Musings about adverts

MAY 2012 - ADVERTS DRIVE ME GRRRY


So my plan to write regularly to keep things building up in my head totally failed, then I realised I was waiting for something to happen to provide inspiration to make me want to write again.

Adverts in the United States of America are crazy, I don't really see adverts back home as I don't watch much normal TV.  I caught an advert trying to sell some product to aid weightloss and it's final line was "Being thin is great", no wonder some people have an issue with their body image when they are bombarded day and night with both images of airbrushed perfect people and lines like that during adverts.


People who work in advertising/marketing only have one agenda which is to make people buy more shit that they don't need.  I don't get how advertising works, I realize half of it is to inform people about certain products being out on the market but the amount of lies they tell in adverts is astounding such as Lynx with the offer that if you wear it you will become irresistible to the opposite sex, don't get me wrong I understand the appeal of that but its horseshit. Or adverts for cars which suggest you will be luckier in your love life which seems to be the focus of a lot of adverts, and seriously who takes their partner to McDonald's for "make up coffee", get some fucking class in your life if you are one of those people, or maybe your ex/soon to be ex- partner just wants a McDonald's breakfast and wants you to pay.

I hadn't really forgotten the amount of adverts that get thrown at you in the USA but how do they sit and watch so many adverts during a 22 minute program stretched to 30 minutes with adverts....8 minutes of adverts and then you get in the car and the billboards....oh the billboards especially the ones pushing political agendas such as the anti-abortion ones which in Florida are seemingly everywhere.

Another phenomena we don't have in England, although I may be wrong in this respect is the sheer amount of adverts they have in the USA for restaurants/fast food places, it's mind-boggling, it really is.  "eat here, no eat here, use this coupon and get this free, buy this one meal and get 5 kiddies meals free we know you don't have 5 children but we are preying on the fact you're a fat lazy dumbass who will think it's a bargain!" .  


Also free refills, that's what a nation with an obesity crisis needs! easier free access to sugar and sweeteners, the waitresses look at you like you're mental when you turn down a 3rd drink, granted most of the drink is fucking ice! Oh the ice! So much ice!! That's probably why they can do the free refills, anyone agree? I remember playing Theme Park and cranking up the amount of ice you put into the drinks to ensure that one drink does not quench the thirst!

We live in such a consumer capitalist society in the US and Britain that I can't see things getting better in turns of consumption and people only buying what they actually need which if were to happen would decrease the pressure on the rapidly depleting world's natural resources. Just saying ya know? New ways of thinking have to be approached