There is an emerging genre in advertising: glossy, self-serving TV commercials aimed at humanising big business in order to portray self-interest as part of a greater good.

In the land of corporate propaganda everyone is shiny, dripping in the elixir of trickle-down economics and the shared sense of mission that jumps from the corporate annual report into our living rooms via a six-figure production budget.

They stand in stark relief to the gritty ACTU advertisements that hit the airwaves this week, which seek to give a face to the cost of living pressures that are defining the political debate in 2018.

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The big banks recruit staff to smile their way as cover for the travesties that have driven the royal commission, property developers induce parents to hug their children, while the mining industry professes to dig people as much as the minerals they extract.

The common thread through all these campaigns (apart from their high production values) is the calculated attempt to align commercial outcomes with community values by amplifying any speaking point that hasn’t totally failed in the focus groups.

While business hates spending money on anything except executive pay and tax advisers, the investment is seen as a necessary down-payment for Turnbull government policies that run contrary to public opinion: the preferential credit rules for the major banks, the protection of negative gearing, the failure to support energy transition; whatever your industry there is an expectation business will campaign.

Notwithstanding the efficacy of TV advertising in a world where mainstream media consumption is tanking, these campaigns are now regarded as part of the price of doing business with government.

Now the government is pushing business to back them in their proposed cut to corporate taxes, with rumours swirling that the largest companies will soon be joining forces to launch a nuclear media blitz.

But as this week’s Essential Report reinforces, such a campaign faces a few significant hurdles.

First, as I have argued previously, the public just doesn’t buy the economic theory that underpins corporate tax cuts, and no number of corporate leaders rolling up their sleeves on the front page or crying fiscal pauper even as they lodge another zero tax return is going to convince us otherwise.

Secondly, while the proposition that a corporate tax cut to stimulate investment in the economy has some support, support for alternate measures to drive economic growth attract much more favour.

Support for the corporate tax cut lags behind other policies that would also deliver tangible long-term benefits for business – regulating energy prices to drive down the cost of doing business and putting more money in the pockets of consumer; increasing support to the group in society who spends the highest proposition of their income on consumption.

And there is also surprisingly high support for the notion that business should suspend their decades-long war with organised labour and the government to better share the benefits of organised growth.

The difficulty of selling the corporate tax cut through a mass marketing campaign is further underlined when the public is asked who will benefit from various initiatives.

While big business is perceived to be the major winner in any corporate tax cut, the benefits of these other measures are seen to be more evenly spread across society.

This is a particular problem for big business at a time when levels of trust are at historic low levels. According to Essential’s most recent Trust in Institutions survey, big business is sitting down at the bottom of the league table with unions and politicians.

So if a campaign for a corporate tax cut is measured on theory, on policy, on self-interest and on trust, then it’s so compromised that even a creative genius will be struggling for an angle.

Maybe we will just have a bunch of numbers thrown at us to convince us business will reinvest the windfall; maybe we will see a happy family opening their pay packet and saying “good on you, large corporation!” or maybe it will be a small business owner who’s grateful they’re no longer being screwed – whatever path the creatives will be playing to a sceptical audience.

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Loathe as I am to dispense free advice to the Business Council of Australia, here’s a thought – why not run a campaign on how to increase the dole to support those who are slipping through the cracks? Or back a renewable energy target? Or support an increase to the minimum age to stimulate spending? Or embrace a board tax reform agenda and not a narrow one to your own benefit? Or just for once do something that doesn’t totally reek of self-interest?

Smarter heads in the business community recognise that the hostility to corporate tax cuts is a sign of a collapse in public trust.

Glossy ads demanding “give me some more” will only erode it further.