As a result of watching "Merchants of Cool", but mostly from our class discussions, I have come to view all advertisements in a different light. After I began to believe that corporate marketers are never concerned with the well-being of their audience and every ad is intended to maximize profit, some important corollaries followed. When something seems too good to be true, it is always too good to be true. When an advertiser talks about valuing the customer, they really only value the customer's money. In short, I have become extremely skeptic of any promises that marketers make.
This newfound cynicism applies to every advertisement that I see or hear. It is almost an automatic reaction to question the real motives of each commercial I see. Sometimes, the manipulation of language is almost obnoxiously evident . While listening to a baseball game on the radio today, I heard an ad that said, "If you want to be a real Yankees fan, then you have to open up a Bank of America Yankees Rewards Checking Account." The logic is so obviously flawed that it makes me wonder how ignorant the marketers think we are. Another ad I've seen for Stella Artois (an expensive Belgian beer) reads, "Perfection has its price." The snob appeal is unashamedly blatant. Other ads are much more subtle, and these tend to be somewhat frustrating. Although I know from the beginning that the advertisers are trying to manipulate me, I can't discern exactly how they're doing it. Even so, I think that it is beneficial to the consumer to be aware of the advertiser's intentions and to make decisions accordingly.
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7 comments:
I don't think all advertisements can be classified as bad. Can't some advertisments be honest and for our wellbeing? For example, lately it seems that every time I watch television i see a commercial for the vaccination for HPV (human papillomavirus.) Before I saw the commercials I didn't know what HPV was, and it causes a significant amount of ovarian cancer. We also have public service announcements to help us.
I'm sure there are people making money off of these advertisements somehow, and they may try to manipulate us, but don't they have our best interests in mind?
I agree that not all commercials are bad, but the reference to the HPV commercial is one that I would find typically BAD. Yes, they're trying to 'reduce HPV' so you can be 'One less,' but what they're marketing is the drug they've devised which they're hoping you'll buy. And I looked up HPV...men can get it too.
But where are these GOOD commercials? They are few but rare, and most of them are ignored. I'd have to say that the 'Truth' commercials, no matter how much they annoy me, are essentially good because they're not advertising you to buy a product of theirs. The only thing is...they're trying to make you NOT buy another product- cigarettes. But whether they want people to be healthy or they want to completely derail the tobacco industry in America remains unclear.
My sister corrected me. It's cervical cancer. Oops.
Commercials are not inherently bad. Simply, they are a form of language purposed to convinvce others, like many other forms of language. All too frequently I feel that the advertiser and the product being advertised are mixed up - Advertisers are simply doing their job to sell the product and make money. However, the subject can be harmful/beneficial in cases like the Subprime loan ads vs. the Don't do drugs ad.
In my post, I said that "corporate" marketers are never concerned with the well-being of their customers. I now realize that I should have been more clear on this. I do realize that commercials for charities and the "Truth" commercials keep the interests of the people they're reaching out to in mind. My point is that advertisers for consumer goods and services don't value the customer, only the customer's money.
As for you Arka... I think that we disagree on the meaning of the word "bad" used to describe "commercial". I believe that the primary reason a commercial is "bad" is the way the subject is presented. The actual subject is of secondary importance. To use your example of the subprime mortage ads, such a commercial could present the risks and high interest rates of subprime loans, and it wouldn't be a "bad" advertisement. A commercial for a charity could give false information about their overhead cost, and it would be worse than the subprime mortage ad.
Also, I disagree with you that commercials are a form of language. Language is almost always used to persuade people in commercials, but a commercial is not a type of language.
Advertisements are not inherently bad, but ads that market consumer products are always manipulative in some way.
Hey, it's Erin. I agree that the results of watching "Merchants of Cool", you can become cynical about commercials in general. I agree (and think that it is important to understand) that commercials do not have your best interests in mind; they're goal is to sell the product (and that's true of more than just commercials, I know politics comes up in our class a lot). There's always the questioning of motives. I think the most important thing is to understand that and to buy things for what they give you and not a label. But anyway, I don't think advertising is bad, it's necessary. Actually, it seems to me like a really interesting field and it'd be beneficial to understand how it works. But I don't think you need to be cynical; I think that laughing at the ways that commercials try to get your money is fun. In a lot of the commercials the logic is flawed. I was watching TV and there was this one commercial, I guess about social security, and it had all these kids talking about it. And my dad pointed out, what kid worries about social security? And it's true. I sure don't. But the whole message was, don't lie to the little kids, don't deprive them, etc. And I could understand that the whole reason they used the kids in the commercial.
Whether a not a subject is presented fairly or not, a commercial is simply a way to convince someone that your point of view is correct (in this case the point of view being that the product is a necessary item/service).
Similarly, Hayakawa says in Ch. 5 that the dual task of language is to 1. Pick a word with the correct informational connotation so that the listener/reader understands you and 2. Pick a word with the correct affective connotation so that the listener/reader takes the same point of view as you ie convincing someone. Clearly, all language has the purpose of convincing, and commercials are simply a form of language that focuses on task 2.
A related idea is that there is no such thing as stating your opinion, since an opinion itself is a form of language, and all language has some convincing element to it.
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