Banksy’s Out of Stock in Poplar, London

Be it Television, Cinema, Radio, Print, Web, or any other functioning, contemporary medium, we are bound to encounter an old friend: commercials – a plethoric, expanse of them actually. It’s a nifty vocation involving creative junkies and corporate suits herding hungry, apathetic civilians to spend, and keep spending.

In fact, advertisements serve as consumerism’s arch messenger, caressing our minds to desire a product or service, we sometimes need, but almost always can do without.

Has anyone caught the sophisticated Levis advertisement campaigns of late? Such lavish cinematography, extravagant sets, stimulating copy-writing,  coupled with sexy, starved models as onscreen representations of ourselves, and with every minutest detail executed to perfection, where do we even begin to scrutinize such pursuit.

Sarcasm aside, the evolution of advertising is remarkable, and simply contrasting a 5 year model serves proof of the industry’s advancement in evaluating what consumers are responding to.

Slogans, such as “smart/savvy shoppers,” and “educated consumers” blur the lines of rational consumerism, and delivers the perfect antithesis to anything even remotely pragmatic in reality.

Furthermore, TV shows like Madmen, painstakingly romanticize every last detail of the glorious advertising days, alluring the present generation to witness frenzied, slanderous, enticing, and self-deprecating moments in Advertising, while engaging the conscious and sub-conscious minds of viewers.

Amidst such perplexing emotions of melancholy and exuberance, in light of the advertising business, I remain strung on a hopeless dilemma, a personal qualm if you may, in discovering why advertisements these days speak nothing about the product or service whatsoever, at least 90 percent of the time, besides the usual dose of rancid solicitations in the midst of political campaigns, some rare and deviant concepts which never fail to delight, or when Apple decides to launch its next I- whatever that may be.

Don’t we all wish to explore what copywriters and talent communities in the Advertising business perceive of the general public, everyday folks like you and me?

Indeed are we as smart, savvy, and educated as we are led to believe, or perhaps we don’t realize being manipulated into making consumer choices?

For instance, could the beer advertisements be any more subtle. We get it, basically, the advertisement suggests you drink a certain brand of brew, and you can transform yourself into a ladies man, becoming suave like James Bond (Heineken), or even better, aspire to Jonathan Goldsmith’s rank as the most interesting man in the world (Dos Equis).

The nature of advertisements stem primarily from creativity, the spin in the story, the ethos an ad campaign invokes in the market, but more often than not, consumers succumb to a sheer bombardment of mind numbing, sub-par, overplayed themes.

Surprisingly, what seems to be winning viewer’s attention are advertisements, like GEICO and ETrade. Personally, the Geico advertisement is downright silly, besides the coveted British accent American consumers lust after, there is no real substance in the advertisement bereft of its coolness factor, which is debatable to say the least. However, most will admit to the genius behind the conception of the ETrade baby, which eventually makes it that much difficult if not impossible, to overlook the conundrum in Advertising.   

These days, advertisement gurus focus with a greater niche on human behavior, relations, and psychology, instead of purely trying to impress the masses with informational utility of the product or service being advertised.

Also, in terms of popularity, today’s generation has absolutely no tolerance for  ordinary ideas, and viewers respond better to sexy men and women in fast cars and action sequences, providing thrill and escapism, while sarcasm and humor are also trending within Advertising.

Perhaps, the superficial developments in Advertising depicts more than just the evolution of the advertising industry, perhaps we can draw a correlation to human intelligence and values, and how we as a species react more positively to a newer, rhapsodic, more striking, and yet, banal stimulus.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.