The Language of Advertising.....and How It Sucks

          In the essay The Language of Advertising by the author and marketing consultant Charles A. O'Neill, the brainwashing guru and writer suggests that most, if not all advertising is just mirroring the society that creates and consumes it. I for one find this to be a fairly ridiculous and insulting hypothesis.
          While I do agree that society may be the general guide for advertisers, the idea that they are just innocent bystanders shining back the ugly reflection of the status quo is flat out preposterous. I personally believe that advertisers a manufacturing just as many, if not more, fears and insecurities as they may be "mirroring" back at us.
          Needless to say, I didn't enjoy the tone of this essay at all. I felt that the piece was almost an "advertisement for advertisers" written to paint these modern day propagandists in the most positive light that they could manage to sway in their direction. Even if there is a good amount of truth to it, the fact that the author had the gumption to write that "the public at large is not particularly intelligent" really leaves a bad taste in your mouth and clues you in to the type of pompous ass that is in charge of pushing these products on the masses.
      

Campari Ad Assessment

          Hi, my name is Jesse and this will be the first post in my blog for the English 100 class I am currently enrolled in at the Santa Rosa Junior College. It is my first blog ever so this should be an interesting and new experience for me, I look foreword to it.
          The subject of this first writing will be the above advertisement for the disgusting liquor known as Campari. The ad stars the beloved by men everywhere Salma Hayek and was very clearly devised with the goal of getting the attention of men of all ages. This particular ad spot uses both overt sexuality and imagery meant to convey a higher class of product, the heavy use of cleavage and the manner in which the models overly large diamond bracelet is emphasized are meant to draw in the target from the get go and for me at least, these simple advertising tricks worked like a charm.
          As simple and transparent as the spot may be, I for one found it very effective. So effective in fact that I immediately thought of this particular ad when we were assigned the task of writing about a specific advertisement. After seeing the ad a few days earlier in a friends copy of a popular mens magazine it was still fresh enough in my head to seek it out specifically and print out a copy for this assignment. So to the creators of this ad and especially to Salma herself, I say bravo!