Advertising...for DUMMIES?

          Well, here it goes. My very first blog. I remember first falling in love with advertising by watching my stepfather work in postproduction. I watched him edit car commercials for hours on end- yes, car commercials. I don’t know how to describe it, but this just stuck with me. Got Milk? was the first ad campaign I fell in love with as a child. It's no accident I find myself in an advertising class... my last semester at San Jose State University. I’ve never been the "flip past the ads" kind of person, and I certainly hate missing the previews before a movie. This field obviously speaks to me.

I have introduced my blog with the above image because in my opinion, it’s always been easy to point the finger at big, bad, mass media conglomerate. It's time to stop pointing the finger and take responsibility. “Responsibility for what?” you might ask. Well, practice viewing with a critical eye.

Will Rogers says that “advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need”, but I might have to disagree. This sounds so deceiving. It is true that advertising, for many of us, makes its way into our lives- often without us being aware of it. But maybe this is because we have become less critical consumers, and are paying the price for it now.
Ads aren't created to trick and lure consumers, they’re trying to build relationships, thus establishing their brand as loveable, familiar, and desired- in turn luring and sweeping away consumers. Ads often present us with an abstract world, promising something nearly impossible to deny, allowing consumers to give commodities more power and influence over their lives than they deserve.

So, now it seems as though I am an a total advocate for advertising. I am. I am not exactly caught up in uncovering the truths and lies in advertising, but rather, what I really want to know is how to harvest all of that knowledge and information for a more productive cause. I hope to learn to view ads and the mass media through a more critical and productive lens, in turn empowering myself as a consumer living in the Bay Area.