“I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but of boring them to death.” Adverts. You can’t escape them.. no matter how hard you try. TV, Websites, Radio, Magazines, even the outdoors. They will be influencing your daily life without you even realising. I could go without saying but adverts really do suck. When I’m just chillin’, eating snacks, laying back, flick on the TV and wham suddenly I’m getting yelled at by some dude “Get your nutri-bullet pro 900 today!”. At first I’m like get outta here, wasting time and money on adverts, no one wants a damn nutri bullet. But actually it does look kinda cool, that would make my life easier. And that’s where the problem lies, the human urge to find a way of doing less work.. laziness.

First off, I think it’s pretty safe for us to assume that most adverts that we see on the regular are at least lying in some shape or form about their product. Why would they do that? People lie for many different reasons. The main reason is for self-aggrandisement, to come across as more important or have more power than reality. This makes one feel good about themselves, enough of this lying will make a person fall into self-denial about their importance in a group. Another reason someone would lie is for personal gain or strategical advantage, maybe to attain financial gain, making others feel sorry for them, or sometimes playing a false victim role. At the core of the reason we find greed, something that has been and will continue to be the fuel to many lies. So why are adverts dishonest? Easy, they want to sell more of their product to make more dollar bills. Greed. You could also say that it isn’t straight lying as such, but bending the truth to get the viewers attention. A classic example of this truth bending is by not telling you all the relevant information about the product for sale or the services they are providing, so that only the best features are highlighted. “Take this pill and lose 15 kg’s in 5 weeks!”. What they didn’t tell you is that for this to work it needs to be combined with 10’s of hours of intense training and a low calorie diet. Some advertisers take consumers for absolute idiots, like do they seriously think I believe them when they say I’ll make a MILLIE if I buy their new and improved pen?

The main reason adverts annoy me so much is the impact it has on a persons view on life. It’s a form of brain washing really. Just leave people alone! With such a big media presence nowadays, all this model photo shop nonsense makes people feel less about themselves, we aren’t complete with our products. Consumerism. A lot of people will see these adverts all around them, day in day out, until it’s basically a part of them. Satisfaction isn’t their unless we buy stuff, happiness is restored until we see another product we want. It’s a cycle. One thing consumers need to get out of their head is that their most definitely isn’t a product for every single one of their problems. Advertisers want consumers to believe that if you give them money, they will make you a new person who can now do rad shit. This isn’t the case. As Apple did when they released the iPod. What was wrong with the mp3 player? That had 1GB of storage. But guess what? The iPod could hold 1000 songs! They both had the exact same capacity and did the exact same thing yet people felt like they could do more with the iPod, purely off the words which advertisers used.

Over the many years which advertisements have developed, “the relationship between consumer and advertiser has become like a game of nagging and pestering”. As kids, I’m sure we’ve all used this on our parents at least once. I know I did. “Hey dad, can I get a goldfish?” “No son, you won’t look after it”. 10’000 times of asking later, and voila I got a goldfish. Then it died. This approach for advertisers is so unnecessary, it’s not like us consumers don’t enjoy buying products. The act of purchasing new things makes us feel good, it isn’t a burden in our lives unless the advertisers make it that. And for that reason, we try and hide our needs and wants.  We don’t want suppliers knowing our interests as in turn we get slammed with an ungodly amount of pop ups interrupting our peaceful episode of game of thrones. But remaining quiet really just makes it worse. The relationship between customer and advertiser has ended up being layered by a complete lack of trust on both sides. Customers don’t trust that advertisers will look after their real needs. And advertisers don’t trust that customers will listen to an honest pitch.

We all have a way of choosing who we do and don’t trust. It usually comes down to friendship, the longer you have known someone for, the more comfortable to feel about opening up open some personal thoughts or experiences. So that’s what I don’t get with advertisers. Try be active in giving the consumers what they are looking for without jamming it down their throats! But for now it is how it is, so don’t be a pawn in their game. Adverting is decreasing the quality and individuality of people’s lives by entangling us in their world of vanity, unnecessary indulgence and mindless consumption. The products which they offer us are usually genuine in fulfilling our materialistic desires, but in the end no product can fulfil a persons passion for friendship and happy living.

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