Wont wear off, wont kiss off, wont stick to your glass (or coffee cup), or your teeth, or his sheets. This is what advertisements for a major lipstick brand promised. The other day, I tried one of these lip colors. It was pure coincidence that I did try it on, because I was a self proclaimed veteran of identifying an advertising gimmick from the alphabet A. Or was I really? The morning after the party, when I woke up with bright pink lips which stayed the same annoying shade till my skin was raw, I was forced to rethink on my expertise.
It should be a great feeling actually. Imagine. Every nutritional need in a teaspoon, white clothes at the drop of a little detergent, even contraceptives that promise all night orgasms? Wow! Life really is getting better and better these days. If all the people we see on television with perfect bodies and blinding white teeth are not lying, but are in fact being paid to ensure we pay to make our lives perfect, we shouldn't be complaining. So people who sell you insurance for a below ground premium, or health care products with zero side affects are actually not lying to you, but are only being extra helpful.
But again, that would probably depend on individual definition of "advertising gimmicks".Some would say its about false promises about the product, that would make you want to buy it. Some would say distracting visual effects (women, pictures, glitz, lot of neon, ad balloons, the works), some may say freebies: samples, vouchers, refunds, rebates, offers(free tip to goa-ma'am; free makeover ma'am; hell, I'd even been to a mall which promised me "you will have men like the model in the ad falling for you if you buy this deo ma'am), others say advertising gimmicks are about actually distracting you from the fact that the product might be flaky (why would i want a supermodel washing my essentials? errm!!). Well, to each his own.
But is it that bad really? Is it such a bad concept to stretch the truth a little bit, just to make you feel better that you, after all, may be buying your money's worth? I am not advocating outright lying or justifying the fact that manufactures and marketers have the right to cheat us by pushing something substandard just because they sugarcoat it. I however, am keeping an open mind and trying to explore the other alternative.
What if everything we were promised is delivered to us? What if these set of people in wrinkle-free, stain-free, dry-clean-free suits, are indeed responsible for making our modern 21st century lives what it is? Do we owe them? My clothes are washed in one bucket of water but gives my baby rashes; one pill gets rid of my cold, cough, headache, and every ache in every part of my bosy i didnt know existed, but gets me addicted; I can wipe my kid's artwork off my walls without peeling off the paint but then my kid has reverse-evolved into 10000 B.C. and thinks he's the Neanderthal-era Van Gogh; I pay zero interest on my credit card bills and get 5% cash back, but there are "adjustments" made every year in my bank statement; i stick up my favourite china, only to fink a crack in the next cleave layer..... promises, promises, promises. Sometimes we also wish some of them werent true. How many times do we read something too good to be tru and then hunt around for the " * "? Way too often, even if on a sub-conscious level. It could be because we are cynical, but another word for cynical reads "experienced".
Falsifications v/s Utter Honesty. Its like a game.. We just need to keep turning our heads side to side to see whether we prefer gimmicks we know are gimmicks so we can cut some slack and lower expectations, or whether we prefer hearing wonderful things about the stuff thats there in our shopping basket. Score. Love None. Ones just as bad as the other.
Its irritaing to see 8 feet high toilet germs in malls handing out free samples of toilet cleaner (with real lemon, mind you), or trying to wonder what to do with the voucher that yu need to scratch to get another voucher you need to sctarch to win a lucky card that you need to scratch to put into a box for a lucky draw to win two tickets to Malaysia. But then again, its equally irritating to clean out a longstay lipcolor (which, I incidentally removed with a scrub that promises "total gentleness, wont even take out the extra oil off your skin", or to shop for a whole new wardrobe because the color from your clothes bled out from that lovely detergent, or to get half the electric wiring rewired because of the "high power" refrigirator, or to grab an entire crate of energy dink for a night of non-stop action.
Maybe we want to have our brains teased. Maybe we enjoy the gimmicks. Maybe we enjoy being treated like royalty to such an extent that Hollywood's or Bollywood's superstar has to sell us soap. Maybe we like to hear the nice things that accompany it. Put succinctly in the words of Homer Simpson : "It takes two to lie. One to lie, and one to listen".
1 comment:
Hey Appu, nice one...the reason i guess is competition. If Brand A claims to do something, Brand B is left with no choice but to better the claim...and the story goes on.
But then consumers are not the powerless victims they used to be...with the advent of web, a brand's image can be tarnished with a few clicks too. So companies in coming years will need to be more careful while making false claims. They also cant afford to take things lightly.
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