[Tfug] Way OT: Advertising

[Tyler Kilian]

Wow.


> I have always considered advertising - for the most part - a type of
> pollution.  But my annoyance with it has had an interesting effect.
> There is or seems to be this idea that people are suggestible.  Hence
> with product placement, you see a bucket of KFC in a television show,
> you want to go out and get yourself some KFC.
>
> I don't miss product placement.  I am sensitized to it.  But I
> actively recoil from products used in product placement (I find this
> insidious and I hate it), and annoying commercials (90% of them).
> Between having cancelled cable television, and not having any of those
> converter boxes to receive digital signals, adblock in my browser, no
> subscriptions to ad-heavy magazines, and no radio, I probably
> encounter less advertising than average.
>
> This has only made me more sensitive to it on the occasions where I am
> in a doctor's office and am flipping through an ad-heavy magazine or
> sitting in Jiffy Lube watching whatever they have on the TV there.
>
> When I encounter those ads in ridiculous places you mention (one
> particularly ridiculous place is on benches - the kind you find at bus
> stops), I definitely notice, and get annoyed and walk away with a sour
> taste in my mouth over whatever product they're advertising.  There
> are brands/stores/products I will never buy because the advertising
> pisses me off - one example of this is Jared jewelers.  I despise the
> concept of jewelry anyway, but if I didn't, after the ads where the
> spoiled golddigger bitch wives whine "He went to Jared" in jealousy
> over someone else's husband blowing months of salary on a blood
> diamond, there is no way in hell I would ever shop there.  That's just
> one example - maybe the most egregious.
>
> Some time ago, probably like many people, I changed the whole way I
> shop.  When I was a kid, growing up in a place without a lot to do,
> going to the mall on Saturdays was a kind of family outing.  It was
> normal in my family go shopping when bored.  Now, I only go to a
> retail establishment when I need something specific, or am actively
> comparison shopping for something I know I need.  As for expensive
> items, I research those to death on the Internet through product
> reviews and so on (I know I'm not the only one).
>
> I am not against businesses making their products known.  I don't
> really have a problem with an ad that says, "This is our product, and
> this is what it does and why we think you should buy it" in a
> straight-ahead way.  What I hate is lifestyle advertising: "You need
> this product or you will be uncool/seen as unhip," and I almost always
> hate humor in advertising because it tends to be lowbrow and insults
> my intelligence.  I hate ads which want me to, "Picture myself <with
> this product> and what a glorious life with <product> it will be."
>
> All this said, I thought of going into advertising because I cannot
> help but analyze the entire logic/strategy of a commercial or ad
> whenever it appears. When I had TV, I would sit there with my niece
> and do color commentary on every advertisement that came on.
>
> You might enjoy a movie called Putney Swope.  I just figured I'd recommend
> it.
>
>  -Quag7
>
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--
Tyler Kilian
Krispy Kreme - The Edible Linux