Anyone that listens to me with even half an ear will no doubt have heard me talk about how credit cards have had a huge impact on society, not just economically, but in term of attitudes. In 1972 Access, A UK credit card created from a banking consortium, later taken over by Mastercard, used a slogan in their first advert that epitomised the issues that would follow. "Take the waiting out of wanting".
This week I happened to catch an advert for Interact, a debit card system here in Canada. It starts "What if we had all of the holiday stuff without all the stuff stuff" and ends "Interac, for the stuff that matters."
I was fairly shocked, happily, when I first heard the ad. 47 years, nearly 2 generations, later the tides a turning.
Now I realise that it's an ad, and there is a vested interested. But in the capitalist based economy driven to a large extent by financial services and therefore credit and interest, the enticement of short term gain, and greed, used to create an entire credit industry captured in that 1972 slogan, has given way, at least in an ad, to a call away from excessive spending.
Again, those that give me half an ear, know that the the rampant attitudes around Christmas are quite the turn off for me. The commercialism and greed are pretty hard to take. Seeing more and more being spend with less and less gratitude is sickening. Not to mention the casting away of common decency. Have you noticed how the rules of the road are abandoned at this time of year? Have you notice how people aren't smiling.
I am therefore pleased to see that advertising has come round to the idea that the wanting of stuff is by implication not the thing that matters.
As I said, I know Interac has a vested interest, but I have to hand it to them. Nice going.
