this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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Anyone from Canada in the late 90s/early 00s might remember that Canadian Tire guy. His character was kinda a personified commercial, he was just so enthusiastic about the Canadian Tire product that could help this common problem that it was off putting. Even though those windshield wipers that were one curved piece that would conform to the shape of your windshield looked like exactly what I wanted, I didn't step foot in a Canadian Tire until years after they got rid of him.
That's the one kind of advertisement I think is acceptable. "Here's a product you probably didn't know existed." That's actually informative. Be straight up with me, you have products I might need, tell me what they are and we're done.
The ones that are sneakily trying to make it so I trust a brand with music and high production values are the ones that are disturbing to me. I feel like most companies make both shit products and some good products too. These corporations are massive so it's not like it's just one extremely qualified team of people making all of their products. Different divisions different quality of products, so the brand is meaningless. But somehow branding is the big focus of marketing now and it's all a meaningless waste of time.
Yeah, those ads that feel meaningful but really aren't.
Though the worst ones are the ones that use emotional manipulation, like making parents think a new minivan or a can of ground coffee will bring their family back together. I think the "play cool music with extreme visuals to make teenagers think we're cool" also qualifies for emotional manipulation, though it feels a bit less sinister. But the more I think about it, the less I feel like it is more sinister, since they are all preying on complex desires that they imply they will help with but can't really deliver on.
It's bit more sinister when you consider that they're emotionally manipulating children to buy their products. And they do this knowing that all they need to do is maintain branding to keep that teenager buying that product into adulthood, potentially for the rest of their lives. It's a get 'em while they're young and impressionable kind of approach.
It's all really fucked up when you think about it.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at with the last bit: both are sinister, just one is more obvious than the other.