Upon visiting my father in the living room, where he was watching the midday news, I got a dose of the commercials used to target his audience group. They are dominantly directed toward senior citizens, with the assurance that the viewers are incapable of “regular” lives.
Most advertising comes from pharmaceutical companies and describes a range of depressing symptoms, and even more depressing side effects of the medications they are marketing to treat the symptoms. My father, who already reads all the contraindications and side effects accompanying his pill bottles, frowns steadily at a screen that assures him this pill will restore him, and his grateful relatives, to a semblance of normal life, if he is willing to risk a spike in blood pressure, dizziness, nausea, depression, suicidal thoughts, and the probable onset of liver disease. (Erections lasting more than four hours are reserved for evening viewers.)
Other ads focus on the hazards of bathing, climbing the stairs, and getting around socially. The bathroom in particular is identified as a place where the viewer will be stuck, possibly for days on end. To protect against this eventuality, a structure resembling an upright isolation tank can be installed in the corner of the bathroom, with an improbable gated entrance. For staircases, a variation on the ski lift seems to be the preferred product; and seniors are encouraged to motor around supermarkets, driveways, and the edges of the Grand Canyon in something resembling a golf cart.
Along the lines of what has already been done in studies on senior citizens’ memory, it strikes me it would be interesting – for media studies, mental health experts generally and geriatric ones in particular, and perhaps others – to set up two age groups of regular viewers, one senior and one, perhaps, college-age, and switch the advertising. What would happen if the college-age group were regularly bombarded with suggestions that their motor skills aren’t sufficient, that they suffer peculiar pains that could be harbingers of death, and that their environment is a hazard to them? And what would happen to nursing-home seniors if they were encouraged to buy iPhones and iPods, wear trendy clothing, demand lavish gifts from lovers (preferably presented during thunderstorms), and exceed the speed limit on curvy roadways?
Of course, one might also shudder to think what would happen to the rest of us.
And I’m worried enough about those golf carts at the Grand Canyon.
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Thanks for the BBC documentary recommendation!
Advertising is based on creating desire. No one ever sold a washing machine by telling you that the one you have is good enough. That would make advertising one of Buddhist psychology’s principal enemies, I would think, since desire is the root of suffering. Certainly, the creation of a climate of dissatisfaction with what you have is something to be questioned….
For an interesting look at how advertising has affected our lives over the last century, check out the BBC-produced documentary “Century of the Self.” Fascinating stuff.
With regard to television commercials I recall a story my mentor in college shared with me. He told me of a time when a houseguest asked his seven-year-old daughter why she muted the commercials. “Because somebody’s just trying to sell me junk I don’t need,” she answered.