Do you like watching advertising ?

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I am a big TV program fan, and also like watching adverts. Next year,

I will probably go to a BA degree on Advertising and Marketing course.

Before I start my course, could someone give me some advise on 'Is

advertising more about culture than industry ? Thanks ~~~

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Advertising is about manipulating public opinion, plain and simple.

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I don't watch advertisements. On TV, I put on the "mute" when an ad comes on. I DO check the ads in newspapers......but only when I am looking for a particular item or "sale".

My one exception is Aflack..........I LOVE those ads. Funny thing, I have seen loads of them, and I really don't know what Aflack is. I just concentrate on the duck!

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As an ex marketing/sales guy - I am a big fan of ads !

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At last - another pig on A2K

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As a former retail art director and graphic designer, I love ads as well. Some are infuriating, some are brilliant and some are just plain stupid. But love 'em all the same.

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I KNEW IT, Gautam! I could just tell! What made you leave us for banking?

firepig --

Advertising is selling, pure and simple.

By studying advertising, you'll be learning how to sell through print, broadcast & other media. Even though you'll be learning about graphic design, writing, video production, etc., don't ever lose sight of the fact that you're really in Sales. That's the bottom line. And if you don't increase your client's bottom line, you won't be in advertising--you'll be unemployed. It's an extremely competitive field. Hope you're up to the challenge! Best of luck...

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Eva - I was a sales/marketing guy within the bank only !! I used to sell payment solutions to corporates

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And look what the spongmonkeys have done for Quizno's.

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cavfancier wrote:

Advertising is about manipulating public opinion, plain and simple.

My opinion precisely. I don't watch much television; I have watched none in the past four weeks. When I do watch television, I usually use the break to write down things that I have thought of, or I go to the toilet.... I just don't see the attraction to advertising.

There is very stoic Larkin poem about advertising called 'Reference Back,' which I will post here, despite here's not being the Poetry forum. If you don't like reading poetry, the basic jist is that Advertising has always sold a Reality that has never been Real.

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

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drÃ²m_et_rÃªve wrote:

Advertising has always sold a Reality that has never been Real.

There's a good reason for that. (see quote below)

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Well....humankind could bear enough reality to raise a stink about thalidomide, fen-phen, olestra and hydrogentated oils.

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I know, Eva, (and, whatever you do, do not think that I am slighting you personally.) My feelings about advertising are quite incomprehensible, so I will try to elucidate upon them as I go along, trying not to become too prolix...

I find it weird that we, as a society, have come to a point at which inessential things are our only necessities; pushing people to buy what they would not have wanted-- especially when it comes to children's toys &c-- is, I admit, something essential for business and, more importantly, the economy; I just, personally, find this distasteful.

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Reality is welcome when one is against a certain thing; hardly ever so when one is for it...

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drÃ²m_et_rÃªve wrote:

Reality is welcome when one is against a certain thing; hardly ever so when one is for it...

This sounds very profound, but why am I having trouble interpreting it?

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Because I said this something too obtusely?

(Or, perhaps, I just don't make sense)

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drÃ²m_et_rÃªve wrote:

Reality is welcome when one is against a certain thing; hardly ever so when one is for it...

I get it...correct me if I'm wrong drom, but you seem to be suggesting that the power of advertising works both ways. Lobby groups advertise, basically, not to sell product, but to sell a point. Win over the punters and you have a movement. Yet, as humans we are still complacent enough to allow ourselves to be manipulated into buying into a different 'false reality' that nobody has told us was not good for us, like children. Hope I got that right.

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cavfancier wrote:

drÃ²m_et_rÃªve wrote:
Reality is welcome when one is against a certain thing; hardly ever so when one is for it...

I get it...correct me if I'm wrong drom, but you seem to be suggesting that the power of advertising works both ways. Lobby groups advertise, basically, not to sell product, but to sell a point. Win over the punters and you have a movement. Yet, as humans we are still complacent enough to allow ourselves to be manipulated into buying into a different 'false reality' that nobody has told us was not good for us, like children. Hope I got that right.

That's exactly what I was saying, Cav... (well; that's what I was implying, to be clearer..)

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I once considered a career in advertising, but it would have been too easy. It started to resemble slavery after a while, in my mind.

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I know how you would feel; shackling people's lives to the most ludicrous things... we have gone to the point that some people reorganize their lives so that they can afford the latest fad; but fads don't seem to stop at the end of childhood; I feel that we have become addicted to newness, as if the newness of things around us compensated for our becoming older.

Who do you feel is to blame?

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