Advertising is All About Telling Lies!

I took advertising as my career. And for about 20 years I enjoyed working as a creative copywriter and visualizer, won couple of awards but, one fine day I realized (was it too late for me?...No!), that advertising is all about telling lies. I have convincing justification for this statement and there are other reason that supports it too.

First let us take an ad in which a beautiful film actress or brand ambassador- a celebrity, has a soap in her hand which has attractive package design. She says to the reader or the audience" It is the secret of my beauty." isn't it a complete lie? If that was true all the people using that soap would look beautiful. They say it is called "positioning." But do you think its true? No it isn't.

Now take another ad in which a film actor or a celebrity says " I prefer to drive only Honda Bike." Now in reality he commutes in a chauffeur driven imported car, and sometimes in private plane. And these celebrities get paid for telling lies! And the amount paid to them is handsome. There was this billboard on highway on which a king size cigarette ad slogan said, "You Have Come a Long Way Baby!" This "unique selling proposition" was supported by a glamorous model in bikini with long legs!

I have read perhaps all the so called important books on advertising and first I was impressed by the commercial art. But now I think they are useless. In one of the book the bottom line was, "If an ad does not sell the product, it is not a creative ad." So its all about selling products and services of a company in whatever way it is possible. When an advertising agency gets a new account it never checks the quality of products because all they want is business from that company. The agencies efforts are more into pleasing the top management in whatever way they can. The consumer of the product is never considered!

There are other sensitive reasons why I hate advertising. Advertising is the girl friend of media. Media as you know publishes 90% news that are negative. For instance, terrorism, murders, rapes, bank robbery, political scams and so on. If they don't print negativity it cannot sell. People have become so much addicted to newspapers that for some it is not even possible to go for a natural call without it! To print all these useless newspapers and magazines millions of trees are cut down every year. The print and electronic media earns huge profits from releasing of ads, and absurdly sometimes those ads are called "creative" ads. In other words all the negativity in the world is spread by the media which is supported mainly by advertising world.

Now comes the most important fact. You know that 60% of our hard earned income goes to middlemen like retailer, wholesaler, stockist, C & F agent, transporters...and so on? This chain is supported by advertising and marketing. The fact is that out of 60% the advertising takes away 35% of our hard earned income. And yet surprisingly people love to watch ads on TV! And read newspapers.

I have been reading newspapers since 30 years and they have not made any difference to my life. I am glad I have left advertising "creativity". There cannot be anything creative about it. Its all about telling lies lies and just lies.

Pankaj Mistry is a freelance professional writer and content developer. He has won couple of awards for his concepts and themes for various topics. You can contact him at: artystry@hotmail.com or pankaj@engravemusic.com

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