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Being My Own Buffer- Boomer Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2007
We live in a world filled with advertising. We are bombarded on a daily basis with thousands of carefully crafted messages designed to sway us into purchasing Product X from Company Y. Born into a world that has always had TV, the Boomer Generation was indoctrinated into this culture of marketing from birth. My mother still tells the story of her trying to feed me dinner while competing for my toddler attention span with a nightly commercial for Doublemint gum. I suppose that in the early ‘60s, when a television in the living room was a status symbol, it never really occurred to her that she might turn it off during my dinner hour while she was waiting for my father to return home from work.
As an adult for whom television or radio has always been a part of my daily routine, I am accustomed to this ritual that is played out countless times each day. I like to think that I have learned to play the game. That I am a savvy consumer with discriminating taste. The truth is more likely that you can at least get my attention with clever or funny advertising. I can be swayed – in fact, I want to be convinced at times that I absolutely must have whatever it is that is making those people on TV or in that print ad look as if the moment they are having right there in front of the cameras is real and can be transferred to me via a simple financial transaction.
There are times, though, when I get annoyed by advertising. I can’t stand billboards of any kind. I don’t think I have looked at one in the past 25 years and had a positive thought. To me they are an ugly blight on the landscape; “sight pollution” was the term used in the ‘70s, and I think it still applies. As a kid, I may have wanted to wander 25 miles off the highway to see Big Jim’s Snake House, but those ads were probably only captivating because they promised to give a small child a break from the tedium that was a six-hour car ride in the days before personal listening devices and fold-down DVD players.
“Infomercials” are another pet peeve. Besides the fact that somebody has invented a word that should never have existed, why am I paying the $65 per month for the privilege of watching a half-hour show on how to get rich working 15 hours a week from the comfort of my home using somebody’s “time-tested 17-step program for succeeding in real estate”?
Most annoying and invasive is almost all prescription drug advertising. I don’t want to see advertising for toenail fungus relief, impotence cures or irritable bowel syndrome. These are not subjects that I would bring up in daily conversation with anyone except my doctor. I don’t like watching TV in a room full of adults and children then having some handsome devil talk about his inability to complete a night out on the town without his favorite blue or purple pill. Why should advertisers feel they can talk about these delicate subjects any more freely than you or I would while at a dinner party?
At the end of the day, I suppose I don’t actually feel violated or invaded by most of the advertising I have been exposed to. I’ve grown so used to it that I have developed my own filters to buffer out the unpleasant messages and tune in the smart, cleaver, funny ads that I actually enjoy. But I do have to draw the line at physical confrontation. Telemarketers are on a short list of people who, in my opinion, should be excommunicated and sent to a desert island somewhere. I’ve been known to simply not answer my door if I suspect it is a door-to-door salesman. Outside of a business environment, I don’t like being sold to personally. When you knock on my door or ring my personal phone, you have crossed the line.
That sounds a bit antisocial, but I’m going to blame TV for that.
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In today’s world, immediate gratification, climbing the corporate ladder and focusing on the “me” before anything else is the norm. This environment creates the type of ads that I find invasive. Infomercials sell everything. Most of these ads tell you what you want to hear, and some even tell you what to think. I’m tired of these advertising agencies insulting my intelligence. One red flag is the all-too-familiar red logo that boasts, “As seen on TV.” If this pops up on the screen, I take a pass. I guess advertisers feel if it’s on “TV,” it must be worthy. The idea of false hope is appalling to me.
The latest trend is prescription drug advertisements. First off, why advertise a product that you can’t go out and buy on your own? You still have to get a prescription from an M.D., so it’s pointless. Oh, let’s not forget the added bonus of all the wonderful side effects that can happen…in detail. Some of the side effects sound worse than the condition. I’ll let my doctor determine what I should take that’s what he’s trained for, right?
Then there’s the old standby ads for weight loss, health aliments, get in shape with this (gimmick), look ten years younger, home shopping, real estate made easy, I know what you want in a car, I did this and so can you, www.whudafxup.com, and the political ads that tell you: “You need us.” These are the ads I feel invade my privacy by nature: Here’s your problem, you’re fat, you’re stupid, you don’t know what you want, you can’t do it yourself, you can’t think for yourself, it’s your fault, here’s the truth because we say so. Back in the day, we’d take a bathroom break to skip this trash. Thanks to technology, now I can buffer myself with TiVo/DVR and fast-forward through them. I reach my limits when the advertiser wants me to believe that without them I can’t survive.
The commercial ads I pay attention to usually have humor in them. The product itself is sometimes secondary. We’ve all seen the Budweiser frogs, the Energizer bunny and the Travelocity gnome, which uses a character to sell its products quite effectively. To me, if they are willing to look silly, I’ll watch. In fact, the new commercial for Kia where the dealer is dancing to the Flashdance theme song and recreates the moves from the movie is hysterical. I enjoyed how Kia showed us a different view of how a dealer would sell cars. On the flip side, the commercial of the badger dealer annoyed me. That commercial’s negativity turned me away from whoever was trying to sell cars.
Humor or a pleasant idea can sway me to that product. One of my favorites is the Miller ad from the ’70s of a sleigh ride at Christmas that I look forward to every year. It’s the type of Christmas I want. The ad ends with, “This Christmas card was sent to you by the people of Miller High Life. Merry Christmas.” It’s just a feel-good commercial. There’s no sense of being pushed to buy anything, though I did. This year I’ll press the record button on my TiVo/DVR to replay it when I’m in a fowl mood from all the other crap that’s on the tube.
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