Like everyone, I see a lot of ads. Some are obnoxious, but I try not to let them bother me. I was reading an article at USA Today earlier in the week, though, and the following ad made me blow a gasket:
I’ve obscured the advertiser’s logo.
This message is followed by one that reads: “Bad parents don’t.”
Yes, I know the ad is trying to be funny. Yes, I know it’s trying to pretend to hypnotize the reader. I don’t care. This is the sort of blatant consumerist message I hate. I loathe it.
Why does this sort of thing make me angry? Because it works! People who see this ad — including me — will absorb the message into their subconscious. Few will purchase this computer for their kids, but many will have their urge to buy things reinforced.
It’s not often that an ad makes me angry, but it does happen, especially if it contains some blatant falsehood disguised as flip advice: “good parents buy”, “driving is so much easier than cooking”, etc.
Yet another reason it’s important to reduce your exposure to advertising.
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Before a new reader beats me to the punch, let me note that I realize there’s a level of hypocrisy present when I complain about ads yet run them on this site. I’ve written about my dilemma before. Advertising allows me to justify the time I spend writing here, and I do try to weed out the worst ads, the ads that make me blow a gasket. Fair enough?
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I agree with you on the effectiveness of ads. I hate it too, although I don’t watch TV or read many magazines.
I don’t think there’s any hypocrisy, however. It’s the same reason why I don’t smoke, I hate smoking, and yet I wouldn’t have a problem investing in Altria or another cigarette manufacturer.
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I’ve been lurking here for a couple months now, reading your posts. Although they’re often interesting, I am still personally in financial overwhelm mode, and taking your advice about saving, budgeting, etc has so far felt out of my league (I know, good financial practices are for everyone – I’m hoping to absorb that idea by reading here!) but this post, I really connected with.
Refusing to buy stuff for my kids (and for me) is one skill I do have down.
I am continually shocked and saddened by the way that even friends who share my anti-consumer instincts give in to buying the latest clothes/gadgets/packeged snacks/etc for their kids. And the saddest part is that kids respond to this by getting even more whiney and, I think, less happy.
At the risk of tooting my own horn here, I think my four year old daughter seems more happy-go-lucky than some of her peers who expect to have ice cream, toys, new clothes, etc purchased for them all the time. It’s not that my daughter never asks for anything, but I can walk through a store without her having a tantrum and demanding candy. When I see kids whose parents give in to whining for treats, those kids seem less happy, they seem to be more often preoccupied with what they don’t have, instead of enjoying what they do have.
Of course, sometimes I do buy new clothes, and we do go out to ice cream now and then. But these are special treats made all the more special by the fact that they aren’t everyday occurances.
I do think buying less makes you enjoy what you have more. For kids especially.
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I’m with you when it comes to saving and not buying things needlessly. I save over 2/3 of each pay check, investing most of it in mutual funds and putting the rest into a high interest savings account. From what I’ve read from your blog over the past couple of months, it appears that you don’t spend a lot either. If everyone saved like us and bought very little, wouldn’t a lot of businesses go out of business? Wouldn’t that hurt the stock market and make us get richer even more slowly?
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People think we are crazy for only watching PBS and renting Netflix. The amount of idiot advertising myself, my husband and my kids ingest is minimal compared to our peers.
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If the ad was strictly for computers, then I would have to agree with it. Many of my friends who are highly successful in the computer industry cut their teeth on top of the line machines that their families purchased when they were in junior high. I think computers are a worthwhile thing to splurge on, not unlike spending money on education.
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You say that this is “another reason it’s important to reduce your exposure to advertising”. While I agree that this is one method of protecting yourself against purchases that you don’t want, much less need, advertising continues to sprawl and grow like a vine, choking up around every building you see, every website, channel etc. Perhaps we should instead find a way of over-exposing ourselves into immunity? If, perhaps, we could see advertising and marketing for what it was (every time), then we would just pay it no mind and it would roll off us like water off a duck’s back.
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As a marketer who views many ads with scorn, I do want to say that ads serve a purpose. They make you aware of products you might not otherwise consider. They get you to compare products. They draw your attention to problems. They pose solutions to your problems. They do serve a purpose.
That being said, I monitor my child’s TV use, refuse to buy branded items, limit purchases for anything, and funnel most birthday/Christmas money to a family education savings plan.
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This one hit me right between the eyes. I struggle so much with this very sentiment. I don’t want to “deprive” my kids.
So much of advertising makes me mad too. No matter how much we *think* it doesn’t have an effect on us – well, really we’re just kidding ourselves. Your recommendation to avoid it as much as possible is a good one. I also read blogs like yours to try and counteract what messages advertising tries to feed me.
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I saw that exact same add the other day and said told my wife just how much I hated it also. I’m sick of how advertising seems to be more and more targeted towards the family dynamic. Sure there has always been ads geared towards kids and so forth. But there seems to be more now than ever, ads for cellphones, cable/satellite/internet, food stuffs, even medicine, that seems to imply that if you don’t buy this or that for your kids you’re a bad parent. I laughed at how on a show I was watching the other day, they pointed out that the television ads for certain herpes medications tries to make you think your life would be so much happier if only you had an std and took their pills.
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Just to comment on the comment “…ads serve a purpose. They make you aware of products you might not otherwise consider.” Why is this a good thing? If I don’t consider owning an item now, without the advertising making it known to me, then I probably don’t need it in the first place. And if I truly need an item such as food, clothing and shelter then I will certainly find ways to obtain it, even without advertising pushing it to me.
But the problem is much larger than that. The unlimited consumption of products, fuelled by advertising has tremendous negative impact not just on personal finances, but especially on the entire social fabric of humanity and the environment we live in. We don’t need new toys. We need each other and a sustainable environment that will provide us with necessities of life. That’s it. If we can’t find joy in that then we certainly won’t find it in some gadget. No matter what advertising says.
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I, too, am disgusted by this ad. To make matters worse- as a mom of 4 kids under 6- the first time I saw this ad was on a kids’ website my 6 year old was playing games on. Thank God he can’t read yet! How can you explain that to a 6 year old? “Are you a bad mommy?” “No son, I am not a bad mommy just because I didn’t buy you XYZ.” I will never buy a product by this company again.
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Choosey Mom’s choose Jiff.
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Not sure I understand the logic in obscuring the advertiser’s logo, but otherwise, I’m in total agreement with ya here.
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After thinking about this more I was reminded of something I felt when I became a new mother. I received a few different free subscriptions to “motherhood” based magazines in the mail. I was excited to get good insight and information on raising kids.
What I really got was a feeling of inadequacy and stress. Almost every page of the magazine had ads for things my kids “needed”. Crustless sandwiches, antidepressants, Sean John clothing and for me… fat creams, fat loss and purses.
The articles centered around what I could only see as a blatant attempt to make me be something their standards were set to. $30 shirts for babies, $90 shoes for my 3 year old and Brats babies for my nieces (which are the most disgusting items on earth as far as I’m concerned). Thank goodness those celebrities shared the fact they spend $200 on their baby’s swim suit… now I can run out and buy the same one to be worn 4 times before the season is over.
We now use the magazine to cut our pictures of peoples faces for my kids to paste to their art projects. LOL
OK… done ranting.
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I used to hate the ads for Schlitterbahn water park–a little girl in the back yard with her brother, holding a water hose and looking through a window at a tv ad for the waterpark, saying “I wish we could go.” Made me so MAD. I felt bad for parents who saw that and couldn’t afford $30 per kid and $60 per adult water park tickets.
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Thing is, a lot of people who are justifiably outraged by the way the advertisement targets its audience, also cry “why doesn’t someone DO something?”…
Make it easy to protect ourselves already…or better yet protect us, for us.
That someone wanted, of course, is the government or other over-reaching association usually citing a truth-in-advertising argument which only seems to apply to any business currently out of favor to those “they”.
(Please note there is not a PRODUCT “truth” that can be proven or disproved in this ad.)
In fact, you are one of the few (kudos) I’ve seen advocating that WE limit our viewing options as the best option.
If we don’t like it, we shouldn’t expose ourselves to this sort of thinking, much less act on it (GI-GO). If we don’t act on the advertisement, the company will stop producing them (take the extra step and let the company know WHY you aren’t buying their product).
But then you are left with the problem that there are more people who DO buy into the delusion and that you cannot get THEM to “see sense” and put a free-market stop to the problem. It’s those people this ad is knowingly geared towards, not you.
Right, wrong or indifferent, you cannot impose your values on those sheep any more than they can impose their values on you. Can you imagine the howling if Social Services issued an edict that parents who do not buy their kids computers (regardless of kind) are negligible?
And yes, those type people will think you ARE a bad parent if you don’t keep up with the gadget of the moment–how many middleagers remember the fits and arguments we used to throw to get the latest ATARI? And give in to our kids for iPods? Like perpetuates like.
Although I despise the direction large marketing has taken in the interest of making a buck (or couple million), and hence got out of the business, I am still the only one responsible for me and mine.
I may disagree with the way they do it, but I’ll protect their right TO do it. And I’ll protect myself from it where our ideology are at cross purposes.
If I cannot protect myself from a commercial…well, go ahead and put me down now.
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You have to learn to say no. Kids will try to get you to buy the whole world. They have this notion that the more you buy for them, the happier they will be. Adults go through this too. Material things are wonderful to have, but in the end – will your gadget give you love? Kids need to be taught this right from the beginning.
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The “good parents buy this” never works on me – instead of feeling guilty, I end up feeling sort of righteous for not getting suckered in!
I need to work on this more, but I believe in talking with my kids (well, only one of them is old enough to want stuff and at least kind of understand what I’m saying) and letting them know why I will buy them some things but not others.
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[...] Get Rich Slowly tears into advertising that tells parents that they have to buy stuff for their kids in order to be good parents. [...]
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I can’t tell you the amount of things my kids ask for that they see on TV. Advertisers clearly know this… It’s a pain, but whadayado???
good post, agreed!
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“If it was really that good, they wouldn’t have to advertise it. People would just buy it.”
My mom used this line on me when I was growing up, and I used it on my kids. My two teens are now incredibly skeptical about advertising; neither has ever whined about wanting the latest toy/gadget/whatever. It really works!
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[...] feed. Thanks for visiting!My first two “Ads I Hate” posts seem to have struck a nerve (1, 2). You folks really hate the consumerist mentality these ads promote. From the e-mail and [...]
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Another ad I hate: A mom is faced with a dilemma. Her young daughter is going from a school where she has to wear uniforms to one where she doesn’t. Oh no, her daughter has nothing to wear. The famous retailer suggests a whole new wardrobe full of the trendiest clothes they have available. Daughter is surprised and thrilled, Mom is a hero, and all is well. Let’s put more pressure on parents to buy for our whiny and materialistic children this holiday season.
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[...] a look at this recent post on Get Rich Slowly. The author writes about an ad that he finds disgusting—it shows a laptop with the words [...]
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I was aghast a couple of years ago at a teevee ad for an SUV that showed two families. One family was riding across a bridge in a sedan. The child in the car seat couldn’t see over the walls of the bridge. The other family was in the huge SUV, so their kid could see the stunning vista of the river or lake or whatever. The message seemed to be “Only SUV drivers love their children.”
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As a college student, I hope to provide another perspective. Advertisements are dumb, I agree, because the sucker you into throwing money down the drain. I agree, kids are materialistic now-a-days, but guess where they got it from? Successful parents have already made up their mind that “stuff” is worth working 40hrs a week for. The “stuff” is worth not seeing their kids grow up and “stuff” is worth working weekends for.
Kids do want the world, but I think if you give kids an allowance, they will , overtime, learn the price of money and how to stop wasting it on things they don’t need.
I hate being materialistic, but sometimes if I buy a new pair of shoes or a new outfit, I’m more likely to be excited about going to class the next day.
You can’t expect that you’re doing the right thing by saving thousands of dollars on your kid. They will learn to resent you or find other demeaning ways to get the money they need or they’ll turn to drugs (think of how often college kids party).
When my parents got me out of the dorms, and into an apartment, my grades went up, I stopped partying and got my life together. I felt closer to my parents.
There’s nothing wrong with ur kid spending money, especially if it takes away from time they’re doing drugs. And if you think your kid won’t do drugs, you are very delusional.
I’m not saying max out your credit cards tho. That’s not really spending money, but owing money.
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Two inches below your screen shot is an ad for HP. I guess you need the money you get from hosting the ads, and the employees at HP probably appreciate their salaries. So I don’t think that it’s something inherently wrong with advertisements, but I agree that this is a tacky and bad campaign – consumers don’t want to be reminded of the purpose of the ads.
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