A cynic's view of advertising
The ever-further reaching tentacles of modern advertising are present in virtually every facet of our daily lives. Constant bombardment of our senses via digital and print media, broadcasting, music and film has constant retail-driven bulletins changing the way that we view the world and ourselves.
An advertisement recently appearing on British television could easily double as a trailer for a typical Sunday afternoon movie exploring the joys of familial values and love.
The Labrador puppies, playful laughter and overly affectionate blonde-haired family frolicking in the soft light of an autumn morning were all too perfect. It was selling fabric softener.
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| Andy Warhol Still Life Polaroids |
Appease Our Desires
Advertising is about image. Advertisers solicit our emotions offering their wares as a means to appease our many desires. Happiness, fashion, acceptance and status are all used to sell everything from motor insurance to cat food and washing powder.
We are misled into believing that the gentle touch of soap and softeners can change our lives by washing away our daily blues. Our kids will love us, our mothers and wives will be more appreciated and men will mend their errant ways and transform into doting dads and devoted husbands.
Dirty laundry can no longer destroy the family unit with every home now having a therapist in the shape of a washing machine.
Instantly Conditioned
Having trouble getting that promotion or a date for Saturday night? Change your shampoo. Once that troublesome hair is gone your life will be instantly conditioned.
Your dress-sense will improve, the once-bespectacled supermodel in accounts will suddenly take notice, the boss will love your work and on careful inspection the bathroom will also be renovated along with your life.
Repetition
Advertisers love slogans. Little catch phrases are quickly adopted into our language and even become ingrained in our culture. These ever-visible tags instantly brand us like a herd of sheep, so part of human nature and invaluable to the corporate world.
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| 'The Real Thing' Cross David Poston, England 2004 |
"Coke adds life." Coca-Cola has brought the world some of the most repeated slogans. "Make the little people think they have no life without Coke" was no doubt the reasoning.
After all, "the real thing" is the elixir for life offering a perfect escape from the stark reality of the daily grind. With all that sugar and caffeine we will obviously feel better for a few minutes. It also rots your teeth and makes you fat. That is the reality a mere fizzy drink will add to life!
Get that pair of Nike shoes and you too can look exactly like seven-hundred-and-fifty-million other absolute individuals out there. "Just do it!"
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| Nike vs Warhol |
Make a stand for conformity along with Reebok and Adidas. After all, it is the uniform of the modern teenager who is still insistent that he is so misunderstood because all he wants is his own identity.
Mobile Billboards
We brand ourselves like cattle. Who are Dolce, Gabbana and Hugo Boss? They have become so important that millions are prepared to sacrifice their own identities and act as nothing more than mobile billboards for products in which they have no stake other than emotion. You get to pay for that privilege too.
Popular music cannot escape the grip of the corporate sales pitch. The biggest stars trade their talent for a few dollars and to have their surgically enhanced faces splashed across billboards touting worthy causes such as nutritionally-deficient imitation-flavoured soft drinks and sports-shoes that give a ten-year-old Cambodian a job in a sweatshop.
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| Going cheap... |
Detergents and soapsuds are instantly fashionable with their advertorials raiding the charts for number one hits as their soundtrack. So irony seals the fate of the truly washed-up rock star.
Baywatch Barbie
The lowliest of commodities are not immune to commercial exploitation. By the power of advertising the usually discreet tampon has the means to transform Miss Dead Dull into a bronzed athletic Baywatch Barbie that believes the menstrual cycle is a form of exercise.
Incidentally, the tampon in an emergency makes for an excellent way to stop a severe nosebleed. Thankfully one cannot see Tampax Nasal going up in lights at the exits to Johannesburg International.
One of the most powerful tools in selling anything is sex. As one of our strongest psychological attractions sex has the ability to be effortlessly bought and sold. (And it is perfectly legal too.)
Prostitute Your Loyalties
More money changes hands for sex in a single day through advertising than in a banging year for Amsterdam’s red light district. We as consumers gladly prostitute our loyalties to the most emotionally and physically appealing bidders. Reason and values sell out to sex for the sake of fashion and acceptance.
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Personal happiness no longer comes from within. People constantly search for a magic bullet to create the ideal image they desire to portray to our voyeuristic world.
Religion and spirituality are discarded in the quest for the ultimate commodity to transform life instantly. Personal contentment is found discounted on supermarket shelves, in alluring displays in the ersatz environments of shopping malls, staged corporate-controlled television and on the airbrushed models in the tabloids.
The rapid advancement of the broadcast and digital media guarantees that our addiction as habitual consumers will forever remain at the mercy of corporate advertising, allowing it to shape our lives and the way in which we interpret the people and world around us.
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