Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Commercials

I've read that little kids tend to believe everything commercials say is true. Hopefully, they'll learn that isn't so.
But commercials are trying to make us all believe their claims. Could they be a form of attempted hypnotism? Are people actually more likely to choose brands they've seen advertised?
When I was young and TV was new there were about five minutes of commercials every hour. Now the amount of time spent on advertising often seems equal to the actual program time. And the ads are louder than the programs so leaving the room doesn't protect us from hearing them. I understand there's a new law that's supposed to forbid that, but it obviously hasn't taken effect yet.
And many commercials are just, plain rude.
Of course businesses must have a way to let people know about their products and services just as I want people to know about the books I've written, but it must be possible to advertise without hitting people over the head. Have you seen any polite commercials?

1 comment:

From Carols Quill said...

Ha! Polite commercials, that's a good one. We only watch a couple of shows on TV but record them and then whisk through the commercials.

You've made an awesome point. We owe it to our kids (and ourselves) to be diligent about everything we watch, including those pesky ads.