Musings - Desires and advertising.

I think the best way to approach this is by thinking about what advertising is and who it affects. Advertising targets individuals, in order to convince them that they need a particular product or experience. This creates an unnatural desire for something that may not be objectively necessary - creating desires which do not exist naturally.

When you think about it, advertisements are completely different from natural communication. Natural discourse is generally informal and spontaneous - people will have a chat over a coffee or at the pub. This type of conversation usually has an objective goal such as to exchange information or to gain some kind of benefit.

Advertising is different - there is nothing natural or spontaneous about it. It consists of formal communication, such as in a television commercial, which has one goal: to get the target individual to purchase a product or experience.

It also lacks the element of sharing valuable information. When you have a conversation with someone, you are giving them some kind of information that is potentially useful to them. You might tell them about your experiences traveling in Morocco - or about how to make good chocolate cake. That type of communication is useful and meaningful.

Advertising is quite different. It tries to sell you a product by appealing to your emotions, showing you an attractive person enjoying that product or experience. But it doesn't necessarily tell you anything useful.

The problem is that our desires are not an objective part of us. They are subjective and changeable - just as we could come to desire a new shirt, we could equally decide to stop wanting it.

Let's consider the idea that marketing is intrinsically problematic. It involves selling lies to people, and they don't even realize it because they are conditioned to be receptive by all of the advertising that surrounds them constantly.

In essence, marketing is telling people something that they have not asked for and do not care about. If you were to ask a person what their favorite brand of toothpaste was, most people would be unable to give an answer. But then marketers will come along and try to tell them why they should buy this very same toothpaste.

So if we go back to the idea of asking people what they want, then it becomes clear that marketing only exists when a person cannot answer this question.

This leads us to the conclusion that marketing and advertising are inherently manipulative by nature. It is not an accident or a mistake, it is simply impossible for marketing to exist without being manipulative.

So if we go back to the idea that marketing is intrinsically problematic, then this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because once you know something is inherently manipulative by nature, you will view it with suspicion.

This leads to a cycle of manipulation and suspicion. Because the marketers know that they are inherently manipulative by nature, they will try even harder to hide it.

If we look at the history of marketing and advertising, it seems quite clear that they have come about because humans wish to be able to influence each other. This is true of most things in life; if you want someone else to do something for you, or not do something that would inconvenience you, then influencing them is the way to go.

In the case of marketing and advertising, a company wishes to influence an individual's perception of themselves and their products. One way to do this is through persuasive copywriting.

How does a company choose what to say to persuade its audience? I think that they must know something about the people who will read or hear it, and this is where I come in. Marketing companies employ teams of human experts who spend their days thinking about what audiences might want, and how best to deliver on those wants.

As I said, marketing teams spend a lot of time thinking about what audiences might want. They think this is the core to their success. But do they really know? No - it is impossible for anyone to truly understand another human being.