Summary: In the article "Master's of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising," Jack Solomon states that advertisers use different tactics to get people to buy products. For example Jack Solomon claims, live the fantasy, fear and trembling in the marketplace, and the future of an illusion are all different ways advertisers use to get people to buy their products. He quotes, "By reading the signs of American advertising, we can conclude that America is a nation of fantasizers, often preferring the sign to the substance and easily enthralled by a veritable Fantasy Island of commercial illusions." By this he means us Americans desire a lot. We are easily impressed and want everything that we know we can't own. Furthermore Jack Solomon argues, "If dream and desire can be exploited in the quest for sales, so can nightmare and fear." What he is insinuating is that there is also fear in advertisements, to have buyers with either guilt, atonement, or to feel a sense of belonging. Us Americans like to feel like we belong so if we don't buy a product that we see on TV and everyone has that product we feel left out we feel like we need that product to belong in society. Lastly Solomon states the future of illusion which is similar to the live the fantasy. He quotes, "Our eyes don't have zoom lenses, and we don't look at things with our heads cocked to one side." He means that we don't see everything clear; but that's okay because its the irony of the "new realism" is that it is more unrealistic, more artificial, than the ordinary run of television advertising. We shouldn't expect any truly realistic ads in the future, because a realistic ad is contradiction in terms, Jack Solomon states. Concluding all these tactics that are being used proves that advertisers use them to capture our attention and get us to buy their product.
Response: I agree with Solomon when he states that America is a nation of fantasizers. I agree with that statement because it applies to the commercial I chose to write about. "The Old Navy Jean's" commercial uses the live the fantasy method. In the commercial you have a beautiful tropical island with the "ideal man" proposing to a woman. It's all a woman desires having the perfect vacation with the perfect man and getting asked for marriage. All ads use different tactics, methods, symbols, or signs to capture consumers attention.
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