This morning I was sitting on the train reading The Corporation by Joel Bakan, a book essentially about the power and influence that corporations and businesses have over us, the lay people of this world, and it began to make me feel a little bit sick. I find it so sad that advertising and marketing techniques actually work on people in the first place. I've never liked people telling me what to do or being subjected to opinion I'm just not that interested in, it's one of the reasons I don't really watch TV (when I do I only watch something I really want to see) or read the papers (well, that'll be nothing actually because I find it extremely hard to read any newspapers at all), it's also why I mute the TV if I happen to be watching anything with adverts spliced in. I understand that advertising works, but to be honest it makes me feel a bit depressed that it may well work on me, so I avoid it wherever possible. Don't get me wrong, I do know that advertising is vital for most businesses to survive but I'm talking about advertising gone mental.
