Advertising is unavoidable. Anything you can think of, there is a way a company can slap an advertisement on – billboards, taxies, buses, films, shows, books, magazines – they’re everywhere. Adverts trigger consumers desires and responses and hope to manipulate their emotions enough to feed into what they are displaying.
Banksy’s letter ‘The Advertisers’ would likely be the first thing to spring to mind when thinking of protests against advertisings indoctrinating effect against us – and rightfully so. What he says is nothing but true. Advertising companies are completely taking the piss out of you day in and day out, so why shouldn’t we respond with intolerance? Why shouldn’t we mock them?
Our public spaces are consumed by advertising, but now there isn’t even an escape in private. There is targeted advertising that follows our algorithm through different social media apps and the things we watch that pay attention to what we’re consuming and interested in, then come back for more. We are targeted based on the things that we say and the things we look up, and it seems like there is no escape from advertisement after advertisement. Sometimes, granted, this could be useful when it comes to things that we need or have trouble looking for, but when it’s unescapable there lies a real problem.
We have become slaves to branded culture and build our identities around it. Putting a label or a logo onto something – does that make us more inclined to buy it? The short answer – yes. The longer answer though, advertisements make us feel inadequate and like we need to buy their products in order to give ourselves value to other people and enhance their opinions of us. This is what advertising wants, it wants to belittle us into buying their products no matter how you look at it. The only goal that companies have in the end is profit, and the way this affects you doesn’t matter to them unless that effect is you pulling out your credit card. As a result, the prices increase, the places where advertising can be seen increases, and invades your environment no matter where you are – not even in privacy is there a solace.
In the modern world, art is a way that people can express themselves and share their feelings with the world – it is something important that should be preserved. However, with anything that is meaningful, there is room for it to be capitalised on. Anything we enjoy, especially if it goes in the direction of popularity and gains traction, will be turned into a way for someone to make money. The psychological effects of advertising will eventually be irreversible – they are making us view everything the same and now when we hear or see an advertisement our reaction is likely just frustration and not even taking the time to listen to what the advertisement has to say or take it seriously.
The ubiquity of advertising means that we can’t go anywhere without having something shoved in our face telling us not even to think, just to reach for our purses and spend our hard-earned money on whatever they’re distributing just in an attempt to pocket some of the cash themselves. It means people become greedy and we can’t live orderly.
Below is a short film relating to this topic.
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