“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” -David Foster Wallace, This Is Water
We hear it, see it, smell it—often unconsciously—every day, all the time. Advertising that is. Whoever you are and whatever you do has been boiled down to a specific demographic that can be tracked, charted and measured. They know what you’re searching, who your friends are, and they strive to know you better than you do yourself.
It does not feel invasive because we cannot feel it, but gaining access to our personal information is only becoming easier. This data is sold to businesses so that they can target consumers more effectively. Our dependency on technology has made this all the easier.
With the knowledge to know us, advertising adapts with the times, finding new ways to capture our attention. Still the message stays the same: consume. If you pay close enough attention you can see that this message has morphed into something hideous and it has cloaked itself in ads that attempt to blur the lines between art, advertising and real life.
Art can mean different things to different people; such discourse invites discussion and debate that encourages us to think more deeply about a topic. This avant-garde Lexus commercial for example invites such discussion and thought, only they’re not possible because this is not real art. This commercial is an attempt to appeal to those with (or to those who believe they have) finer tastes—the kind of people who deserve such a fine car as this Lexus. However, this “edgy” commercial pushes so hard that it goes full circle and becomes grossly revealing: In true brainwashing fashion the words “if you want” are shown half a dozen times. We all want love, respect, and success, but no form of real art would have the blatant agenda of convincing you those things are earned through buying a product. The use of duality in this ad is also worth noting, as this commercial is the opposite of real art. The goal of advertising posing as art can only limit our thinking, where real art expands it.
It’s not only high-end products that are attempting to dumb us down. This Tide Laundry Detergent commercial gently tries to insert their branding into our vernacular. In this commercial, a couple is quote “too busy having fun” to “worry about stuff like laundry.” If the commercial ended here it would actually be quite realistic. Instead, we learn that fun for the husband means dropping a detergent pod into a laundry machine, which is his “favourite part”—if he thinks that is fun I would like to have him over to empty my dishwasher. This commercial is an attempt to convey a natural moment, but the premise is so unnatural that the it gives you that dull-aching feeling in the top of your head. The commercial ends by asking: “That’s our Tide, what’s yours?” People do not ask such questions because there’s still some separation between the world of advertising and the real world we experience. This Tide commercial attempts to blend the two worlds together and that’s what is really outrageous about it.
There’s no shortage of commercials equally as bad as the two discussed, but rarely do we pay them any attention. We have learned to put up with advertising and have accepted it as part of life. But at what point will we stop to see this slow steady infiltration?
About thirteen years ago I went to the movies and a Mazda commercial played before the previews and everyone booed. It was new territory for advertising and we noticed. Today, you can expect about three commercials before a movie and nothing seems out of the ordinary.
As passive receivers of information, advertisers have us right where they want us: lazy, suggestible and unaware that we’re drowning. Advertising seeks our imprisonment by perpetuating a longing for goods that can never be satisfied, while diverting us from our natural contentment that lies within.
image:Damien Ahuir (Creative Commons)
