by Paul Stanway

Created on: February 22, 2008

Goethe said that "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free". There are lots of people around who pertain to be free from the shackles of advertising. They say that they are wise to the machinations of the advertiser and, as such, do not succumb to the many temptations that is offered. They say that they only buy a product because they have made an autonomous decision about it, independent of the advertising surrounding it. Sometimes, they even insist that people who do buy products based on advertising are moronic because it's easy to see that advertisers are merely pernicious shysters trying to sell us an chimera full of empty promises. When they say that they are not victims to advertising, however, they may be completely wrong about themselves. Slovoj Zizek's thesis in his book "The Sublime Object of Reality" is that ideology and coercion function at their best when they are invisible. As such, by denying the impact of advertising on themselves, the power of advertising on the individual concerned may be even more pervasive.

The traditional view of the advertisement is that it exists firstly to inform us of a product's existence. Secondly, an advert tries to convince us to buy the product by telling us how good it is. This, however, is now a somewhat dated and over-simplified view. The postmodern advertisement functions in increasingly complex ways in its attempts to convince us of a given product's worth. Branding, market analysis tools and acres of statistical information are all used in highly innovative ways to produce complex advertising structures that serve, in principle, to make consumers of us all. This is despite the assumption that advertisers now make, that we are becoming increasingly immune to branding, and that almost everybody doesn't buy a product simply because somebody tells us that it is good.

The cynic to advertising still has to make a consumption choice when he or she is buying a product. Whether he / she likes it or not, advertising has a large role to play in that decision. For example, the soft drinks market tends to be heavily brand-based; although largely the same product, Coca-cola and Pepsi are different in subtle, ideological ways. People who eschew buying either may buy Sprite, whose main advertising slogan is "Image is Nothing, Thirst is Everything". Those more sophisticated in their derision over advertising may opt for lesser brands, whether in fashion, soft drinks or alcohol. Nevertheless,

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