Are you influenced by television advertising?

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Here the local ads are literally 90% for either payday loans, debt relief or used car financing. Sad statement of the times we live in....

As for the topic at hand, while I will admit that as a child I was influenced by Saturday morning cartoons, I can confidently say TV ads have little effect on me. In fact, I am usually pointing out the dirty tricks commericals use: such as the background music, how highly staged ALL commercials are (even the latest craze of having "candid" commercials), how they use celebrities (who probably don't even know what they are endorsing) and they use empty slogans and buzzwords (I am looking at YOU, car commercials!) There is no way you can call a car "fuel efficient" or "green" but they use those terms because they are not quantifiable and utterly meaningless.


I recently got a new set of hockey gear. Even though it was clearly the best deal, I struggled buying from the 'big guys' just because I H-A-T-E how they loudly and constantly mention how famous NHL superstars use their gear. I do laugh though that when that superstar flops or has a bad year, they quietly change it to another superstar and brag how THEY use their product. I especially hate it when one company bragged about how they don't give freebies to NHL stars... and then bragged about how many NHL'ers use their gear in the same sentence. Newsflash: when you make $3 million a year, $500-$800 is not exactly a wallet buster....

To think I almost took Marketing in University. How utterly naive I was as to how dirty and underhanded many of these marketing firms are. I was so excited to launch a career helping people find the products that serve them best only to discover it's mostly about destabilizing people enough to sell them things they don't need or would ever want to make them stable again. How repulsive!

I can say I'm influenced by advertising on a secondary level, by good old boring peer pressure. Advertising doesn't bother me most of the time, unless it gets so intrusive I can't avoid it. (Wal-Mart...ugh). Done well, advertising can be art and had its crossover moment in pop art.

What bothers me is when the advertising is successful enough that it works its way into societal standards with no thought involved. People are then judged by their peers on how well they fit into that standard.

I recognize the artificial nature, but I have used conformity as a tool in making my way in the world. On a desert island I wouldn't care, but not meeting those societal standards does have large personal and financial repercussions. It's like a manner of nonverbally stating tribal or team membership, and that conformity seems to exist even in counterculture movements.

This is a broad topic, but I wonder if people realize how insidious advertising can be.

Nope

Yes, it's bad enough being expected to conform to a group who have developed their own standards, but when you realise those standards are being set by an odious external force, it becomes downright creepy.


Yes it does have repercussions. I guess it's a matter of deciding whether nonconformity is worth the abuse it attracts. Though I once lived in a community which seemed to have very little in the way of conformism - as long as the individual's behaviour was harmless, they accepted pretty much anything.

That's interesting. Where was it?

Depends on what is being advertised. With subjects like food and travel, I might be influenced. Bullsh!t like car dealerships and insurance spots have no effect on me. Not sure about personal injury lawyers, though as I've not yet needed one.

I don't find television advertising particularly subtle or appealing.

It was in the district of Broomhall, Sheffield, England, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A loose association of anarchists and oddballs of various kinds. It was so heterogenous that very little could be identified as "normal." My experiences there became my main doubt (years later) about having ASD, because I couldn't see how I could possibly be an Aspie when I'd done so well socially. It was only then that I started to realise how wonderfully unusual that place had been.

It sounds like a lot aspies lived there. It also sounds like a great place...

I suspect some of them were - plus a lot of other certifiable folks. A lot of us were musicians, and a friend from those days recently told me that he suspects every musician he's ever met was autistic to some degree. He's certainly got a few traits himself, though he has tons of friends. Curiously, when I lived there, I noticed hardly any TV sets. The reception was very poor because the university arts tower blocked the signal, and most people in the area weren't interested in TV anyway. And there was a theory that the lack of TV had disconnected the residents from a lot of the usual brainwashing.

TV advertising has ZERO effect on what I purchase. For instance, first of all, I don't shop in clothing stores ever. All my t-shirts and underwear come from thrift shops. I only have one pair of pants and one pair of shoes. The pants I bought at a thrift shop and the shoes were given to me by someone in the transitional shelter. Since my Jain diet is mainly vegetables, all the ads for McDonald's, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse or any restaurant are wasted on me. I don't drink alcohol anymore so all the beer commercials are a waste of time. Car and truck commercials are also lost on me as I don't even have money for a bicycle.

I wish there was a button on the TV that says 'Activate for no commercials if you're autistic.' It'd be permanently on.

Nope.

I also don't understand how you could be... I never do anything just because someone told me to, even the TV. I make my own informed decisions.

Although TV advertising has often fueled a need to research something, or given me an idea, however I do not believe a television commercial has ever ended with me purchasing the advertised product.

I'm not all that influenced by any commercials on TV. I enjoy watching the Pacific Blue Cross commercials because they have a cute Sweet Pea in them, but that's about it.

Some advertising has entertainment value.
I would still buy a car with a trunk monkey.

i especially hate advertising that preys on people's insecurities. i tend to appreciate information over hype.

I think not, since I usually don't have a TV. In 2013, I realized I was paying $50/mo. to watch The Big Bang Theory so I cancelled it and threw out the ancient TV when I moved.

People think it's weird not to have a TV. I found a great line in an interview with David Foster Wallace:
Q. Why don't you have a television?
DFW: Because I would watch it.