Advertisements

We are plagued, are we not? It is no longer just newspapers, radio, cinema and television but also, now the social media, huge billboards and certain applications on our telephones – like ‘Waze’, for example, that contain advertisements (This is ‘advertissmunts’ and not ‘advertisemunts’).

Some years ago an urban legend (originated by ‘The Onion’, the Madison, Wisconsin, born satire newspaper that was a precursor to things like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”) says that a company who owned ‘Pepsi Cola’ that may well have been called ‘Pepsi Cola’ but is actually ‘PepsiCo’, decided to save oodles of cash for itself and its shareholders by not advertising.

The reasoning was that they were already well known enough and so paying huge sums to marketing people was pointless.

The result, so it was said, was that ‘Pepsi' lost out to ‘Coca Cola’ in the ‘Cola Wars’!

In 2011 ‘PepsiCo’ brought in 38% more revenue than ‘Coca Cola’ but ‘Coke’ sold $28 billion worth of fizzy drinks compared to ‘Pepsi’s’ $12 billion. This happened because ‘PepsiCo' diversified its business and increasingly relies upon its other brands like Quaker, Frito’s, Tropicana, etc., but we have not yet finished with the idea of advertising being a culprit!

A culprit?

Yes. Guilty of clogging up our lives with useless disinformation.

Advertising is marketing in extremis. They tell you everything they want you to know about their product. But not everything about their product.

Let me explain that.

When you seek to buy a new car you will pick up glossy brochures from the various agencies that explain to you what a wondrous vehicle their's is.

It will tell you in great detail about the performance, the comfort and the versatility, no doubt, of that particular vehicle. What they do not tell you is that this car’s exhaust will drop off in thirteen months (one month after the lapse of the guarantee) and that the gearbox will collapse into a mangled heap after two years.

The glossy brochure that, like your resume, tells us all about the good points but carefully omits the bad points.

There are other ‘confidence boosters’ at work. Have you noticed that the person who tells you that a certain toothpaste is the very best for your teeth is wearing a white coat? That person is an expert, obviously. He is a highly qualified medical scientist whose word is to be immediately trusted; whereas, in fact, he is an actor and knows little about toothpaste other than how to apply it to his own teeth!

We have suicidal berries whose sole purpose in life is to leap joyously into a crusher for your delectation.

We have cans of sundry crisps and snacks playing football.

We have a gentleman appear with a can of coffee to repair a bout of disharmony in a relationship – I ‘Wonda’ who that could be?

For the most part I have no problems with the actors taking part. They, too, have to earn a crust. But I doubt that they would wish to see themselves disporting sweaty armpits on a seventy-two inch flat-screen TV however well they portray it!

During the World Cup 2018, which I have mentioned previously, there were averts for ‘Coca Cola’ (yes, back to that again!) that urged you to buy the limited edition cans of their drink.

Who on Earth collect cans of ‘Coca Cola’? For what?

There was no mention of the beneficial effect(s) of ‘Coca Cola’. No mention of the taste. No mention of the vast amount of sugar in each can. No mention of the high acidic levels of the drink. Just “grab these limited edition cans while they are available”! Followed by people pretending to actually drink it with smiles on their faces because they will get paid, hopefully, for this effort.

The adverts that appear on social media are, apparently, aimed at you specifically. They are oriented to you by your choices that you make on the Internet and the subjects that you have chosen to share with your ‘friends’.

How many people buy the product or service that is proffered?

Clearly somebody does or the practice of pushing it into your face would be discontinued.

Advertisements do not always work.

On the North-South Expressway before the recent election there were, at great expense, photographs of a smarmy individual peering down at the passers by with an instruction to vote for his party. So much expense and yet it failed miserably.

Gone are the days when advertisements were clever and entertaining.

I am thinking here of the ‘PG Tips’ Chimpanzees as a prime example. An example: two Chimpanzees, one apparently male and one female judging by their clothes, collide on bicycles. They make up over a cup of ‘PG Tips’ during which the gentleman Chimp says to the lady Chimp, “Can you ride tandem?”

Cleverly done but hardly PC in these modern times. There would, I am sure, be an outcry of cruelty at ‘PG Tips’ employing Chimpanzees now.

‘Jaguar’ cars paid for a whole page of a newspaper. All that was written on that page were three words, ‘Grace’, ‘Space’, ‘Pace’. At the bottom, almost insignificantly, was the ‘Jaguar’ logo. Elegant. Smart.

‘Austin’ cars came out with a really clever by-line. You would not merely ‘buy’ an ‘Austin’; no. no! You were invited to ‘Invest in an Austin’! Brilliant.

Advertisements like that are now rarely seen. They are, for the most part, wherever they appear, bland and uninspiring.

Having a semi-clad young lady draped over a car does not make me want to buy it. It will make me look at the advertisement.

Seeing sporty cars tearing along dusty roads does not make me want to open my wallet – that would, in itself, be some trick!

I have yet to rush out to buy a drink that someone is consuming on the TV. Much less would I go and buy a computer or toothpaste because some ‘expert’ has advised me to do so.

Perhaps, just to please us, the consumers, we could go back to a time when adverts were clever and entertaining. If it is, as it seems, to be necessary to fill every niche of our lives with them at least put some effort into making them rather than just consuming space.

We, the people, are irritated. We are irritated at the necessity to be deluged in gross consumerism; we are vexed at the bland mindlessness of the offering; we are frustrated at the need to tell us about every product known to man at every opportunity.

Give it – and us, a break. At least make the product or service worthwhile and not just some ‘clickbait’ on our computers.

In the meantime I shall just live with my tinnitus by drowning it in ‘Pepsi Cola’!