A Faint Green Sell: Advertising And The Natural World

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

The role of blinding commercialism in people's lives is to provide comfort in its repetitiveness and thoughtlessness. Commercialism does not encourage deep thought by any means, it prays on the quick impulses of the human mind. Murray points this out when talking to Jack about his students and their dislike of television, “‘Look at the wealth of data concealed in the grid, in the bright packaging, the jingles, the slice-of-life commercials, the products hurtling out of darkness, the coded messages and endless repetitions, like chants, like mantras.’”(51). Murray’s studying the television shows just how much can be learned about humankind from it. Through the use of a simile,

Kilbourne demonstrates three major main criticisms of advertising. First, advertising objectifies people and objects for the purpose of sales. This critique promotes products as more important than people and exploits human deeds and desires. Kilbourne offers ample evidence to support her first criticism of advertising. For example, Kilbourne examines advertisement such as the Thule car-rack - which humorously places more value on sports equipment been a child's life - is evidence of the trend that advertising is “objectif[ing] people…trivializ[ing and exploiting] our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion [,person, animal, and natural phenomenon] is used to sell us something” (Kilbourne, 2006, 369). Second - according to Kilbourne - advertising promotes and perpetuates the unnatural passion for products rather than personal relationship. “Advertising corrupts relationships and then offers us products, both as solace and as substitutes for the intimate human connection we all long for and need” (Kilbourne, 2006, 370). Within this concept, advertising also commits ‘cultural rape’ by manipulating sacred symbols for their utilization as emotional leverage in advertising. Third, advertisements damage the personality and structure of culture. For example the Giwch’in tribe’s traditional culture was almost erased by the introduction of advertising through television. “As multinational chains replace local character, we end up in a world in which everyone is Gapped and Starbucked…[Thus] rampant commercialism undermines our physical and psychological health, our environments and our civic life, and creates a toxic society” (Kilbourne, 2006, 371), which robs individuals of cultural and personal diversity. Based on the evidence presented by Kilbourne, I strongly agree with all three of these

Coming from commercials, newspapers, movies, and magazines, advertisements are one of the most prominent things that we get bombarded with on a daily basis. The problem with a lot of people including myself is that we fall victim to the manipulation of the advertising sharks and their devious tricks. In the article ‘Advertising’s 15 Basic Appeals’ by Jib Fowles, the author describes how advertisers will use 15 basic emotional appeals in order to get you to say ‘I want and need that!’ In National Geographic, a historical, anthropological, discovery-based magazine, advertisers focus their energy on the middle-aged, middle-class, educated audience, who want to improve not only their intellectual integrity, but also improve their families lives if the readers can help it. National Geographic advertisers can do this by appealing to the readers’ basic needs for achievement, nurture, and guidance.

In Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods written in 2008, he argues the separation between people and nature. As technology advances the less people are able to see of nature there is a boundary that is separated between the two. To convey his goal Louv uses rhetorical question, allusion, and anaphora to make the people understand the boundaries that are being set between people and nature. One of the rhetorical devices Louv uses in order to convey his goal is an allusion to advertisements.

In Chapter Seven of Practices of Looking, we start to explore in the ideas of advertising, consumer cultures and desire. Everyday, we are faced with advertisements through newspapers, magazines, TV, movies, billboards, public transportation such as buses and taxis, clothing, the internet, etc. Logos, such as signs, or anything that resemble a brand, are everywhere, they are on clothing, household items, electronics, cars, etc. Consumers are always showing off their brands and advertisements and we are used to seeing those brands and advertisements in an everyday setting. In modern media, advertisers are pressured to always change the ways they show off and get the attention to consumers, old and new. Advertisers also used present figures who were glamorous. Advertisements set up a certain relationship between the product and its meaning to sell the products and the hidden meaning we link to each of the products. Advertisements use the language of conversion. Advertisers try to create a customer relationship to the brand to try to form them as familiar, necessary, and also likeable.

literally up to this generation to save the world, to make the changes we need to

In Micah White’s “Mental Environmentalism”, the author emphasizes the detrimental effects imprudent and pervasive commercial advertising has on society and compares it to a dystopia where we are captivated by consumerism. White explains that we must maintain a healthy mental environment because our external reality is essentially a reflection of our internal world and with the way advertisements have plagued our minds, it has resulted in devastating global issues like climate change. With constant exposure to advertisements daily, our ability and potential to be imaginative and think freely is limited, both traits that are vital for a society to thrive and flourish.

The most dominant mass marketing technique known as advertising has become inevitable. Advertisements are everywhere in some form or fashion. Whether it is billboards, posters, fliers, or any other print media, advertisements are there fulfilling their purpose; in other words, they are breaking down the “tuning out” barrier. In the article, “Jesus is a Brand of Jeans” written by speaker, social theorist, and widely published writer, Jean Kilbourne, she expresses that we are all influenced by advertisements. She indicates that majority of the power of advertising originates from the mentality of believing advertisements have no effect on oneself. I agree with Kilbourne on the fact that advertising affects every individual.

Today’s quick-moving world of technology has media texts such as advertisements to make sure that people understand with just a glance. Having adverts on magazines, social media and billboards allow them to use tools such as semiology, genre and narrative because it makes their messages clear instantly. These signs allow us to carry meaning through advertisements, connotations and the signification process. These tools let brands, mainly celebrities, and the option to produce and create a myth of the product such as “Be daring. Be an inspiration” to sell it to the world. We are in a time where advertisers use ‘simplicity’ in their adverts; there are no more paragraphs. It is mainly down to the person and the few words shown in that advert.

Visual representation of reality, as seen through mass media, is acknowledged by sociologists to be influential in shaping people's views of the world. Our everyday realities are articulated mostly by what we see in the media. The role of advertising in this interpretation of reality is crucial. The target audience's self-identification with the images being a basic prerequisite for an advertisement's effectiveness, makes advertising one of the most important factors in the building of behavior models and values systems. The way a certain notion is managed at a visual level determines how people will perceive this notion and whether they will identify with it or not. Meaning is encoded in the

You pick up your new monthís edition of Time magazine from the breakfast table, and begin flipping through the pages. Before you get a chance to read the article on the next war, you come across an advertisement of Marlboro cigarettes; however, you see no cigarettes in the ad, just a picture of a beautiful sunset over a desert-cross. Advertisements such as these are viewed everywhere, where nature is the object being sold. Each nature representation is always selling different messages, making the real product more convincing to buy for the consumers.

The ‘Dove Evolution’ advertisement is a perfect example of postmodernism advertising and complements the above discussion of hyper reality. The advertisement presents the full process in creating a billboard worthy advertisement. Firstly, the segment provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the model is, essentially ‘created’, and shows the audience how the ‘original’ image becomes the final product, unlike modernist advertisements which just presents an already final and ‘beautiful’ product. Emphasis on the use of photo-shop illustrates how technology has become a tool in modern day advertising and highlights Baudrillard’s (1994) view that the people of today live in an ‘unreal’ and fake world. Filming and disseminating this process “allows us to live without the illusions that modernity dangled before us” (Hart pg 9) The background classical music that has been slightly distorted illustrates Hart’s (2004) belief that “Postmodernism takes what it likes from high culture (classical music) and puts it to work in popular culture (advertising)” (Pg 8, Hart, 2004), further illustrating the idea that postmodernism involves removing “things out of their contexts, fragmenting them…and, well, playing with them” (pg 8, Hart, 2004). The final cut shows the billboard up, without showing the process of how that image came to be, reiterating Mills (1956) argument that the public would be unable to tell that it is a hyper-real image. This advertisement exemplifies Harvey’s (1990)

Unfortunately there are consequences that arise when a consumer has been greenwashed. These consequences are that consumers ultimately spend more money on products that they believe stand true, and when purchasing these products the consumer is supporting companies that are harming the environment. Downing et al. states that, “learning how to read advertising critically thus provides individuals with important tools for interpreting contemporary American culture and avoiding manipulation. Ads are complex texts, the images, words, framing devices, and

“Advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is not a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and