Wishful thinking in advertising
Every so often, the TV is on and I find that we're watching a commercial. We don't watch TV all that much and even then, we watch very little over the air TV, mostly just for local news. The thought of watching a sitcom or television drama during the day is just short of nauseating. And so most of the time, if the TV is on and the signal is over the air, we're watching PBS for the kids programming. It just so happens that we have one public television station that airs kids programming 24/7. All kids, all the time.
We do watch the news now and again, but I only check the local news when there are severe weather warnings on my phone. The local weather report has a bit more accuracy than my app can provide and gives me more information than I can get from my phone alone. Well, if the news is on, I wince every time my kids are in front of the TV and a commercial comes on. My kids are young and impressionable. They are easily taken by the magical thinking of commercials. The thing that bugs me the most about commercials is the magical thinking they present.
My favorite example of magical thinking in commercials is that Charmin toilet paper commercial with those ridiculous bears. Yes, I remembered the name of the product and that says that the advertisers did a good job of getting their impression in my head. That effort was stopped short of my decision to purchase their product. I say that the bears are ridiculous because they answer a question someone once posed to me as a joke, "Does a bear poop in the woods?" Even with their unqualified enthusiasm for toilet paper, it is clear that the commercial is making an indirect reference to that joke for the adults. The bears are for the kids so as to encourage them to ask their parents for that brand of toilet paper.
That line of thinking, that bears could even like toilet paper, requires us to suspend our disbelief and then to make a decision to buy a product based on an endorsement from an animated character on TV. From Trix and Froot Loops cereal, to the Der Wienerschnitzel hot dog running for his life, kids and adults alike are encouraged to accept the endorsements of animated characters as rational.
What concerns me the most about advertising besides the magical thinking is the implied assertion of the ad, "You need this. Get this and your life will be better." Another assertion I see implied in commercials is, "You will have more control over your life with this product."
On the first count, whenever I see anything advertised on TV I make an immediate assumption out of habit. I assume that if it's being advertised, I don't really need it. It's my own sort of programming to ensure that whatever suggestion comes up in my head is met with an immediate request for justification. And that justification had better be good, or I will dismiss it. I mean, my life was OK before I saw the commercial. How does adding one more possession to my personal menagerie of possessions make my life any better?
On the second count, I'm already aware that I have so little control over my life, that if I considered everything that I don't have control over, I'd never get out of bed. So I accept that I am just a buzzing cloud of elementary particles that no one has ever seen directly, and that those particles are governed by a set of rules that are more concerned with probability than certainty. What? If life is more about probabilities than certainties, then control is just an illusion.
I see that control theme in personal care commercials. Get control over your hair. Get control over your smells. Get control over your breathe. Well, there is only so much shampoo can do for you when your hair is thinning like mine. I've seen a few commercials that left me feeling surprised at how much control women are being told they should have over their hair. As to body smells, my wife figured out that lemon peels can work well as deodorant. We like to have warm water with honey in the morning, and the squeezed lemon slices work well when applied as needed. We also figured out that certain foods induce halitosis more than others. Personal care is not all that expensive if you know where to look.
One final concern I have about advertising is just how surgical it has become. Decades of trial and error and study have demonstrated that ad writers understand the subtle influence of imagery, language and suggestion. They understand just how much precision in language matters in 30 seconds. Commercials bother me for the reason that so much effort is directed at cramming into my mind, a suggestion to do something that I would not otherwise do.
Since we live in the internet age, I know that if I want something, I know where to find it. A dizzying array of online services wait in attendance to provide me with anything that I could want, money provided, of course. Although I do see the advertising in the sidebars of articles I read on the internet, I am usually able to narrow my vision to avoid the influence of the ad. In the event that I do look at an ad, I am still able to meet that suggestion with, "Even if I wanted it, what would I do with it once I got it? And how long before buyer's remorse would set it? There is probably a better use for our money. How long would it be before I get bored with it, anyway?"
The only time I am inclined to watch ads is when the Super Bowl rolls around. With the Super Bowl, every ad becomes a work of art, with each product trying to outdo the other. At this point, it's easy to turn off the suggestions because we're watching the ads for the art, the eye candy, the humor and the cameos of famous people who have fallen on hard enough times turn to advertising for a quick buck.
So sure, ads do encourage wishful thinking, but only for this material world. But if there is ever a time when I engage in wishful thinking, it is when I'm thinking about what I could do to bring a little more peace to the world.