Advertising tells you every day that you're too old, too poor, too unfashionable. Why? Because unhappiness sells. In this video, I explain how advertising is deliberately designed to make you feel inadequate—so you buy things you don't need, often with money you don't have. It's not about informing you. It's about controlling you. So, what can we do about it?
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Advertising is intended to make you unhappy.
That is the one absolute certainty about every single product advert that is ever put out by anyone.
What they're trying to tell you in every single case is that your life is inadequate.
Of course, what they're also trying to tell you is that if only you had their product, suddenly you would be amazing. Your life would be fulfilled. You would be happy. You would now be rich enough to face the world, or you'd be thin enough to feel great about yourself, or your hair would suddenly cease to be grey and you'd look young and virile again - adverts obviously targeted at me. And whatever else that they might be trying to promote, the message is the same. You are a failure without their product.
They sell you goods on the basis of the creation of self-doubt.
They're telling you, you're too old, you're too poor, you're too unfashionable. Your stuff is out of date. Your body is the wrong shape. You are falling behind the 'in crowd', and their product is the only way to seek salvation from all these crises that you are apparently facing, but which you weren't aware of until you saw this advert.
And the message is bombarded at you all the time. Every day, you will see thousands of these messages. Is it any surprise that this constant exposure to messages saying that we are worthless has a consequence? Mental Ill health is growing in this world and a great deal of it is I suspect, manufactured by these messages of inadequacy that the advertising industry is sending out all the time.
It is also trying to destroy our confidence. No wonder people are living with anxiety. They are delivering austerity for the soul dressed in luxury packaging.
Now, the fact is that the vast majority of the messages inside these adverts is not just harmful. They're also untrue.
They are promoting the idea that perfectly usable things should be thrown away, at cost to our environment.
They're creating the idea that there is social shame where there needn't be any.
And they are creating the idea that identity must be monetised and not expressed. We are taught to consume and not to be.
And I think every one of those ideas is really dangerous, particularly when they're coupled with something else, which is the debt trap that advertisers want to create.
A very large number of companies who are heavily involved in advertising consumer products are also promoting financial services products.
Nothing makes this more obvious than cars. Every single time you look at an advert for a car, there will be the small print about the lease deal or the finance deal, or whatever else it might be.
The fact is that most advertising wins in two ways.
Firstly. It sells you a product that you may not want or need, and about which you might have great remorse once you've bought it.
And secondly, it guarantees that you are kept in debt as a consequence because you won't be able to afford to buy it. And they will, as a result, offer you a credit facility, a payday loan, a buy now, pay later deal, or whatever else it might be that means that they get their sale, and you are hooked up to a debt burden for some time to come. In fact, what they're selling you is happiness delaye,d and it may never come.
So we need to ask questions about how we can resist this if we are to be happy.
You can drive a 13-year-old car. They work. I've got one. There is no problem with it, because it still gets me from A to B perfectly well and doesn't cost a fortune to run. In other words, all that consumer advertising thrown at me to persuade me that I've got to buy the latest limousine is wasted because I know I don't need to replace this one until it's run out of road, quite literally. And that is the greenest thing I can do with it.
I wear black polo shirts every day when you see me on this channel, and it's deliberate. They're basic, they're simple, and the lack of variety is deliberate. I don't have to make a choice before I sit in front of this camera, and not making a choice makes my life easier. Advertising tries to make your life more complicated, and that's an act of resistance in its own right. I'm not.
And quite a lot of my other possessions are quite old, including a fair number of those books that are sitting behind me. Some of those date from the 1970s, but they're still more than good enough.
In other words, what I'm saying is if you decide to do so, you can opt out of the madness that the advertising world wants to create for you. You don't need to buy a new phone every time one is advertised, because, let's be candid about this, you didn't use 90% of the facilities on the last one. The new model is just about making a sales pitch, but it's not about meeting a need, and in particular, it's very unlikely to meet a need that you had. That's one of the lessons you learn when you spend a lot of time with technology, as we now invariably have to.
Function matters more than fashion is my point. Just look at what you really need, not what the fashion of the day says you need.
And fashion in particular is a good example of this, because fashion is supposedly you 'keeping in', but in fact, fashion strips you of your personality and does not let you express your personality. It's all about being uniform instead of standing out from the crowd.
You are not the problem. The ad most definitely is in the case of those types of products, where you are being encouraged to be 'normal'.
So you don't need to be compliant. You can not conform.
And what advertising never says is that old things can work, and that debt can be misery, and that difference is beautiful, and that happiness can't be bought.
You have a right to be happy.
You have a right to be different.
You have a right to live without shame.
And advertisers hate the fact that you might know that because they lose money when you feel good.
And that's the point I'm trying to make.
Advertisers try to make you unhappy.
You have the right to ignore them and to make your own choices and to say, "I'll live the way I want, not the way that you dictate."
Having said all that, I'm really interested to know what you think.
Is advertising harmful?
Does it negatively impact on your life?
Or do you think it's useful because it tells you what's available in the marketplace?
We've put a poll down below. Let me know. Fill in the poll. Let us have your comments. We do read them even if we don't answer most because there are just too many to make that possible.
And, thank you.
Poll
What do you think about advertising?
- Both of the above (77%, 281 Votes)
- Advertising is harmful (11%, 42 Votes)
- Advertising is meant to control us and drive us into debt (8%, 29 Votes)
- I think advertising is really useful (4%, 14 Votes)
Total Voters: 366
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This verse from It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding):
Advertising signs that con you into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on all around you.
‘Bent out of shape by societies pliers’ indeed.
“Advertising is legalised lying” – H.G.Wells
Advertising is dishonest. The advertising on day time TV is unbelievable.
The advertising of legal services is ambulance chasing and that for betting platforms is unforgivable – its an addiction for some – and should not be allowed.
Agreed
Edit this if you wish Richard.
http://www.merryhell.co.uk/video-loving-the-skin-youre-in.html
Bad media’s been feeding ya, a great big pack of lies,
Getting away with murder, killing the spirit inside.
Too big, too small, not beautiful, too old, too fat, too thin,
Well come just as you are tonight, loving the skin you’re in.
From the bottom to the top, be yourself no matter what,
Your identity keep clear, stick to all that you hold dear,
Let loose tonight, the precious child within,
Loving the skin you’re in.
They sold you down the river, in the doldrums now you dwell,
Misty-eyed illusions you held together well.
Too posh, too rough, not cool enough and your hair is wearing thin,
Well come just as you are tonight,
Loving the skin you’re in.
From the bottom to the top, be yourself until you drop,
Your identity keep clear, stick to all that you hold dear,
Let loose tonight, the precious child within,
Loving the skin you’re in.
Your fingerprint encryption code is written in your hand,
Come just as you are tonight, every women, every man.
From the bottom to the top, be yourself don’t ever stop,
Your identity keep clear, stick to all that you hold dear,
From the bottom to the top, be yourself no matter what,
You’re fantastically unique, find your voice and let it speak,
Cut loose tonight, the wild child within,
Loving the skin you’re in.
Words and Music by Virginia Kettle
Appreciated
Or be content and live within your means. To quote Bill Hicks ‘By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing…k*ll yourself. It’s just a little thought; I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they’ll take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can…
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too: “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market. He’s very smart.”
Oh man, I am not doing that, you f*cking, evil scumbags!’
What amused me was when I got some ads appearing on National Preservation, a forum I am on for
Red Diesel
Dating Ukrainian women
Care Homes
I have no use for red diesel – we did have diesel cars at the time but it would be illegal & I would have to store it and if they thought I needed a care home I would not be up to dating…………
I am too old (85), I am too poor, I am unfashionable. My stuff is out of date. My body is the wrong shape. And yet I am happy overall.
Could I have made it when I and my husband had a young family? Poor, yes; worried all the time about money. And all the rest followed. Daughters in (really good) castoffs from their cousins. TV given us by a pensioner upgrading to colour. And so on. It was certainly more difficult then to stay balanced, but most of my friends were in much the same boat and we could share economies.
Not directly relevant; I am so angry with Microsoft because I have had to get a new computer for Win11. I acquired my old one in 2014, but it did all I wanted it to do. Now I have to work out how to adapt my older programs (database, filing photos on hard drive with permanent captions). And enormously environmentally wasteful.
Linda,
It is possible to use your old computer hardware safely even if it is very old by switching to Linux, an operating system developed by a cooperative of open source software enthusiasts.
Debian in particular is explicitly aimed at being a “universal operating system”, one that anybody can use at no (monetary) cost, and one that is controlled and used by the developers, thus ensuring it’s systemic benevolence.
https://www.debian.org/
I am still using a windows 10 laptop. I did have to get Computer Geeks to remove Windows 11 (which crashed it) but the computer works OK and even runs web mail and security OK. All right to took 6 weeks to get Bank Of Ireland on line payment to work on it.
I used to wind up the salesman at my Kia dealer ‘the worse car you ever sold’ ‘why’ ‘well you sold it to me 14 years ago and its still going’
Sadly all good things have now come to an end and we finally bought another off him but here’s to another decade or so with another car!
🙂
My current bike has 113,000 miles on it. We don’t even think about changing them until 150,000 or so and I’ve known others take their bikes past the quarter million mile mark without major problems. The weird thing is how the second-hand bike market treats anything with over 10,000 miles as “high mileage”, which might be fair for BMWs, Ducatis & Triumphs, but Japanese bikes will easily go into six figures.
Of course the current market is obsessed with Personal Contract Purchases, whereby the rider gets a new bike for three years then swaps it for another, just paying the interest on the loan in the meantime. It seems magical because riders can get very expensive new bikes for a low monthly outlay but it is an absolute disaster in environmental terms because it encourages overproduction.
Agreed re that finance.
An article that got me thinking a little bit. I must admit that I just ignore big ticket adverts, along with all financial adverts. I find book recommendations useful whether they be from Amazon or LRB. I also find public information adverts useful , for example the flu vaccine adverts prompt me to go and get my shot. However as I get older I find myself turning into dad. Saying things like I don’t need that , I’ll make do with this . That will last a few years yet. I don’t like to be parted from my cash . I realised yesterday that it was cheaper , for two, to get a Uber locally instead of the bus!
What? With capped fares?
Yes with capped fares. £2.50 each on the bus with all the noise or £3.98 in a Uber with non. That was for a 1.5 mile trip . I would have walked but all the public WCs have closed.
But what we have is two kinds of advertising – small businesses providing local services often need to advertise and consumers need to find out what’s available. Then there’s the marketing con where big companies aren’t actually advertising but trying to get their product noticed. Most TV ‘advertising’ falls into this category; products that you didn’t know you wanted, usually made from plastic and disposable.
Just a slight tangent – the government has decided to make social media adverts for small boat crossings illegal. Seriously. As though they are targeting people in Britain, being made and placed by people in Britain. No doubt there is a British element in play but people smugglers are not stupid even if Yvette and Kier think they are.
This really smacks of “We need to do something. This is something!”
Accepted.
Small ads are fine.
And a man comes on the radio
Telling me how white my shirts should be
And he can’t be a man cos he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me
I can’t get no satisfaction
Copyright Rolling Stones. Apt 50 years ago. Even more so now.
The general point is well made. The gambling / betting industry is a prime example – particularly as it feeds on – although not exclusively – the more vulnerable in society. Advertising for the gambling / betting industry should be banned. Indeed, online gambling should be banned. Why is it not? Makes so much money / profits for the owners / governments.
I would ban all adverts for addictive products.
Including all ultra processed foods.
Supply-side economics was built solely on free advertising (supported by guff like the Laffer Curve*).
*Laffer gave the game away, when questioned by Senator Packwood in a Congressional hearing on the proposed Kemp-Roth tax cut (Reagan, 1981). That was over forty years ago, and we are still listening to the anti-scientific guff of the Laffable supply-siders. Here is the meat of the dud economics, without anyone requiring an economist to obscure the blunt facts, when Packwood asked the critical question about determining the peak of the Curve:
“SENATOR PACKWOOD: Now, let’s go back to finding this optimum again,
because obviously, if indeed you can define it and we can arrive at it …
MR. LAFFER: I cannot measure it frankly, but I can describe to you what
the characteristics of it are; yes, sir.”
No, he can’t measure it, because it isn’t science. It is story-telling for a mass, gullible public. “I can describe to you what the characteristics of it are”, or in plain language – advertising, without any science or evidence, beyond the anecdotalism of a mere economist, to be seen.
I debated Laffer at the oecd and won, easily, google it.
Yes, Richard – decisively, in 2018. Mirowski, a conventional enough economist took the Laffer curve apart in a paper as long ago as 1982 (‘What’s Wrong with the Laffer Curve’). The problem? Since Laffer is clearly a joke, can someone please tell me why the laughable Laffer friendly supply-siders are still running the show? Even when it is demonstrable that it is their theoretical mess that has brought us to the predicament we are in, and in over our heads. Mirowski pointed out in 1982 that the Laffer supporting supply-siders “must presume that a worsening of the distribution of income is conducive to macroeconomic expansion”.
And what do we find? the distribution of income in 2025 (45 years later) is far, far worse than Mirowski imagined; and we have still failed completely to produce the required, and predicted laffer macroeconomic expansion. And the supply-side Laffer answer to every failure? The Laffer prescriptions weren’t implemented, rigorously and laughably enough.
What makes all this absurd? There is about as much substantive evidence supplied in this one spontaneous comment, than is found in the whole Laffer economic edifice.
Thanks
Even if Laffer could find it the curve misses a fundamental point: tax is used to remove surplus money rather than generate “revenue”.
Framing is everything.
Correct
The curve can only drawn at all as a representation of any possible extant economy if there are points on the curve that represent tax at 0% in a posited real economy, the optimum (tax) point in that economy, and at the 100% tax point. The curve is supposed to describe the relationship between these three points, and all the intermediates. It doesn’t, and it can’t.
It may be possible to imagine a real 0% tax environment (at a stretch, and in extreme conditions), but there is no real 100% tax point; because 100% tax represents a non-economy (even in Laffer’s imagination). It cannot and doesn’t exist. The curve is drawn to meet a non-existent point. It doesn’t exist, but Laffer needs to pretend there is, or there is no curve. It is a pretence, made-up. There is no real curve. It really is as simple as that.
That means not only is there no 100% tax point, but there can be no real optimum point either. There is no Laffer curve that describes any real economic world. It is a pure fiction. The Laffer curve is a representation of Laffer’s inner fantasy. And that is not the end of the problems of the Laffable curve ……
Correct
Buying things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people that are not relevant to one’s wellbeing. It’s madness.
For a long time, I’ve been raising the issue of subliminal advertising being illegal in the UK since 1957.
While recovering from illness, I tuned into STV daytime quiz shows. Virtually every advert shown was for either cut price cremations, funeral plans, mobility aids etc.
So let’s roughly work it out. Three hours of daytime quiz shows five days a week equals eighteen hours.
This means your poor brain is being bombarded time after time with these depressing messages every fifteen minutes for that length of time. Sounds like mind control by subliminal means to me.
You would like to think that some intrepid lawyer somewhere would bring a test case.
Whilst I was ill (in hospital) for quite a few weeks – there was no TV. When I returned home and was convalescing, I had no TV. I still have no TV as I have no reception, but I do have a machine on which I can watch DVDs of my choice, and listen to CDs of my choice- no adverts – I listen to BBC Radio (mainly Radio 4 and the World Service) – no adverts. I pay to read online newspapers with no adverts. Life is easy!
🙂
You will like some photos I might post soon…
Not the same but similar effect. I live in Germany and even the hour ahead difference makes a difference and I don’t watch UK TV at all now. I do watch some German TV but not a lot as my German is still very poor. The point being – that watching Ads in a language you don’t understand shows you how naff and ridiculous they all are. French and Italian especially!
In the US of A they even advertise Antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs on TV. If Reform gets their way we will be watching more in 2029.
My related question is what do modern environmentalists actually want in general? Most of ones I know (many are friends) actually consume a great deal more than I do, and whenever I propose modest solutions of my own, their response is predictable.
Here is one challenge I sometimes like to set them. If you really wish to put a stop to overconsumption – as in principle I do too – then let’s begin with a straightforward ban on advertising, I will say. After all, the primary purpose of such ubiquitous mass psychological manipulation is in driving our desire to consume – and I don’t even bother mentioning the unseen role advertising plays both in weakening our personal sense of self and buttressing the extant free market system. There are a whole host of good reasons to place a widespread ban on advertising.
A ban could be rolled out in stages, and, as a first step I propose (maintaining the inherent modesty of my proposal and reminding them of the restrictions that already prohibit advertisements for cigarettes and other tobacco products) is simply to introduce new bans on commercials for SUVs or airlines or oil companies or something else that is considered especially polluting.
It’s then that the eye-rolling generally begins. Excuses are sought for why a ban of this kind would make no real difference and the conversation generally moves on. Thus, although, they say they dream of radically changing the world, my experience is that even such a simple and workable idea is likely to be rejected out of hand. This response is telling don’t you think?
The problem with such a proposal is how do you deal with the consequences, because they exist?
How do you manage the unemployment?
How do you manage the collapse of most of the media?
Your proposal is naive of you cannot answer that. I have, by the way, addressed some of these issues in my books.
I agree, no advertising would be of great benefit – as an environmentalist I would love that, I know many that would – but it needs a strategy.
So far environmentalists and also consumer organisations are tackling certain aspects – like pushing for banning adverts by major climate polluters, challenging greenwashing, setting up Buy Nothing Day instead of Black Friday, and more – there’s also Adbusters spoof ads https://www.adbusters.org/spoof-ads
The problem is that neoliberal capitalism is joined at the hip with advertising.
For now, we need to inoculate ourselves, by avoiding, turning them off, sound off, not taking any of the messages in. I was lucky, my Dad banned us from watching ITV etc. so I grew up without ads. We limited ads with our kids, but a lot harder these days.
And YouTube ads are the worst, more adverts every day, forcing people to pay for premium. And haven’t worked out how to block them on the TV, just keep refusing to watch them.
Advertising often tells you a story to get you hooked. Stories were once used for a nobler purpose. As it’s Sunday, here’s one for you.
The Parable of the Tokens and the Common Wealth
In a land surrounded by mountains, there was a village where the people lived by farming, building, and caring for one another. Long ago, the elders had created tokens of clay, marked with the seal of the village, to help the people trade fairly and work together.
One day, the people asked the elders, “Where do the tokens come from?”
And the elders said, “We make them. We issue them so that the village may have what it needs — food, shelter, learning, and care. If someone builds a bridge, or teaches a child, or heals the sick, we give them tokens in return.”
“But what of taxes?” the people asked.
The elders replied, “We collect some tokens back, not because we need them, but so that the tokens will be valued. We require a tax, and to pay it, the people must accept tokens in return for their labour. Thus the tokens circulate.”
“And where do the taxed tokens go?” someone asked.
“They are destroyed,” said the elders. “We break them and cast them into the fire. For they have served their purpose. They have drawn forth the work of the people, and now they return to dust.”
The people were astonished.
“But why not take back all the tokens?” asked a merchant.
“Because,” said the elders, “if we take back as many as we give, then no tokens remain among the people. They could not trade or save or build. So we leave more in your hands than we collect — not by accident, but by design.”
And so the people understood:
That spending comes first, for without tokens, no one can pay taxes.
That taxes give value, but do not fund the elders’ work.
That destroyed tokens do not limit what the village can do, for new tokens can always be made.
And that the surplus of tokens in the hands of the people is not a problem, but a blessing — so long as it does not grow too large and bring inflation.
Years passed, and the village prospered.
But one year, a fearful man cried out, “The elders spend too much! They will run out of tokens!”
The people grew anxious. They hoarded tokens and stopped working. The fields went untended, and the homes fell into disrepair.
Then an old woman rose and said, “You forget. The tokens are made by the elders. They cannot run out. But the true wealth of the village is not in tokens. It is in our time, our hands, and our care for one another.”
The people remembered her words, and once again the tokens flowed, not too many and not too few. The village flourished, not because it was rich in tokens, but because it understood what tokens were for.
I like it.
Can that go on the blog?
Yes.
Thanks
Maybe just don’t tell my priest. He might give me an old-fashioned look for this!
🙂
That is brilliant. PLease let it go on the blog, then I can share it (with due attribution).
If the people just worked together to ensure everybody had what they needed then tokens would be superfluous.
Money is only needed for those who wish to accumulate other people’s wealth.
But they won’t because they don’t know, hence the need for tokens. You are making a false assumption of homogeneity.
[Replying to myself ‘cos I can’t reply directly]
Richard,
Money is a tool of the state: first enclosure is used to turf the peasants off their land then taxes are applied to force the peasants to work on their land, thus forcing them to adopt the monetary system.
The peasant’s in Cliff’s village only think they “need” tokens because they think there is no alternative 🙂
Shall we live in the real world? I think it helps.
Real-life example. When I had small children, 1970’s, I was part of a baby-sitting circle. The organiser, Ruth, a Quaker, issued all initial members with 10 tickets, each for 1 hours babysitting with whichever other member was willing. More members, she issued more tickets. Quite soon, Ruth suggested, and all agreed, that we would donate 1 ticket each every month to help single parents also have access to baby-sitting. All seemed to go well. But, alas, in the background we had more and more single parents who needed support, so Ruth simply issued them with more tickets. Until her husband noticed –“You’re devaluing the currency”!. And gradually the group faded away, as our children grew past the need for babysitters.
You’ve brought up a very salient point here, Richard, as you have a tendency to do. Honesty and truth in one area tends to make us honest about other things too.
Many of us have no option but to ‘make do and mend’ anyway and me and the missus will buy a very cheap but decent 2nd hand car when we can, between £500 to about £1000. That’s the most we can afford. By Northern standards we do ok at best but we have few luxuries. I consider olive oil at over £6 a bottle in Aldi as a luxury now, though both me and the wife love to cook. In Tesco or Asda the olive oil is pushing £10 a bottle! Where the f*ck did these price rises come from?? We went to a food bank for over a year because we were really struggling financially and because they made a small charge we didn’t feel like beggars, which helped.
As poor people, we are relatively lucky but also quite savvy. We don’t buy into the expensive clothes and shoes racket or anything because we simply can’t afford to but even if we could we wouldn’t anyway. I’m not rich so why should I pretend to be rich?
We are hampered by my long term ill health, an eyewateringly expensive spousal visa (£10 grand in total!) a punitive bedroom tax, them taking half my UC off because my wife works and so no matter what we do, with the best will in the world, we can’t move on and move upwards even gently, we are kept in financial struggle of one kind or other. Naturally, I am very angry about this. I don’t blame immigrants on boats, I blame the wealthy and the politicians and the msm for distraction and punching down at everyone else. I don’t believe many of us are gulled anymore. I stand with the poor, the broken, the marginalised and the disabled because one short step off all of that myself. But I am not a lone warrior anymore.
I suggested a grassroots social charter, a kind of regular person’s magna carta, one that is democratic and answers the basic needs of the poorest because if we look after the poorest we look after everyone else too ultimately. If that means a few thousands of people paying more tax and so on, it’s a price worth paying. But our endeavours must start with compassion for the less fortunate.
Yoy are right – that you are not allowed to move on is the choice of the rich. They want life to be this way for you and millions.
The question is, how to change thaT?
Timbo, Just to answer one point. I had an idea price of olive oil rising had a ‘real’ cause so took a quick look.
Seems to be poor harvests. There is hope for recovery. Let us keep checking the prices. There are links to several articles on this website on the same issue – maybe start here? https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/07/22/olive-oil-bounces-back-following-drought-and-disease/
The absence of commercial advertising, not including political posters, was quite refreshing when visiting Russia in the 1980s. I am sure it’s very different nowadays, I haven’t been since. It made me aware of how much advertising is part of the accepted scene here in public places and of course on our screens, and how much we subliminally absorb.
Re driving your 13 year old car until its end of life – “And that is the greenest thing I can do with it”. Correct. I do wish those that trade in their old diesels and petrol cars for an EV or whatever, understood that if someone else is still driving it around, it doesn’t help!
Precisely.
I have done a lot of work on accounting for embedded carbon with colleagues at Copenhagen Business School.
Living in Ireland, my Skoda pickup is now 28 years old and has failed it NCT, it might be repairable but I can not be with out transport. I have just spent 4 weeks assembling an electric tricycle, which will be enough to get to the shops, some 4m away. It will also get me to the local station to make use of my free travel card.
I detest advertising. I don’t watch a lot of TV, and I NEVER watch anything live. I record everything on a PVR, including the few BBC programmes that I watch, so that I can (a) fast-forward through the ads and any punditry, and (b) watch what I want when I want, i.e. when it suits me. I rarely listen to radio broadcasts, usually Classic FM when I’m in the car, and I ALWAYS turn down the sound, when the adverts are broadcast. In addition, I stopped reading newspapers, magazines, etc, over 30 years ago, and I rely on independent (left-leaning) on-line media sources, such as Richard Murphy, to learn more about what’s really happening around the world. I rarely see any online ads because I use free-of-charge ad-blockers; the few that get through the net, I simply ignore. Advertising is one of the main causes of consumerism, where gullible people are persuaded to buy stuff that they don’t really need and often, can’t afford. I detest advertising and the greedy rich who benefit from advertising, none of whom give a damn about the financial problems that advertising costs ordinary people
Mostly advertising is bad for the reasons given. But there is also useful advertising. Public health messages are. an example. Publicity about events one might want to attend such as free concerts in your local park. These kinds of adverts are not driven by the need to create financial or other forms of dependency in potential clients. We need more of these kinds of adverts .
I think the video was entirely clear what it was targeting.
But I should add, most public health announcements are now usually profoundly wrong, serve big business and are usually harmful.
it’s consumerism and many governments think it’s the answer to everything, that and starting conflicts to justify the consumerism of weapons. Whilst aspiration is a good thing, i genuinely like the idea of people only buying the things they really need, of course when all these companies start going kaput, it would be our fault for not being prepared to take on more personal debt!
“That is the one absolute certainty about every single product advert that is ever put out by anyone. What they’re trying to tell you in every single case is that your life is inadequate.”
Is there anything you’ve ever written that is actually a somewhat balanced piece, rather than this absolute nonsense that suggests there is only black or white and nothing in between?
You do the same about left and right and the rich and poor – everything you write tries to pretend that everything is totally polarised and conveniently, anyone that doesn’t share your opinions on any subject must have bad intentions.
It’s truly pathetic.
You came here to abuse.
Who gave you the right to do that?
Why do you think you have that right?
How do you expect the world to react to your abuse?
Why do you do it?
Do you really think you achieve anything by doing it?
[…] By Cliff […]