Would it
surprise you if this were an actual ad? Regardless of the answer, some ads are
this outlandish and bizarre to sell products to the masses. Many companies
extort our basic emotions, beliefs, desires, and insecurities for a quick
dollar. While we do have ethics and practices for what ads can be put up on
billboards and be shown to different demographics on TV, many ads try to couple
these inherent human qualities and faults to sell us something. Did Jesus
actually advocate Mountain Dew Baja Blast? No he didn’t, because Mountain Dew
didn’t come around till nearly two millennia after Jesus.
While this
is a hyperbole and probably offends some people out in the world, it brings me
to my first point. Nothing is sacred with advertising. Have you ever heard the
term “Sex sells”? Well that’s because of our primal instinct to reproduce, so
as a species we see that a material possession will get us with a mate and our
primal instincts go “buy this, we need to further the species.” They seek out
what we feel we need or actually view as a necessity so they can prey off of it
and sell something to someone. If by some miracle this add about Jesus actually
convinced someone that Jesus liked Mountain Dew, it wouldn’t be far from
plausible to say that people would buy it to fill their need to be zealous.
Companies try to convince us that without their product, we don’t fit in with
the group. We are social creatures, so we need to stay as a group. That’s how
we survived so long, because on our own we would have been slaughtered. We are
a MacGyver species, and we survived off of brainpower and collective thinking.
All ad companies have to suggest is that if we don’t own their product, then we
are exiled from this group and to an even greater extent are walled off and
left to fend for ourselves. Don’t believe me? Try being in a group of iPhone
users and not have an iPhone. You’ll probably get a weird look or two because
you’re not part of team iPhone. (Search
Marketing Standard Magazine)
Along with the nothing is sacred
attitude, not even the deepest reaches of your mind are safe. The subliminal
bombardment of messages that created an artificial need is bombarding you with
every ad. For every hour of TV you watch there’s roughly 15 minutes of commercial.
In that time frame you are bombarded with countless subliminal messages telling
you to buy this product. (Subliminal
Advertising and Modern Day Brainwashing) There is no actual subtext or subject matter behind this,
just that there is constant messages bombarding you, just mindless and discrete
relationships between product and emotion. For example, this ad I created is
funny right? What about other Mountain Dew ads? Remember the one where the
vending machine fired cans at the guy? I remember seeing that as a kid and
laughing hysterically when I saw it. The relationship has been cited as
Mountain Dew uses humor to create a link between itself and good times. (Subliminal Messages)
Now why did I pick Jesus to sell
Mountain Dew? Many might say that it’s a vague correlation that if you drink
Mountain Dew, you will be like Jesus. As stated before, this is an incredible
hyperbole. However, Jesus falls under the category of celebrity more often then
not. People strive to be celebrities, they are what certain people aspire to
be, so we buy the products they use. (Business
2 Community) They have power, money, fame; what more can a person want. The
basic idea is “buy this product and you will be like them.” It’s another
subliminal trait that certain advertisers use with endorsements. If it doesn’t
work then why are companies putting out millions of dollars endorsements for a
tiny spot on the corner of your Facebook feed or on the door of a car in
NASCAR?
Now if this
was real life, and this ad was created by a professional, the subtext and
subliminal messaging would make it more likely that next time you head to the
grocery store to stock up on soft drinks for your dorm, the probability of you
buying Mountain Dew would be higher then most other soft drinks. Why does this
matter? Maybe Mountain Dew is the greatest thing to happen to the soft drink
world, and Jesus did advocate its consumption. It matters because this is just
one of many examples corporations use to sell a product, and with the ever
growing vulgar practices of these advertisements and over the line tactics by
advertisers, they can put us in a mental headlock. Not to go to the extreme of
those creepy videos of Japanese advertisements on YouTube that use subtext to
tell you to kill your mother, but to the extent that we’re pigs walking to
slaughter to throw our money down for things we don’t even need. Junk food and
soda are supposed to be a once in a while type thing, but with the amount of
advertisement they put out, totaling a grand 30 hours of advertisements a year
for selling these sorts of items. (CBSnews)
It’s no wondering our country faces an obesity crisis. So unless you love
mindless consumption, wasting money, and destructive habits of buying these
things then more power to you.
"Subliminal
Advertising and Modern Day Brainwashing." Subliminal Advertising and
Modern Day Brainwashing. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/brainwash.html>.
"Four Basic
Human Emotions to Sell Anything." Search Marketing Standard Magazine.
N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/four-basic-human-emotions-to-sell-anything>.
"Subliminal
Messages." Subliminal Messages. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.personal.psu.edu/dao5058/storiessubliminalmessages.html>.
"Kids
Get Diet Of Junk Food Commercials." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d.
Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-2620036.html>.
"Celebrity
Endorsements and Twitter: Do We Buy Things When Celebrities Tell Us To?" Business
2 Community. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.business2community.com/twitter/celebrity-endorsements-and-twitter-do-we-buy-things-when-celebrities-tell-us-to-0229724>.
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