Are they in your head, too?

[cheezMcNASTY]

I've always been fascinated by advertisements.

They do anything in their power to stand out from other advertisements, and no matter how much you try to shut them out, statistics say they are wildly effective and so they keep being made.

In one of my fall 2010 classes, we pulled out a magazine and the first 10-15 pages were all ads. The fact that they are effective even if you only glimpse them for a second blows my mind.

How affected by advertisements do you think you are in your daily life?

 

[Ebony]

I try not to get sucked in, but they are everywhere - all the time. You don't even notice your getting something rammed down your throat. TV ads are really crap recently - low budget websites showing ****e - 'we buy any car .com' is the most horrific ad I've ever seen, however I now know about it and the website - so it worked. >_< As for magazines to be honest I'm so impatient if I'm reading a mag, I don't even glance at the ads.

.....I now have the annoying 'we buy any car.com' in my head! Nooooooooo

 

[Vergil'sBitch]

.....I now have the annoying 'we buy any car.com' in my head! Nooooooooo

*cries* make it stop... it's so annoying

 

[Ebony]

......the more annoying it is the more you remember it. Sad, but true.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

someone on another site i was discussing this on said that the more impervious you think you are, the more effective it is. not to mention that glimpsing it for only a second (in the case of print ads) means that it's done some work. not to mention that no matter what shows you love to watch, they are only paid for and broadcast so that the advertisements will reach your home.

even if you choose to pirate everything, those websites have ads too. sometimes i wonder if i'm still capable of picking out a new car or a pair of jeans without drawing on some advertisement i saw at one point even if i can't remember it. it's easy to get paranoid thinking that way, but i don't think any amount of thought will get me to say "no, never" regardless of what it is i'm buying.

 

[aka958]

What's so bad about advertisements? .-.

I see them, I don't care.
When I need something, I know what to look for. <.<

 

[Darth Angelo]

When I was young I used to sometimes enjoy adverts more than the show I was watching and used to find it really facinating watching old VHS tapes which had old adverts from like the mid 80's in them. I will always remember enjoying these old Nationwide ones with a catchy song similar to this but I think it was an older one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq053_G_ZaI

But if we are talking about having a long term effect I must mention 2 ads that I will never forget because they scarred me so deep as a boy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdVs64jqE_U <I remember clear as day sitting with my mum clutching onto her as hard as hard as I could in absolute terror. It still sends a chill down me (even though in hindsight it's terrible acting)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ma_Xv7rGM < for years I couldn't listen to that song without putting my fingers in my ears and running away. My older brother used to torment me by singing it then making a crashing noise suddenly >_< oh god it's all coming back! lol

 

[Rodin]

I ain't hearing voices, I grew in a place where owning some brand new product didn't mean anything. The most important thing were personal values. I find it sad, how many humans have given up to their own values and replaced them with some objects they find valuable.

I appreciate arts, such as music, books, drawings, comics and games. Although the society finds itself in a point where personal values won't matter anymore, and the only way to actually "taste them" is whenever you are involved with those arts. Whether you're an intellectual or not, you must always follow something that may grow something within you, something that isn't of value, because it's value is endless henceforth you won't comprehend what value is anymore, you will count things whenever you believe into something to go on.

I think it's pretty much deep for such a place, and with all of you around here, I don't think you will be any good as my usual costumers around here. They always talk about their shady business and all that, the truth is that they followed this wrenched path because they found themselves in such position by a broken system which runs within the human world, which neglects it's origins.

What happens in the future? That's what someone will wonder. Will I make it to the next month? Will I buy the car I want? Will I buy <useless thing>? What has the society come into? Well, I can't complain, that brings the food on my table, I'm no dishonest person, you know that's unheard of.

Think about where the world is going; a world which is ruled by merely sciences and technology, a world which knows no ancestral knowledge which has been passed from century to century from elders of various races and civilizations, think about other worlds besides the one humans can see. Those worlds exist and are invisible to human eyes, lie forgotten. Think if in the future some kind of force is gathering out there and then when such force will attack humanity, how humanity will fight something that it barely understands?

Now, I have to serve some drinks. I hope you enjoyed my writing.

 

[Dante'sgirl]

Allow me to tell you a true story where the main characters are advertisements and me.
For some reasons advertisements never really affected me so much so that they will stay in my head.
I found them pretty entertaining when I was young because I enjoyed looking at them...I was weird!
Ads do not really affect me...No matter how much the're going to publish in a magazine, how much there are online and even on TV...It never stays on my mind or this is what I believed.
However, I asked my psychologist why I am so immune to ads and she said it is because I am a pessimistic person and it can be hard to plant something in my mind but the ads are lurking somewhere in my sub conscience and I am dependent on them.
Shocked, I said that I have never been tormented by an advertisement,never.
My Psychologist simply replied "Check out you clothes, Nikky...You're wearing a Cardigan, skinnies and Converse. Why?" Me: "they're trendy stuff!" Psy: "Who told you they were trendy?"
That day I discovered that I was dressed according to what I saw in those ads and wondered what I have unknowingly done because of advertisements.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

To be quite honest I only really pay attention to them when they 'speak' to me.
This one, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQh1D-9p7Ng
That guy is creepier than a clown, imo.
They have another ad with two teenagers leaving a party, both pretty wasted, and they veer off the road and end up upside down in a ditch. What made it stand out was that the passenger died and he'd ended up in such a position that he was staring straight at the driver. And the driver was pretty much stuck so he couldn't get out or get away. Effective sh!t if you ask me.

And another one is an ad for Tim-Tams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTFrwnL5eA
Albeit I didn't end up wanting Tim-Tams. I want the genie!!!!!!!!!!

 

[V]

I rarely pay attention to them, unless they are advertising something I have already thought about and want kind of specifically. I don't have money to throw around so I am currently subconsciously subdued about spending I think... I see something in a window and I look, maybe... but that's all. I don't look and feel pulled in very often by anything. In fact, the main things I buy are food, books and art materials. Most of which relate directly to my profession and autodidactism. I am hardly ever tempted by adverts that advertise other things, and those ones that seem too good to be true? They are.

I don't watch television (at all) and I only visit specific places on the net by habit... if adverts pop up on there they are irritating rather than tempting. I really get bugged when I'm looking for something specific on YouTube and I'm forced to watch 30 second adverts at the start each time. My mind sees them, acknowledges them and dispenses of them literally in a moment in most cases. So I don't think I'm very affected at all by advertisement, although in my profession I'm aware of advertising and marketing strategies as well, some of which is achieved best by some pretty sly or simple psychological tricks. One of the most obvious (and annoying) is to make up some lyrics about the thing you advertise and then put it into a song and play it several times. After watching several redlettermedia reviews I know know enough of that horrible UPS advert song to remember UPS, although I will NOT use UPS because they have a reputation for breaking things. So while they might try to brainwash me, I'm a little more savvy than that and accepting their promises at face value. I treat most advertisements this way - by nature I don't trust off the bat, I know they are selling something and no matter how many people are grinning and smiling and how many happy fantasy families they stick in their adverts that the reality is bound to be far less exciting/impressive/reliable/wonderful. Same with anything else - house lettings, holidays, cars... they advertise by making something look so incredible when anyone with half a brain knows it's just not that ****ing amazing. Have you seen those Chinese adverts on Engrish? Even worse. Like a box of tea bags has unabashed slogans on it of how you just can't live without drinking this tea because it's so amazing - it'll give you a new perspective on life or something. It's tea, for crying out loud.

But - advertising does work on a lot of people or they wouldn't spend money doing it.

If you're interested in how companies have tapped into people's unconscious desires to get them to buy things or do things (and just how sly and prevalent and vital it really is in Western society) I totally recommend the multi-part documentary called "Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis. You can also just find it up on Youtube. You will be amazed and probably a bit spooked, I guarantee.

"This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the 'dangerous crowd' in an age of mass democracy. At the heart of the story is not just Sigmund Freud, but other members of the Freud family. This first episode is about Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays is almost completely unknown today, but his influence on the 20th Century was nearly as great as his uncle's; because Bernays was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings, and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations for the first time how they could make people want things they didn't need, by linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people's inner selfish desires, one makes them 'happy' and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming 'Self' which has come to dominate our world today."

Seriously, watch it all.

...And then see if you can ever look at advertising, today's politics and politicians the same way again.

 

[V]

I also recommend "The Power of Nightmares" and "The Trap", two other excellent documentaries by Adam Curtis if you have time.

The Power of Nightmares talks about how our current political parties and systems always seem to need to have something to frighten their populace with, something to make them feel threatened from outside with, whether it was Commies in the past or Extreme Islamism today, which gives them excuses to invoke all sorts of laws and counter-freedoms on us, and strengthens the government's dominant position. It also talks about WHY Extreme Islamism's relationship with the West is now the way it is, which I think everyone should be aware of, because a shocking number of people think the West is absolutely benign and blameless and there is no real reason for terrorism against us, but there are actually compelling reasons behind it if you delve in deeper to examine the motives of all involved.

And The Trap talks about how what we call 'freedom' is a very narrow and strange kind of freedom that hardly equates with the original meaning of the word, but that is now being touted about and actively 'spread' by the West in their interest.

Everyone should watch these documentaries in school, or they should be essential watching, if for no reason than to introduce a broader perspective on what has become very much 'lost in translation'... and become invisible, almost irresistible forces within our society and affects every one of us and our quality of life.

 

[Mr Anderson]

I hate most advertisements some are just the right amount cheesy and/or funny that I like them but most are just plain stupid