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Moments when advertising wove its wicked spell on you

Started by 23 Daves, August 29, 2010, 02:19:57 PM

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23 Daves

Whether we like it or not, we are all - to varying extents - susceptible to advertising.  I used to have a university lecturer who would toy with his student's minds to amuse himself, dropping slogans into the pattern of his lecture.  His favourite trick would be to say before break-time: "Obviously, we all need to work, rest and play, and you've all had far too much work-time this last hour, so take fifteen minutes out in the common room".  He always swore that a disproportionate number of students would walk back in after the break with Mars bars, or would be seen eating them in the break-out area.  If challenged, they would always say: "Well, I just wanted one".

And it was only this morning after I came back home from a particularly rubbish jogging session that I found myself cracking open some Lucozade Sport, and wondering why I was doing it.  After all, I'd read enough times that it was largely unnecessary for anything less than long-distance exercise[nb]It is, however, an excellent hangover cure, something they seem less keen to publicise.  I've even got doctors to admit that Lucozade Sport is one of the better things you can drink after an ill-advised all-night session.[/nb].  Then I remembered the eighties advert for the drink, featuring a well-known sportsman (whose identity I can't quite remember) aggressively stating: "It gets to your thirst.  FAST!", then hurling the empty bottle into a clattering metal bin angrily as if it were some kind of witchcraft he wanted to get away from himself as quickly as possible. "Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!" echoed the bin as the words appeared on the screen in time to the noise.  "Gets", "To", "Your", "Thirst", they all hammered home one by one.  As I drank it this morning, I realised this image was appearing in my head, and indeed possibly had done at other thirst-quenching moments as well.

So I was wondering - have any of you ever knowingly been influenced by advertising, for better or worse?  I'm not talking about adverts which promote bonanza sales at certain outlets, but adverts which weave a spell or an image around a product much more craftily than that.  You could start by taking a quick look in your cupboard or fridge and justifying the presence of some of the items in there...

Tokyo Sexwhale


23 Daves

Quote from: Tokyo Sexwhale on August 29, 2010, 02:32:44 PM
John Barnes is the bloke you can't quite remember.

It was, yes!  A very angry, determined John Barnes.  God knows why I remembered the clattering metal bin ahead of him.  Perhaps New Order should have used Dusty Bin to rap on "World In Motion" instead (and he'd probably have done a more convincing job of it).

mini goatbix

There was a radio advert a few years ago that said something like
"We've all done it, we've all looked in the mirror while stretching the skin on our faces to see what we'd look like with a face lift, well now you don't have to, just buy [some face cream stuff]..."
Up until that point I had never in my life done that, but having heard the advert a few times I found whenever I was looking in the mirror I'd be thinking "I wonder what I'd look like with a face lift? Maybe I'd look better" It irritated me a great deal because I didn't actually want to look any younger, but this paranoid thought kept niggling at me and made me feel as if I did.

Having learnt a bit since about automatic thoughts (http://www.anxiety-and-depression-solutions.com/insight_answers/Automatic_Thoughts.php) I suspect alot of advertising is about sneaking these in - associating the tagline with a situation, feeling an emotion created by the advert and then connecting the product to that feeling. It is just a suspicion but it does make sense of what you're describing in your post Daves..

Cerys

Bah, if you want to know what you'd look like with a facelift, just lie on your back holding the mirror above you.  Silly advertising sods.

HAYRDRYAH

#5
Quote from: 23 Daves on August 29, 2010, 02:19:57 PMWhether we like it or not, we are all - to varying extents - susceptible to advertising

This disturbs me a bit, because loads of people I respect claim this[nb]I'm sure one of those Levitt/Dubner/Tim Harford types covers it at length[/nb], but I still reckon I'm immune to 99.9% of advertising, because I don't make frivolous consumer choices like the students in your example. This obviously isn't the same as being oblivious to advertising[nb]you can't seriously expect me to walk through a Tube station with my eyes closed?[/nb] - I've as much awareness of adverts as anything else in my peripheral vision, and I recognised the Mars slogan in there. But if I'm about to spend money, my conscious mind switches on and focuses on the only parameter I really consider - value for money[nb]with Vimes' Boots factored in, obv[/nb]. Cool, unspinnable numbers always manage to drown out whatever vague notions an advert can convey. When capitalism is scuppered, I shall be more than happy with my bowl of Municipal Gruel. I love the idea of the subliminal and the subconscious, but I honestly don't think Madison Avenue ever sold me a lifestyle or an aspiration.

Buttttt....

Broader cultural influence is far harder to escape. The sentence up there - the one about Municipal Gruel - and the heartfelt political stance that spawned it - would probably not exist without the recent craze for austerity, and hessian, and democratic socialism, and wholesale brown rice, and 'no real stigma is attached to a Labour MP who associates with Communists', and flatpack furniture, and Tony Benn, and keeping calm and carrying on. I buy into archetypes of the tortured artist, and the chainsmoking obsessive, and the doomed lover. I buy into them, but I wouldn't if they actually cost money.

Outside of favorable press reviews (and unfavorable ones - I owe my copy of Adam Thirlwell's Politics to its drubbing in Private Eye) the only object I've thought 'I must buy this, this fits my personal brand' was ages back when Adbusters made some pseudo-Converse trainers called Blackspot. I didn't buy them, but I was definitely tempted. So I guess the anti-marketing dollar is a huge dollar after all: it reaches the Sparts other dollars can't reach

Quote from: 23 Daves on August 29, 2010, 02:19:57 PMYou could start by taking a quick look in your cupboard or fridge and justifying the presence of some of the items in there...

Whole foods and staples, whole foods and staples.... I tells ya, I'm lilywhite

Ronnie the Raincoat

I challenge anyone to tell me they haven't bought a Flake because of the song in their head, then wanted to eat it in the bath.

Little Hoover


"Eat a flake, yum yum yum, Eat a flake, yum yum yum"

The flake song. You know. Yum Yum Yum, eat a Cadbury's Flake. A delicious chocolate flake. Get one from Tesco Express. Go on, YOU CAN DO IT.

Ginyard


23 Daves

Since the creation of "Time Out" and "Twirl", all the misery and mess of eating Flake-type chocolate has been eliminated.  I can quite honestly tell you that I don't think I've had a Flake (outside of an Mr Whippy 99 ice cream) in about twenty years now.  I like to eat my treats - I don't appreciate them crumbling on the floor, the table, or indeed the bath. 

True fact, though - when I lived near the red light district in Stamford Hill, one of the street prostitutes used to try to tempt passers-by into having sex with her by slowly and seductively eating (or possibly pretending to eat) a Flake. She was quite old and rough-looking.  It may actually have been that which caused me to turn away from the things, thinking about it... 

HAYRDRYAH

Oh, it's another sweeties thread....sorry for wasting your time guys

hpmons

Food adverts are the most obvious type to mention though, as you buy food regularly and it's cheap.  Generally you have to be interested in a certain type of product beforehand, then the advert sway you towards their brand.  Obviously I'm not affected by car or perfume adverts because I'd never want either.

But I admit, if searching for car insurance was driving me crazy, because there were soooooo many companies giving me details over and over and over and over again...

Eight Taiwanese Teenagers

The advert I saw this afternoon which used for its music a bastardised version of Garry Glitter's Rock'n Roll Part 2 certainly got me and my girlfriend talking. The advert was for Pampers.

here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9xuBeNG7Lc

Icehaven

#14
I also remember that John Barnes ad, mostly because the script inclides the line ''after 90 minutes of sheer hell, you need a drink that blah blah blah....'', and it always made me wonder why he played football for a living if he thought it was sheer hell.

I'm an advertiser's dream unfortunately, I freely admit ads works on me. It doesn't necessarily make me buy the product, usually because it's not something I need or want, but there are countless products and services who's ad campaigns pop into my head as soon as I see them, even when I was unaware I'd even remembered them, so if I did ever need these things, I'd probably be more likely to go with something that felt familiar from it's ads over something I'd never heard of. I really liked the ads for those Naturals jelly sweets that had daft little sketches with jelly animals a few years ago (''Bring on the trumpets!!!, and this one Posh Dinosaur - The Natural Confectionery Company) and when I saw them in a shop I mindlessly giggled at the memory of the amusing jelly animals, and bought a packet, even though I never ususally buy jelly sweets, don't even particularly like them, and they were vastly overpriced. It's a good job I didn't live in Germany in the late 1930's. 

Serge

Well, it's obviously not working on me, because as soon as I read, 'Work, rest and play', I thought, "Ah, Kit Kat," so I'm presumably losing braincells more quickly than I thought.

salr

I will admit my favourite brands of cigarette are JPS and camel, I think because their colour scheme looked cool on racing cars when I was younger. Strangely enough not Marlboro though. Some adverts have the opposite of (I think) their intended effect on me, I will never use webuyanycar.com or Cillit Bang simply because I hate their adverts.

Another advertising thing that has got under my skin is the whistling at the end of MacDonalds adverts. I can't hear it without saying 'I'm loving it!' to myself and I hate myself for it!

Captain Crunch

I still really really really want an Orbitrek after watching an entire afternoon special on QVC about fifteen years ago.  My mate had just got all the channels set up and we were transfixed, I'm sure I would have ordered five of the bastards if had a credit card at the time.  I could look like this now:


Icehaven

Quote from: salr on August 29, 2010, 08:31:57 PM
I will admit my favourite brands of cigarette are JPS and camel, I think because their colour scheme looked cool on racing cars when I was younger. Strangely enough not Marlboro though. Some adverts have the opposite of (I think) their intended effect on me, I will never use webuyanycar.com or Cillit Bang simply because I hate their adverts.

Another advertising thing that has got under my skin is the whistling at the end of MacDonalds adverts. I can't hear it without saying 'I'm loving it!' to myself and I hate myself for it!

I knew a racing fan years ago who reckoned he drank Fosters and smoked Marlboros because they were the main sponsors of the racing he watched at the time. And yes, the McDonalds tune is a good example. Maybe they started using the same agency as Intel.

mini goatbix

Quote from: Serge on August 29, 2010, 08:29:36 PM
Well, it's obviously not working on me, because as soon as I read, 'Work, rest and play', I thought, "Ah, Kit Kat," so I'm presumably losing braincells more quickly than I thought.
Weirdly enough, so did I. Is it possible that Nestle have some how hijacked Mars' advertising?

mobias

Quote from: Ginyard on August 29, 2010, 06:37:13 PM
Flakes were sold to me long ago by this punting diva:

Cadbury's - Flake - Woman In Canoe - Waterfall - UK Advert

Worked on me. I wasn't in the mood for a blow job but I certainly am now after watching that.. Actually I'm joking, I'm always in the mood for a blow job so from a advertising point of view its a bit of a wasted effort.

Captain Crunch

Similarly, drinking Lucozade always puts me in the mood to buy loads of Iron Maiden albums. 


actwithoutwords

I would be lying if I said the fact I almost solely drank Carslberg when I first started drinking beer wasn't heavily influenced by the fact that they sponsored Liverpool. Don't tell any market research people that though. The shame of it. [nb]8 years old, I was.[/nb]

Serge

Quote from: mini goatbix on August 29, 2010, 09:22:29 PMWeirdly enough, so did I. Is it possible that Nestle have some how hijacked Mars' advertising?

Ha! That would be fantastic. Kit Kat sales soar as Mars sales plummet.

I just looked at the food in my fridge and cupboards, and the only name brands are Hovis, Weetabix and Nescafe. Everything else is Sainsbury's own brand. Though that's less successful advertising on their part than successfully opening a branch in Forest Hill that's on my way home.

small_world

I was actually going to start a similar thread.

Just a few weeks ago, I was buying stuff to take on holiday, normal shit.. Clothes and batteries and that, I also needed some sun tan lotion. I saw an advert in the paper for Nivea Sun sun tan lotion with added bronzer, and I remember thinking, 'Ooohh' I'll get some of that'. 
I actually thought at the time, I'm only buying it because of the ad. And I did, it was propper expensive also, like £20 or something. And it didn't work, or the effect wasn't noticable at any rate.

I hardly ever buy stuff, I drive an old car, I buy meat and veg when I shop, nothing in a box, or overly processed. I don't buy branded clothes. So it was all the more suprising to notice myself falling into the trap.

Space ghost

Quote from: 23 Daves on August 29, 2010, 03:07:54 PM
It was, yes!  A very angry, determined John Barnes.  God knows why I remembered the clattering metal bin ahead of him.  Perhaps New Order should have used Dusty Bin to rap on "World In Motion" instead (and he'd probably have done a more convincing job of it).


I remember that advert very clearly indeed. It was filmed as though the viewer had just encountered an angry John Barnes in a locker room, something powerful about the way he said ' after 90 minutes of sheer hell

variant

I can't find the 'Obvious things you've only just realised' thread so I'll post the obvious thing I've only just realised here as it is advertising related:

Only Smarties have the answer

Smarties being both the sweets and clever clog-types obviously. I've never got that until just now.

I'll go and buy a pack.


Mildly Diverting

Having left the advertising industry a couple of years ago (Yeah, thanks, Mr. Hicks, my conscience is clear now, but so is my bank account), I absolutely refuse to watch TV adverts. When you've seen the breath-taking cynicism of alphas discussing market dynamics when making them, ignorance is bliss. Only since then have I noticed how much time 'real' people actually spend talking about them. I think that's a bit worrying. Sorry, off-topic mini-rant over.

AlterEgg

I used to own the phone in the advert when it first came out so I was right up there with the cool kids but for some reason I've seen only the advert in the last year.
Since the phone is quiet old now no one would consider it but looking at the advert with all these people your supposed to aspire to be pulling it out if quiet funny. Obviously phones change quicker then most things but I find it amusing that someone could have watched the exact same footage a few years ago and been like 'wow I want that phone' whereas now they would just laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdzsC7Tp3iI