Secondary Ad:
Hahahaa. That is so fucking good man. Whatever the ads say, they work so fucking well together. Seriously. Those ads are still hyperlinked, by the way, so just a warning, there.
OK; so I want to talk about advertising - I wish to discuss the minutia of detail, and the thought processes that run through the minds of the executives drawing up the adverts. I also wish to discuss the power of advertising, how it affects a collective consciousness; how advertising could be used to the good, and how advertising ironically leads to an increased level of censorship.
Billions of dollars (one assumes) are spent on advertising every single year across the globe: Adverts on tv, on radio, at the cinema, on buses, on trains, up in the sky, on the ground, on buildings, in the newspapers, in your book, on your food, in your magazines, on the screen, below the screen, above the screen, peripheral, abstract, straightforward, confusing, thought-provoking, and ubiquitous. They are unavoidable - however hard you try to miss hearing and seeing the same adverts, you can't. You might want to take simple steps - like moving into a cave and re-reading the original copy of the Bible (presumably not hawking a Monk's guitar strings), or, never going outside, and simply sitting in a rocking chair crying. Those are two ways to avoid advertising. Unless you accidentally go to close to a wall and hear it from next-door; or you accidentally glance at the floor of your cave and see the light refraction which reminds you of that god-awful advert there was with that weird train, prism motif that made no sense whatsoever and made you want to die inside. Adverts are designed by place, type, target audience, and a bunch of other things I'm not aware of because I'm not in advertising (I've still got a soul). They're meant to be clever and inventive; they're meant to work on you as PWA (perception without awareness, ever since subliminal advertising became illegal) - they're meant to blend into the background, or smack in the foreground. That's your two choices. Either the one that makes you think without even realising it (see the road-traffic one-word ads), or the ones that facepalm you with their message until your bleed their product out of your anus (see any fast-food campaign of hate).
So how do they come up with this stuff? It's so inventive, and innovative, and... it does inventories :). Erm, yeah, errrr, oh, yes; how do the most egregious, intelligent-malnutrioned ennui-merchants manage to come up with these campaigns? I want to sit in on a meeting where they deigned to agree on some of the adverts that we've seen across the years. Which complete cretin honestly gave the thumbs up to that advert where the bloke shouts at you until you buy the cleaning product? "You know what people want when they're sitting down having a cup of tea? Someone shouting at them. Definitely." "Oh, marvellous, Sir, that's inspired." It must be a workplace populated entirely by sycophants and idiots. If you're an idiot you're destined for the top, if you're a sycophant you're ipso facto an idiot, and are destined for the top - just sit back and wait whilst the more abundantly obvious moron gets his five minutes in the sun (this sun brought to you by Magneto Corp; hawking metaphysical respiratory aids since 3000 BC). I know that this has been discussed by funnier and more intelligent people than I, but I want to anyway. I would also love to have been privy to some of those landmark adverts, the ones that stick in your head for weeks on end - Smirnoff ones leap to mind. The ingenuity there is unrivalled in most mainstream professions, and for that, I think they deserve acclamation - but for some of the abortions that we're stuck with each and every day, I think they deserve to be rounded up and beaten to death with their own swollen heads. Oh, and fucking also, if you're making an advert for a cleaning product that quite clearly has been made in Scandinavia don't just fucking dub it, remake it you cheap bastard. I can't buy your product, and it's not from want of trying; no, I can't buy it because every time I look at Bloomensfyord-a-cleans I break down in tears of laughter at seeing "It's so clean" lip-synced to what looks like "It's-jjjjf a cow queencc-aaaaaaaa." Honestly. It must be difficult, I am sure, but, imsrsly.
So, yeah, it's a billion dollar industry, and one that employs only morons: pretentious and ignorant morons.
Advertising is infinitely powerful - more powerful than I imagine most people realise; and herein lies the power! Why did you buy that product the first time? Yes, yes, I know why you buy it now - because it's your favourite (incidentally: How many others have you tried?) - but why did you buy it the first time? You don't remember, do you? Watching adverts is as going grocery shopping on an empty stomach: Your brain needs to be filled with as much information as is possible in 30 seconds, and so it tries to store this all away, and then when it can't hold it any longer, you get a mad craving for a Mars Bar even though you don't really like them that much because they're a bit rich, and not really that nice. Advertising affects people subconsciously, and makes them behave as they normally wouldn't; that's fine, that drives the economy I guess.
But how often is advertising used to the good? How many, out of your day, of the adverts are for road-safety, or for governmental information, or PSA's, or for the health of your children? Answer me. Make a tally. I reckon an average of less than one (assuming you're not a gelatinous blob who absorbs over 10 hours of TV a day; if you are, I assume you can't read anyway, and thus won't be offended when I tell you that you really need to get the fuck out of the house once in a while). And synchronic: Censorship increases; no cigarettes, no fast food before the watershed, no fun, no love, no peace, nothing that you ever enjoy is allowed to be advertised. How does that work? I hate it. Censorship can suck my balls as far as I am concerned. I fucking hate being told what I can and can't eat, what I can and can't smoke, what I can and can't drive - leave me alone, what the hell is wrong with you Ofcom? You have absolutely no idea what in the fuck you are doing: You tolerate and sometimes even seem to encourage racism, and bigotry; you allow absolute dirge to constantly be on our airwaves - you're happy to put on hour after hour of mind-numbingly stupid bilge - but you're not happy for us to show fast-food? Why? Oh, yes, I forgot, one burger a month will kill you; 8 hours of retards prancing is good for you.
Fuck off.
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