“Daddy, daddy, I won an iPhone 5!” she said as she ran into my office. “I was on this website, and something popped up that said that I won! Me!” And thus began the deliberate chopping away at the legs of childhood enthusiasm and naiveté. I explained to my nine-year-old how there are some bad people in the world who only want to glean personal information to sell to other people and companies. Her bottom lip quivered and tears bubbled up in her eyes. “But they said I won.”
“They lied to you sweetheart. I’m sorry.” And then we hugged it out. I’ve always tried to protect my children when it comes to the Internet – restricting their searches, setting time limits on usage, locking them out of sites with certain keywords, etc. etc. But clearly her curiosity found a way around my firewalls. I hate all advertising that intentionally lies and is malicious. And it’s this hate that has driven me to never lie in any advertising I’ve ever created. Even though I’ve been asked to use my imagination for malicious purposes more than once.
There’s nothing creative or effective or good about lying to people. Fuck you malicious advertisers.
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