Top Of Mind

Over time, advertising has been accused of many things, from beer guts (surely that can’t be blamed on advertising?) to the mysterious craving to go to White Castle for square-burgers to unreal expectations about things in life. But isn’t advertising about selling more stuff?

Can I be Empowered? Pretty Please?

More and more brands are talking about empowering, enabling people to go out and do great and wonderful things – after buying their products of course. Psychologist have known this for years now, that we want and need approval for most of our actions. Just to know that it is OK for us to do things or to feel a certain way.

Nike is a good example of how it empowers you to go out and just do it.. whatever that “it” is. Over the years I have not been able to figure out what that “it,” is. Perhaps I am not Nike’s target audience. Of course, I do have a pair of nice Nike sneakers, and the only thing I do is go shopping in them on weekends or walk to the bar on casual Fridays!!

I Empower Thee To Be Beautiful

Now here is a perfect example. For over two years Dove has been running a campaign called the Campaign For Real Beauty. The purpose of the campaign, and I paraphrase with great liberty here, is for real women to feel beautiful. Apparently it has empowered women from across the world from Europe to Asia to Australia to feel beautiful by being exactly who they are. What an idea?

It is a wonderfully insightful campaign, executed in a relevant manner in a truly global way. As far as the brand is concerned it is a successful campaign. It has generated the necessary response required of such a campaign and has received enough attention for it’s efforts. And I am sure that sales have been quite good too.

We (don’t) Have The Power

But why do we need advertising to “empower us,” why do we need strangers, sitting in their air conditioned offices want to “empower us,” for things that we should be doing on our own? I mean a little encouragement now and then is fine, but “enabling,” us?

Do women really need Dove to tell them that it is OK to be themselves? Do we honestly need Nike to urge us to go out and just do it?

Think 2.0

Since the good old Think 1.0 was not working, perhaps we need a Think 2.0. We need to be more critical of the things we read and hear on mass media – we need to be able to think and analyze the information we receive.

Advertising is all about selling more stuff – no matter what guise it comes in. The annoying used car salesmen is but an obvious and highly visible part of what advertising is. Just because you skip the ads on TV doesn’t mean that you are not exposed to advertising. It is everywhere you are because advertisers know where you are. They know where you live, what you drive, where you shop and what makes you tick. They will find a way to reach you.

The only defense is to be critical and Think. We need to be aware that we are being advertised to. What we do with that knowledge is up to us, but we need to know. Now that I am done with this, I will go out and check out the pair of really cool Nike Shox that I found on the Nike website, afterwards I will go for that light beer - you know the one that is sponsoring the NFL.