The average American encounters 3000 commercial messages each day. Whether this is a radio commercial, a magazine ad, a logo on the side of a coffee cup or a billboard we pass on the highway, these images and messages are designed to cause to you think of your life as incomplete, and desire the product they are selling to make your life complete again.
A standard formula used in many commercials is twofold: 1. To illicit a thought in the viewer that their life is not satisfactory and then 2. To convince the viewer their life could be made satisfactory with the introduction of said product.Donald Miller.
I will so admit, this kind of consumerism works very well on me. I can be perfectly content, see an ad and decide, now, I am missing something which leads immediately to the thought - what else am I missing? Because I understand that I am not alone is this kind of self induced terrorism, somehow helps. Is terrorism too strong a word? Maybe and maybe not. I am under no illusion that anyone trying to get me to buy their product will do ANYTHING to make that happen. Apple is one of those people.
I love Apple ads, and feel the need to get grab my keys and head to the nearest Apple store before the commercial is even over. Since we don't have an Apple Store, it would be a 5 hour trip to Utah or a 10 hour trip to Seattle - either way, not easy task. Apple is the king of advertising and if you haven't been sucked in, you are not paying any attention.
How can one go from satisfied to completely and totally lacking in less than a minute? If you can figure that out, you can sell refrigerators to Eskimos. If you can see one of these 300 ads and say to yourself, I'm good - you really are...
