everywhere,everywhere,the media
Today I was driving home and I was looking around on the road. It never occured to me just how much advertisement is done, to get one to pay attention to radio stations, TV shows, etc.. I saw an ad for house, for timex watches, for greys, etc.. It’s crazy. Not only was that odd, but the media is getting so good at knowing who and what to cater too. For example, the Timex watch showed a picture of a golfer hitting a golf ball. Timex clearly did its homework and found out that alot of its buyers are golfers, and therefore, to make the ad stand out to those people it only but makes sense to cater to them. 
The same is true for things such as Nike ads on TV. There is not going to be a Nike ad for skiing in the middle of summer. Why? Because it won’t sell anything.
The media is all around us. I truly dont feel we could escape it even if we wanted too. I went hiking on the west coast trail this summer, and I was fully prepared to get cheap stuff to go. My boyfriend however, assured me that, this was a dumb idea and it was essential to get the good stuff. He picked out which was the good stuff, which was all designer gear. Why, do we hold these ideas that the only “good” things are the designer stuff, the stuff we know, because it is constantly flashed all over the TV screen.
I am not trying to diss the companies out there who are making money of this consumerism. In fact, I think they are doing everything right, according to their industry. I mean realistically, obviously its working right? I am more just disatisfied with societies lack of ability to figure out exactly what consumerism is doing to us and our society. It’s just not healthy.
bananatree said,
January 24, 2007 at 8:45 am
Tragically, most innovation comes from the competition between rival corporations. There would not be a computer on (almost) every desk in (north) America if it was not for the extreme amounts of money Apple and Microsoft spent on trying to get the word out on their products.
So now, I have a really nice laptop, but people usually call it a “Mac” instead of a “Computer”, and the music player I have attached to it, somehow has become a status symbol.
The ad companies have done a stunning job. I can only think of 2 other watch companies. Timex, Rolex, Omega. I usually only think of one or two colas: Coke and Pepsi.
You’re absolutely right, they are doing a very good job at what they are doing.