I read Bob Garfield's reviews of advertising campaigns in Advertising Age every week. His insights are intriguing, largely because he's a card-carrying member of the industry he is charged with criticizing, which gives him the same clout and legitimacy as a Congressional Committee investigating campaign finance irregularities.

Most often, his reviews pertain only to the advertising merits of the campaigns. Sometimes he states what such merits might be, but generally this is left unclear. From him, over the years, I have learned the vital lesson that no one in advertising has the faintest idea what they're doing. When an ad works, it captures the public's imagination unpredictably. The general rule of advertising would have to be that nothing that has been tried is necessarily true. (For instance, why, for the love of Pete, is the Taco Bell chihuahua a cultural icon? I rest comfortably in the belief that dozens of ad execs lose weeks of sleep over this. Put another way: in the late 60s the advertising and print media world went completely ga-ga over the presumed magical power of the Helvetica typeface for the simple reason that Volkswagen used it in their ads and their sales seemed strong.)

This past week, Garfield's column offered a moral critique of the current Levi's campaign. Generally, Garfield is a big fan of anti-advertising or hints of counter-culture connections in sales campaigns, and he admires this aspect of the new Levi's ads. But there are some serious problems, he says. First, there are holes in the otherwise excellent "realism" of the campaign: "In print, that ranges from a plain-looking girl holding a sign that says, searingly, 'I want to be happy,' to a handsome hipster who has written on his placard: 'CONFORMITY breeds mediocrity.' Dissing conformity in a Levi's ad? That's like Hiram Walker sponsoring a temperance rally."

Cute, Bob. But what force has resulted in this 'intimate relationship' between disenchanted youth and consumer culture? The appeal of anti-advertising is based on the co-optation of counter-cultural iconoclasm for establishmentarian purposes. Advertising has been in our young people's pants for generations, and there's no point feigning surprise now.

But Levi's does exceed the usual run of anti-advertising by finding "subjects whom their target audience can relate to, because they look exactly like the kids they see in school every day. Advertising's tradition of capturing the audience's imagination with idealized characters of surpassing beauty or accomplishment is thus turned on its ear--which, to the degree that it replaces artifice with reality, is all to the good." Right: these are genuine non-conformists wearing Levi's.

Unfazed by this contradiction, Garfield moves on to his more serious problem, which is with " the particular realities the agency initially chose." Let's see what these realities are:

      One kid speaks of early morning surfing that makes him late for
      school. Another, who plays in a band, talks about hooking up with
      two groupies in a menage a trois. Another is an irresistibly
      indifferent bar DJ who, when bored, intentionally plays bad songs
      to drive patrons away. Two best girlfriends reveal their hideous,
      allegedly "Tibetan friendship" tattoos covering their abdomens.


      Then there's Dustin, a lovably annoying kid with a Ramses beard
      and Big Boy hairdo, talking about how his dad broached
      neighbors' complaints about Dustin's loud stereo. Dad says these
      small-minded people think he's a gay drug user.



      "And I'm like, `Dad, they don't know I'm gay.' He's like,WHAT
      DID YOU SAY?!' I'm like, `I mean, they don't know I do drugs.'
      And then I'm like, `I meannnnnn. . . .' "


      Now there's a first, a national advertiser cheerfully sympathizing
      with teen-age drug use. And there's the "something" that indicts
      this campaign: naked moral abdication.


      In the name of relating to teen-agers and setting itself apart from
      adult authority, Levi Strauss is glamorizing a checklist of disturbing
      self-destructive behaviors.


      Yes, rationalize as they may the importance of authenticity and
      relevance, the fact is that putting these kids on national TV is ipso
      facto glamorization--glamorization of illegal drugs, tardiness, body
      mutilation and reckless bar pickups in the age of AIDS.


      In other words: cynically pandering to kids' worst impulses.

I take it that the problem with the campaign is its "glamorization" of rotten youth behavior. Of course, this is also the campaign's attempt to be hip. In short, the campaign takes up non-conformist kids as icons for the youth of today, in order to sell Levi's as the uniform of nonconformity. It's terrible to sell jeans to kids by appealing to their baser instincts - you know, the ones that lead them to take drugs and have negligent sex and generally to satisfy the call of the wild. Ah yes, and kids are sheep. They do exactly what advertisers tell them to do.

Hold it right there. Garfield is accusing Levi's of using a silly anti-advertising campaign based on 'real' youth lifestyles, both because the campaign stupidly portrays wearing Levi's as nonconformity and because it will condone and promote these shameful and dangerous lifestyles. On the one hand, we're asked to condemn Levi's for assuming kids aren't hip enough to see through the phony 'authenticity' of the campaign, and on the other hand, we're asked to condemn Levi's for encouraging the bad behavior depicted in the ads. The Levi's ads are terrible because they won't be taken seriously and because they will.

The notion that the advertisements abdicate moral authority is patently ridiculous. Not only is it absurd to consider advertising moral, but in this specific case, Garfield accuses Levi's of moral abdication in the course of saying their ads can't be taken seriously by the audience they seek. So, contrary to his own analysis, there is no reason to take the Levi's ads at face value. Presuming ads to have such direct persuasive power obscures their functioning. There is simply no way to know, from this point of view, whether an ad was effective or what it would mean for an ad to be effective.

By the way, I saw the "Tibetan friendship tattoo" spot last night. Even if it's not phony, it is inauthentic.

But never mind. I'm late to an appointment to get high, laid and tattooed!