
This may not be the conversation that Allstate wanted to provoke, but it's one worth having. And it could make the ads more valuable than I imagined.
Allstate Corp. recently launched an ad campaign that focuses on teenage drivers and their high accident rates. It's creative, memorable and intended to do some public good, rather than just sell more insurance.
"If 12 fully loaded jumbo jets crashed every year," the copy says, "something would be done about it."
Nearly 6,000 teens die in car crashes, the ad continues, but the problem barely makes headlines. The tagline: "It's time to make the world a safer place to drive."
Who's going to argue with that? Turns out that some people have serious objections, and their concerns are valid enough to shake up some preconceived notions.
Critics say that singling out drivers based on age, rather than competency, reinforces a stereotype that teens are out of control. A second Allstate ad asserts that 16-year-olds do stupid things because their brains haven't developed fully.
"There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support that view," says Robert Epstein, a psychologist, researcher and former editor of Psychology Today. He recently published The Case Against Adolescence, a book on the negative effects of isolating and restricting teens.
"The Allstate ad is a disgrace," he wrote in an e-mail, referring to the undeveloped-brain claim. "Had I been a customer, I would have switched insurance companies over such blatant deceit and manipulation. Allstate owes teens and their parents a heartfelt apology."
Whoa. Who would have imagined that such a noble idea -- reducing accidents and deaths among teen drivers -- could become a public relations minefield?
The executive director of the National Youth Rights Association says the ads exploit teens, exaggerate the risks and shamelessly tug at the heartstrings of parents.
Traffic accidents are more correlated to income than age, says Alex Koroknay-Palicz, "so why doesn't Allstate do an ad on closing the income gap?"
A harsh assessment, and an angle that I never considered. Maybe I'm naive, but this campaign seems closer to public service than exploitation.
"At times, we push the boundaries," says Raleigh Floyd, a spokesman for the Northbrook, Ill., insurer, the largest publicly traded company in its field. "If it has people thinking and talking about this issue -- that's our design. We want to be part of the conversation."
The print ads have been running for about a month, usually in prominent locations in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek and National Geographic. I was moved by the content -- why, indeed, can't we reduce traffic deaths? -- and the company's aspirations.
Allstate is spending a lot to create the ads (by its agency, Leo Burnett) and place them in some of the most prestigious publications. Kudos to any company that puts the greater good ahead of its bottom line.
Not that there aren't corporate benefits for the insurer. The campaign bolsters Allstate's image by associating the company with safety, and Allstate stands to gain if teens have fewer wrecks and fewer claims.
The ads are also likely to instill pride among its workers, because they'll view their employer as trying to make a positive change for everyone.
"Both the company and society can be better off, if they discover that this kind of campaign works," says Bill Cron, who teaches marketing at Texas Christian University.
He recently reviewed a research paper, which has not been published yet, that found that advocacy ads make salespeople feel better about what they're selling.
Most image ads are so self-serving, though, that they're meaningful only to the company itself. The Allstate ads are different.
Allstate compares them to its past corporate advocacy campaigns on seat-belt laws, air bags and other safety issues. And if it went too far with the brain claim, for instance -- doesn't advertising often go to extremes to grab attention and make an impression?
That seems like a fair trade-off, if it puts a spotlight on the problem. At least that was my assessment until Epstein argued that such characterizations can actually make the problem worse.
"American teens often act irresponsibly, because they are infantilized and isolated from adults," he wrote, "and not because they have defective brains!"
He says teens should be treated more like adults, and then they'll act more adultlike. Instead, American society tries to control them with dozens of restrictions, from zero-tolerance on drinking and drugs to stricter dress codes at school. He says that teens have 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many as active-duty Marines and twice as many as incarcerated felons.
This argument may sound way out there, but a similar debate is growing over underage drinking. John McCardell Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont, is spearheading an effort to lower the legal drinking age to 18.
McCardell says that drinking is a fact of life for older teens. Outlawing alcohol simply drives teens underground, and it pushes more immature behavior and rebellion. "Binge drinking is this generation's protest of an unjust law," McCardell told Newsweek.
Writers as diverse on the political spectrum as George Will and Anna Quindlen have taken on the issue recently, highlighting the unintended consequences of a no-drinking law that aimed to make teens safer.
In its ads, Allstate urges parents to support graduated driving laws, which give drivers more freedom as they get older. The idea sounds good, but it should be framed differently; require all new drivers, regardless of age, to wait six months before they can carry passengers, so the rule is based on experience, not age.
In the same vein, wouldn't it be better to talk about doing something to reduce all types of fatal car accidents, not just those involving teens?
This may not be the conversation that Allstate wanted to provoke, but it's one worth having. And it could make the ads more valuable than I imagined.
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