Monday, October 17, 2011
This One Weird Old Trick
I heard someone say the other day that you can understand a lot about a culture by looking at the advertising, which makes sense. Advertisers need to connect their products to the values of their culture in order to sell their products.
What does it say about our culture that these "one weird old trick" advertisements have become so prevalent? There seems to be this idea that there's some secret trick to getting rich, getting healthy, getting thin or whatever. If only you were in on the secret, then you would have it too. The assumption seems to be that success is the product of being in on a secret, rather than just hard work and character.
Maybe it's not as representative as it seems to me. I just seem to see a lot of these advertisements, especially online, selling a wide variety of products- car insurance, diet pills, get-rich-quick schemes, etc.
I heard Dave Ramsey the other day saying, "Every time I've ever met good luck, he had work clothes on." Success comes from diligence and hard work, not some "easy weird old trick".
What does it say about our culture that these "one weird old trick" advertisements have become so prevalent? There seems to be this idea that there's some secret trick to getting rich, getting healthy, getting thin or whatever. If only you were in on the secret, then you would have it too. The assumption seems to be that success is the product of being in on a secret, rather than just hard work and character.
Maybe it's not as representative as it seems to me. I just seem to see a lot of these advertisements, especially online, selling a wide variety of products- car insurance, diet pills, get-rich-quick schemes, etc.
I heard Dave Ramsey the other day saying, "Every time I've ever met good luck, he had work clothes on." Success comes from diligence and hard work, not some "easy weird old trick".
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