Everyday, advertisements overwhelm us. Whether a webpage popup intrudes or a billboard steals your attention from the road, there's no escape from Madison Ave. In many cases, people won't realize that they too are a walking advertisement. So if you want to avoid advertisements reaching you, you may be out of luck. The constant cycle of this lather, rinse, repeat method gives little wonder to why children are drawn to McDonalds just for the toys.
I sure do love having all of those catchy jingles from TV or radio commercials stuck in my head, but after a day full of it becomes too much! Companies have begun to target their advertisements to all 5 of our senses. When I walk down to the Portland Saturday Market, I cant help but notice overall ambiance of the place. There is live music, dozens of vendors, and the irresistible smell of food being cooked throughout the day. As I was about to cross Naito Parkway to visit my favorite gyro spot, Angelina's Greek Cuizina (Highly recommended) the sweet smell of warm candied almonds wafted toward me. Directly to my left there was a stand and there was a sign hanging on the stand that said "You can smell us!" They knew that one of their largest advertisements was a byproduct of their candied nuts.
The picture shown to the left is taken from Google Streetview showing where I was standing! Now the location of the stands have changed a little from where they are now so don't think I am giving you false info!
Advertisers invade on your mind before you are ever aware its happening. That melody that keeps running through my mind all night has been carefully crafted to just that. trigger your memory to remember the melody and in turn, remembering the company that made it!
The flashy billboards of time square give an easy example of how intrusive the advertising game has become.
Just like this image, the advertisements all around us invade into our lives weather we like it or not. This gets pretty damn annoying when you're always having some new and revolutionary product shoved down your throat that you wouldn't even want in the first place.
Billy Mays was the king of direct response advertisements. You know, the guy with the loud voice selling Oxy Clean. He made thousands of people in the country want to buy a product that he pitched in less than two minutes and that is pretty impressive. If you want to see just how hard it is, try to convince someone to buy something that fast. But I will save you the time, it doesn't work that well. Infomercials classify as these direct response ads because they are meant to have you, almost impulsively, pick up the phone and order whatever you might see on the screen before you. They serve the exact same purpose as junk email, phone solicitors, webpage advertisements, and even the leaflets in the morning papers. using direct response ads is typically the cheapest way a company can advertise their product without having to really specify who it will reach.
There is no limit to where or how advertisers will be able to reach you, they always try to be one step ahead so there will be a never ending amount of products that they can sell.
Advertisers invade on your mind before you are ever aware its happening. That melody that keeps running through my mind all night has been carefully crafted to just that. trigger your memory to remember the melody and in turn, remembering the company that made it!
The flashy billboards of time square give an easy example of how intrusive the advertising game has become.
Just like this image, the advertisements all around us invade into our lives weather we like it or not. This gets pretty damn annoying when you're always having some new and revolutionary product shoved down your throat that you wouldn't even want in the first place.
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuReA-AGa8 |
There is no limit to where or how advertisers will be able to reach you, they always try to be one step ahead so there will be a never ending amount of products that they can sell.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
-Mark Twain
Very interesting post about the nature of capitalism, and more specifically how the fact that we are constantly pressured to make purchases on trivial items affects our daily lives. I'm not against making money through hard work, but berating impressionable minds with ads for things that may or may not be useful or healthy is certainly not the way I would do it. This goes to show the evolutionist side of consumerism; that is to say that only the strongest can resist the pricey convenience of living in our modern world and will be the ones who learn to live by either buying into the capitalist system and becoming one of those who constantly tries to sell, or by avoiding the system as much as possible, living through your own means and making a living through another skill while blocking out the temptation to possess the newest or best commercial product that will be out of date within months, weeks, or days. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on which company in our nation is the most persistent in its never ending goal to sell us something we don't necessarily need (McDonalds was mentioned, maybe Apple or Microsoft?). Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many items Billy Mays sold to people?
ReplyDelete