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RedMan
06-30-2006, 09:51 AM
PLEASE Lets not turn this into a raging debate. I just found this interesting.

I found this report on ATV industry advertising.
It basically says that the ATV industry is promoting improper use of ATV's with advertising that suggest it is okay ot trash the environment.

http://espn.go.com/winnercomm/outdoors/conservation/i/ATVReport.pdf

Also this response to that report, which frankly I found much more credible than the report.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/conservation/news/story?page=c_fea_ATVI_tread_lightly_response

stefan
07-07-2006, 07:25 PM
The following statements are from the second article:

Is the ATV industry advertising sinfully?
Responding to a report by The Izaak Walton League
By Arthur Domagala
ATV Industry Magazine


The implication of the report is that the ATV industry has made a deliberate effort to persuade the general public it's ok to use their ATVs destructively. I hope I'm not alone in thinking this accusation is a little absurd.

The Izaak Walton League has instead chosen to assign a false blame, more or less manufacturing an issue to write about in order to perpetuate the feeling that it is doing something. The report has been shrewdly constructed and worded so that a cursory glance through it will elicit a shocked reaction. However, upon closer inspection, one realizes there isn't much substance to the arguments.

The Izaak Walton League states in the report's conclusion that current ATV advertising campaigns "promote improper use of their products, which has resulted in a substantial amount of damage to our public lands." Where is the evidence for this? How is it even possible to establish such a correlation?

Yes, advertising can carry powerful messages. But banal ads aren't going to solve any problems. And finger-pointing doesn't equate to lifting a hand to help.


i am not ORV user but i am very prowilderness. i think the above statements completely summarize the reviewers views. in many ways i see his point. i think this is clearly a touchy issue. i would guess that there is a spectrum of ORV perspectives ranging from riding amongst wildlands to riding in human constructed atv riding areas. part of his point is that the ATV industry is well-within their rights to market to the varied terrain-oriented crowd (or whatever terms you all use), who ride where such use is appropriate. and yes, he's technically correct. and yes, in many ways, his criticisms of the arguments in the original article are valid, with respect to this point.

i guess, as an outsider, i see a subtle point the original article makes and a point which the reviewer admits in the final sentence..."yes advertising can carry powerful messages." i think there are varied degrees of tolerance related to this issue of the effect of advertisements, but i think that the power that advertisements can have shouldn't be ignored.

to be honest, i don't have a lot of experience with ATV type advertisements, probably cause i don't read such magazines or what not, BUT i think i do see a lot of television ads for trucks/suvs which most definitely do depict flying off of hills and bumps, tearing through wet areas and what not...and, well, when i see the areas in these television ads, i definitely don't think of ATV riding areas.

i guess here's my point....for the most part a company will do whatever it can to make the most effective ads to sell their product. when we identify that a problem can result from misuse of products (like eating too much fatty fast food, especially at a young age), i do believe that companies SHOULD, even though they are not required to, attempt to take a more ethical stance to help prevent a problem from misuse. it's just easier not to, but i think this leads to pushing the line and, as a result, the general population begins to tolerate how far the line gets pushed to some extent.

of course you might argue that the blame should be placed on the individual misuser....after all everyone's not misusing the product, it's only a select few. i understand why people view it this way, but, when there is a sufficiently large percentage of a population which has the capacity and lack of inhibition, resulting in such abuse, i believe we need to start to hold a company, at least, partially accountable.

it is undeniable that with the dramatic rise in ownership of ORVs, that the "problem" group will only grow to become a substantial enough problem that you can't just hide behind..."but it's not our fault." In fact, i think prevention may be more important, as you can curb a potentially growing problem early on, when it's much easier.

i don't have a plethora of solutions, but i suppose one point, which i do believe the original article, in spirit, was suggesting, and which the second article downplays, is the implication of the ambiguity of the location of the ATVer, that is, that the interpretation is left up to the viewer. now i would tend to think that if a significant portion of advertisements contained images which very clearly depicted "intense" riding in "designated ATV riding areas," with the smaller fraction of images more ambiguous, you would generate a more general notion of "intense riding" associated with "designated areas," taking their role in promoting responsible use to the next level.

Where i think advertising, especially say in tv/video, becomes even MORE problematic is when images/segments of "intense riding in designated atv areas" are interleaved with "proper road riding within wildlands," you are sending a mixed message, as it most definitely is very natural for the human mind to blend such disconnected contexts into the same context. thus while an advertiser can claim that technically the advertisement isn't condoning such use, i would claim that, whether intentionally or not, the viewer naturally can be drawn to that conclusion.
when a problem is relatively insignificant, i suppose it's not too much of a problem, however, when a problem grows, i think this aspect can no longer be ignored, and these advertisements need to be thought out more carefully, erring on the side of prevention and avoiding such misguided interpretations. unfortunately such ideas are much easier to accomplish in theory than in practice. however, i think businesses in general need to be held more accountable for their effects than we currently require.

just my 2