Attitude on Advertising

Everyone has a love-hate relationship with advertising because its only purpose is to get us to buy into it. It dehumanizes; in the process of selling a customer a product, the businesses and corporations have to view the customer as a product. To sell us on something, they have to literally buy our attention. They often spend just as much or more on filming interesting commercials, designing eye-catching visuals to plaster wherever they can, than on the manufacture of the product. Especially during the Superbowl.

I’m not a football fan, and the Superbowl isn’t some big event in my family either. So I almost got by without seeing any of the ads- emphasis on almost. But when I did watch a few of the “best,” I found myself enjoying them. While I resent commercials for manipulating me to get me to watch them, sometimes they’re funny clever. And I was able to participate in a thought-provoking discussion. The advertising in our society and how we react to it reflects back onto us.

Personally, I don’t usually see any possible benefit of paying attention to ads. A full-time student, I don’t have a job, so for the most part I’m not spending money. Commercials just annoy me. I fast forward them when I can and mute them when I can’t. I don’t like listening to the radio because of them. When my brother bought me “youtube red” as a gift, I was so happy. The only exception to this? The movie trailer.

I have memories growing up of sitting in my living room with my siblings to watch a VHS or DVD (ancient, I know) and hearing that man’s voice we knew from other Disney commercials announce “coming soon to own.” A lot of the time, the trailers were for other movies we had, and we would talk along with them like we did those movies (we called it quoting.) In more recent years, we love going to the theater, mostly for superhero or other action flicks.

Just awhile ago we went to see the latest Star Wars. I was sitting with my brother waiting for the movie to start when a strange-looking trailer began, and I tried to figure out what it was for, thinking “I wonder if that’s based on a book I’ve read.” When it cut to three children standing in the middle of a street, with more children standing one per driveway and simultaneously bouncing rubber balls, my heart stopped. I knew it was for “A Wrinkle in Time.” I experienced a rush just writing about it!

But there’s always pros and cons, even to these. My siblings and I go back and forth between wanting to see them, and wanting to avoid spoilers because companies like to summarize the entire movie in the trailer. I think that’s all you can do in this overstimulated society. Take things on a case-by-case basis and think critically about what you’re viewing. Be aware of the agenda behind advertising, but don’t always judge it so harshly. Just because they’re trying to make something off of you doesn’t mean you can’t get something back.