I despise advertising. If you’re a marketing professional, don’t be offended. I despise you because, unfortunately, you are doing well the job you set out to do.
Advertising serves various purposes, often associated with a company trying to sell you a product or a desire. Nowadays, it’s common to see advertising for our image, in terms of how we sell who we are and how we present ourselves (yes, exactly that foolish coach talk that everyone knows and still falls for). It also exists in politics or in dictatorships, where politicians try to sell an idea of the world, of a country, or whatever it may be.
The latter two examples are less tempting. What really messes with my head is that daily and everywhere advertising, trying to make me switch my phone or eat ultra-processed foods because they have “natural flavors.”
Limited regulation allows this temptation machine (and often full of lies) to profit greatly at the expense of many people, without there being any reparation or accountability. A good example is Google, a technology company whose largest revenue comes from ads. This example becomes even more interesting when we notice the cycle:
Google provides a free video platform supported by ads ~> people are drawn into the “glorious” world of content creation ~> people get addicted to useless content and spend more time on the platform ~> Google shares a small fraction of its profits with content creators to keep them publishing videos ~> Google attracts more advertisers. With one caveat: due to the centralized nature of the platform, all creators are subject to the rules and availability of the platform, which sometimes acts in an obscure manner.
No generation has spent so much time connected to a device before. Children don’t tell their parents that they want to be police officers, doctors, lawyers, but digital influencers. All of this is capitalized by large corporations that have specialized in addicting them.
Everything has become a product and advertisement, in a kind of symbiosis. And we need to learn to choose what truly benefits us and not allow someone to tell us that we need something, as the pathetic Steve Jobs perpetuated.