Advertising, the pandemic, and Consumerism.

The purpose of advertising is of course to make people want certain products. It conveys the message that a product will bring happiness, so that people feel good about themselves when they own it. But what is happiness? To feel happy, you need to be able to believe that your life has purpose. You need to be part of something bigger than yourself. But how do you become part of something bigger than yourself? You can't just join an organisation, because then it's not really 'bigger' than yourself. The group has to be large enough for the individual to feel insignificant in comparison. So, the purpose of advertising is to make people feel insignificant. But you can't just say that on the radio, or in a commercial. People would feel bad about themselves and might not buy anything. So advertising has to use positive suggestions. It has to let people know that they are part of something bigger than themselves. So, what is this bigger thing? For Covid, it was ‘society’.

And this, is precisely what “Brands” tried to do - They tried to embody the spirit of a ‘helper’ to society while also encouraging people to join into their movement, thus making the buyer think of the brand as a ‘responsible’ one and a persona of standing in ‘solidarity’ with the world and some other variation of the same pathetic story.

The human world is a strange landscape where people are often unaware of their own motivations. They don't see themselves as others see them, but instead view the world from their own limited perspectives. The combination of human behaviour and the technology that has been invented, shaped by human nature, can be very strange. A great deal of advertising is designed to exploit people's weaknesses in order to get them to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. It is ironic that an industry exists whose sole purpose is to exploit humans, and yet the humans who are being exploited don't realize it. There has been a great deal of research in psychology into how people make decisions and what influences them. This is part of what has been called the 'hidden persuaders', where people don't realize that they are being persuaded. This is a phenomenon that marketers and advertisers have taken advantage of to great effect. People don't tend to think about how they are influenced by advertising, just as most people don't know the history of their own thoughts or beliefs. This is because it takes a great deal of self-awareness and introspection in order to analyze one's own thinking. It is true that one can learn a great deal about oneself by examining the beliefs and opinions one has, but most people don't do this. It requires self-honesty about one's own motivations to see how they are affecting us.

Advertising is one of those things that a lot of people see as necessary, and yet there are very few who would say that they really enjoy it. What makes it so difficult to ignore is the fact that advertising can be used for something we all need: information. In our world today, information is power, and having access to good information makes you more likely to succeed in life (or at least feel like you have more control over your own destiny.) Advertising’s greatest strength comes from its ability to provide us with this sort of valuable knowledge.

All of that being said, Marketeers by virtue of this very knowledge are using advertising to instil a sense of normalcy back into society. While I am glad to see the shift from “wash your hands and wear masks’ every 20 seconds on my TV and a similar message blasting over my radio; back to sensible, creative comms that show us a glimpse of normalcy, the only concern I have remaining – is these return to normal comms pieces being used as a strategy to artificially spike demand and get consumerism back on it’s feet. (which when you look at it, is actually advertisings only goal.) Is advertising then a double-edged sword?

No. It’s the labyrinth you’re never escaping.