Oct. 17, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Why Occupy Wall Street makes me sad
Commentary: Big business has exploited societal movements
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — I feel sad when I contemplate the future of Occupy Wall Street.
I see a depressing fate awaiting the well-meaning demonstrators in lower Manhattan and around the world. I believe they are sincere in their protests against Wall Street in particular and, really, big business as a whole entity. And that’s why I’m uneasy.
What worries me is how this may well play out in the future. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see some shrewd marketing professional on Madison Avenue hungrily eyeing the commercial potential of the rallies. When the taste makers spot a powerful societal trend, they leap on it and eventually find inspiration for schlock television commercials.
Before you know it, the spirit of the movement is replaced by a catchy television jingle. Yeesh.
Madison Avenue is likely to try to exploit Occupy Wall Street’s success in gaining attention for the movement, which started small in New York City and has rapidly and dramatically now gone global.
I could see commercials co-opting the term “Occupy” for the interests of selling toothpaste or beer or deodorants. Maybe they’ll attempt to depict the people protesting something or other in the spirit of the folks at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan.
We’ve seen this sort of lamentable phenomenon before. In 1969, half-a-million flocked to upstate New York to celebrate three days of peace, love and music at the Woodstock Festival, The event stood for the burgeoning peace movement — at a time when tumultuous anti-Vietnam War protests were raging all across America.
Madison Avenue observed the success of the Woodstock Festival and big business moved in. Tie-dye -- the prevailing symbol of Woodstock and the counter-culture — began to be co-opted. Before long, tie-dye looked more like an advertising cliche than an anti-Vietnam touchstone. It was sad, but pretty much inevitable, too.
Full story: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-occupy-wall-street-makes-me-sad-2011-10-17?link=MW_story_popular
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