In the eyes of those who don’t work in advertising, all it is, is selling stuff. To them, we aren’t curing cancer, discovering a new species or launching space expeditions to colonize Mars, we’re selling stuff. This is why advertising is easily criticized and not always taken seriously. But what if they’re wrong. What if advertising could be and is more than just selling toothpaste. What if it could change the world? That’s a pretty big thought.
There’s a company called The Ocean Agency whose sole mission is to bring awareness and change to ocean conservation. It was started by ex-advertising execs and creatives. They’ve created Google Underwater Street View, the Netflix documentary Chasing Coral and are currently working on a project called 50 Reefs, “a global plan to save coral reefs.” They’re creating a movement by using what they’ve learned in the ad biz and applying it to create a solution to, quite literally, change the world.
We can learn from The Ocean Agency. Advertising can be so much more than what everyone sees it for. It’s an unbelievably powerful tool that can reach the whole world and if used the right way, the amount of good we can do will be priceless.
The thought that something I love so much could do so much good, inspires me. I hope to use what I’ve learned throughout college and what I will learn in jobs after I graduate to contribute to this type of advertising. It’s a big, big world out there and I may be just one girl who loves to write, but, I’m sure as hell going to use what I love to join in the fight for change, one word at a time.