Let's take a minute to talk about advertising.
I hate it. The general thrust of modern advertising can be summed up in the statement, "You lot are too stupid to figure anything out for yourselves based on merits, so here's a picture of something emotionally charged so you'll feel better about buying something you didn't want ten seconds ago."
This is the basic thrust of the latest fad amongst sales persons, "suggestive selling." What a splendid idea, "Hey, spend money on this additional item or service you did not want a moment ago solely on the basis of my mentioning it just now."
Is there a big "sucker" sign painted on peoples' faces that I can't see?
There was a time in history when advertising wasn't like this, it wasn't a vapid emotional appeal designed to get people to buy things they neither wanted nor needed. Advertising was a fairly straightforward business with the goal of giving relevant information to interested parties so they could make an informed and mutually beneficial decision. There was a bit of flair sometimes, to attract the eye or the occasional play on words. The general approach though, was that interested persons would come looking for your product or service and you advertised to explain why your goods were better than the next guy's.
Then came Edward Bernays.
It would both entirely too easy and also unfair to lay the blame for all this at Mr. Bernays' feet. But it is extraordinarily tempting to simply vilify the man. Bernays' is the man responsible for, "Nine out of ten Doctors agree..." This kind of unqualified, implicit expert opining makes me want to hurt the people who sign off on it. Which nine of which ten? What was the exact phrasing of the question? How did they come to their conclusions? None of that ever comes to the fore, simply because, "Nine out of Ten Doctors agree..."
You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see two little laws put into places for advertising. First, you're not allowed to make statements of a statistical nature, explicitly or implicitly, without explicitly, plainly and forthrightly detailing how those conclusions were reached. Secondly, no more depictions of people or anthropomorphized animals, plants or objects. What would the net effect of this be?
Advertisers would no longer be able to make sucker-punch emotional pleas on the basis of sympathetic association.
Is it going to happen? Doubtful, but if it ever does, I'll do the Snoopy dance.
Not only that, but the entitlement attitude mixed with advertising.. is just.. foul. No other word.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that we have this new thing in customer service; customers are royalty, customers are always right.. to the point where if they are blatantly stealing from you, they are still right? No, at this point I believe the right word would be thief.. but with that word you have to tell someone they are wrong.. and then a temper tantrum begins.
Not appealing to a person's every whim may make them feel that they don't deserve the world on a silver platter and they will be unhappy.. and they don't deserve that.
The problem is.. this attitude is spilling over into every aspect of life..
people are becoming spoiled brats.. what's worse, they're overpopulating the planet with products of "Happy Bunny" and always being right..
which is going to throw us right back into another recession.
-shakes head sadly-
We have to get to the root of problem here.. life isn't fair, life isn't easy. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you're losing 30 pounds in 2 weeks you might want to see a doctor and make sure you don't have a tapeworm.. not have a party. Instant gratification doesn't exist in many situations.. you have to work for what you want, you have to sacrifice, you have to take the good with the bad, and deal with what comes at you.
These advertisements have us chasing fantasies, making us believe "why if you don't have to?!" and that there are no consequences for our actions and our greed.. we SHOULD have something for nothing..
gee. Why is our economy failing?