)(( hannah mello ))(

marketing and the nature of human story...

this is my favorite advertisement to date. i have this fascination with advertisements. the marketers of today are a kind of philosopher for our generation.

(((ok. it sounds terrible. especially with me penning this on the soil of the greeks and the romans. terrible, i know. but, please-- go with it for a second. work with me.))) :)

marketers must put their finger on the pulse of humankind. yes, they isolate particular humans in a particular corner of our global ecosystem-- or even those in a surreal petridish (spelling?) of alternative 'reality' (alternative 'reality' can take many faces). first, they put finger to pulse. i am reminded of the scene in 'what women want' where marketer, mel gibson, tries to put his finger on the pulse of women. :) secondly, they try and describe the pulse in tangible terms. what veins are absolutely critical for this particular 'kind of human'? what cognitive motions are unconsciously habitual? these questions become the passwords. the marketers then emerge into a whole new world of seeing. suddenly:

1. they can name what people want-- dreams, hopes, and fears become realities. for the marketer, you are not just the list (your possessions, family, vocation, history, personality)-- no! you are a whirling swirl of the list, yes, but also dreams, hopes, fears-- all of those abstract things behind what the eyes perceive.

2. we humans tend to live in community. we clump with those who share similar dreams, hopes, and fears. we may not have communist tendencies politically, but somehow we, on even the most surface of relational levels, desire to be with people who care about what we care about.

3. whether individually or collectively, we humans name what we care about. we say to ourselves: life is ________. life without ______ would not be life. love is __________. love without ______ would not be love. and so on... ... one can simplify even the most complicated of lives and communities down to small, small categories. the categories of philosophy.


marketers are not only philosophers, but they are our generation's sociologists. one day, anthropologists will see if marketers demolished human kind with their manipulation of philosophy and sociology. technology has similarly been manipulated to devastate humankind. however, with technology, it is used for the bettering of life as well. maybe marketers are similarly good and bad. i don't know. the materialistic jungle is

ok. a bit of a rabit-trail.
so why do i love advertisements?
because these 'philosophers' and 'sociologists' put their assessments into artistic expression. their task, however, is a difficult one. they must put the art in the most accessible form possible. the most 'ah! uh-huh!' form. all art is that, yes. putting form, color (and sometimes sound) to what we know everyday without thinking.

ok. totally DID NOT INTEND AT ALL to write that. crap. i set out to write about a conversation i had with a lady today. rats. putting that picture in got me all inspired and off-track. terrible. now, if i write about the woman, you will never visit my blog again because of the length of these posts. crap. :) umm... well, i guess i'll have to save the story. it woud be murder to suffocate it into a bag of a paragraph. i'll save it for next time. wait for it... wait for it... :)

thanks for reading. :)

posted by )(( hannah mello ))( @ 11:52 AM