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Advertisements Quotes

“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive. Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers. Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks - call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex - and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical-grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks. Biologists call this "supernormal stimulus" [...] Our beauty receptors receive more stimulation than they were evolved to handle; we're seeing more beauty in one day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. And the result is that beauty is slowly ruining our lives. How? The way any drug becomes a problem: by interfering with our relationships with other people. We become dissatisfied with the way ordinary people look because they can't compare to supermodels.”

BeautyAdvertisingAestheticsAdvertisementsBeauty StandardsSupermodelsUnrealistic Standards
Book:Stories of Your Life and Others
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“Previously, leaving the couch and walking up to the television to change the channel might cost more effort than merely enduring the awful advertisement and associated anxiety. But with a remote in hand, the viewer can click a button and move away effortlessly. Add cable television and the ability to change channels without returning the set (not to mention hundreds of channels to watch instead of just three), and the audience's orientation to the program has utterly changed. The child armed with the remote control is no longer watching a television program, but watching television—moving away from anxiety states and into more pleasurable ones. Take note of yourself as you operate a remote control. You don't click the channel button because you are bored, but because you are mad: Someone you don't trust is attempting to make you anxious. You understand that it is an advertiser trying to make you feel bad about your hair (or lack of it), your relationship, or your current SSRI medication, and you click away in anger. Or you simply refuse to be dragged still further into a comedy or drama when the protagonist makes just too many poor decisions. Your tolerance for his complications goes down as your ability to escape becomes increasingly easy. And so today's television viewer moves from show to show, capturing important moments on the fly. Surf away from the science fiction show's long commercial break to catch the end of a basketball game's second quarter, make it over to the first important murder on the cop show, and then back to the science fiction show before the aliens show up.”

AttentionTechnologyTelevisionPatienceDistractionAdsAdvertisementsAdvertisementTv
Book:Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
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“I emphasise it now; I had little-to-nothing in common with other people. Their values I did not comprehend, their ideals were to me a living horror. Call it ostentatious but I even sought to provide tangible proof of my withdrawal from the world. I posted a sign in the entrance to the building wherein I dwelt; a sign that indicated I had no wish to be disturbed by anyone, for any purpose whatsoever. As these convictions took hold of me and, as I denied, nay even repudiated, the hold that the current society of men possesses over its ranks, as I retreated into a hermitage of the imagination, disentangling my own concerns from those paramount to the age in which I happened to be born, an age with no claim to be more enlightened, significant or progressive than any other, I tried to make a stand for the spirit. Tyranny, in this land, I was told, was dead. But I contend that the replacement of one form of tyranny with another is still tyranny. The secret police now operate not via the use of brute force in dark underground cells; they operate instead by a process of open brainwashing that is impossible to avoid altogether. The torture cells are not secret; they are everywhere, and so ubiquitous that they are no longer seen for what they are. One may abandon television; one may abandon all forms of broadcast media, even the Internet, but the advertising hoardings in every street, on vehicles, inside transport centres, are still there. And they contain the same messages. Only the very rich can avoid their clutches utterly. Those who have obtained sufficient wealth may choose their own surroundings, free from the propaganda of a decayed futurity. And yet, and yet, in order to obtain such a position of freedom it is first necessary to have served the ideals of the tyranny slavishly, thereby validating it. ("The Tower")”

WealthRichSocietyMediaTelevisionWealthyAdsAdvertisementsBrainwashingTyrrany
Book:Best New Horror 23
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“What he found was astonishing. Every wall was plastered with posters and flyers. Some were like the ones he'd seen on the brick wall at King's Cross; others seemed to advertise specific market traders. Some were old and faded; some seemed much more recent. Some sounded quite ordinary-- Cocksfoot & Sable: Fine Ales and Cheeses; Clancy's Rustic Furnishings-- and some were more unusual. Tom frowned over Yellow Belle's Night-Woven Yarns, and felt his heart beat faster at Spindle Ermine's Love Spells. What kind of a market was this? He thought he understood Bird-Cherry's Flowers and Fruits, or Straw Dot's Most Accurate Timepieces, and even Scarlet Tiger Sleeve Tattoos-- but what was he to make of Pretty Pinion Wing Repairs or Mother Shipton, Laundress of Dreams, or Pale Eggar's Glamours and Charms, or Dusky Sallow's Evercoats?”

Urban FantasyMarketplaceMagical RealismPostersAdvertisementsFlyers
Book:The Moonlight Market
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“What’s up with your hair?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t you worried you’ll be spotted by angels flying above with all that blue?’ ‘War paint,’ says Dee, fastening his seatbelt. ‘Except it’s in our hair instead of on our faces,’ says Dum, starting the engine. ‘Because we’re original like that.’ ‘Besides, are poisonous frogs worried about being spotted by birds?’ asks Dee. ‘Are poisonous snakes? They all have bright markings.’ ‘You’re a poisonous frog now?’ I ask. ‘Ribbit.’ He turns and flicks out his tongue at me. It’s blue. My eyes widen. ‘You dyed your tongue too?’ Dee smiles. ‘Nah. It’s just Gatorade.’ He lifts up a bottle half-full of blue liquid. ‘Gotcha.’ He winks. ‘“Hydrate or Die,” man,’ says Dum as we turn onto El Camino Real. ‘That’s not Gatorade’s marketing,’ says Dee. ‘It’s for some other brand.’ ‘Never thought I’d say this,’ says Dum, ‘but I actually miss ads. You know, like “Just Do It.” I never realized how much of life’s good advice came from ads. What we really need now is for some industrious soul to put out a product and give us a really excellent saying to go with it. Like “Kill ’Em All and Let God Sort ’Em Out.”’ ‘That’s not an advertising jingle,’ I say. ‘Only because it wasn’t good advice back in the day,’ says Dum. ‘Might be good advice now. Attach a product to it, and we could get rich.”

WarHumorAdvertisementsDee Dum
Book:End of Days
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“Our present culture, however, specializes in inflaming endless lust for possessions with advertisements that constantly convince us that we need more (particularly to create the ease we have never found). The marketers don't tell us much about their products, but they spend a great deal of energy (and enormous amounts of money) appealing to our fears and dreams. Thus, the idolatry of possessions plays to the deeper idolatry of our selves-and in an endlessly consuming society, persons are always remaking themselves with new belongings.”

NeedsPersonsSelfPlayDreamCultureFoundEnergyDealsProductsAmountPossessionDeeperLustEndlessEnormousEaseConvinceBelongingConsumerismConsumingIdolatryAdvertisementsOverconsumptionMarketersConvince UsFears And Dreams
Author:Marva Dawn
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“The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art or sat slothfully by while they destroyed. We have passed this stage.... Here in the U.S. we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy our forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals - not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at best it looks as if our people were awakening.”

PeopleIfsLooksArtTodayTurnsSpeakEnvironmentAirStageHorrorBirdRiversFishesAwakeningForestsDestroyedLandscapeSatStreamsCivilizedWorks Of ArtAncestorCharmingGreat WorkMedievalHideousAdvertisementsMammalsSewers
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone.”

MayLittlesAbleWindWanderScentAdvertisements
Book:The Mountains of California (With Original Drawings & Photographs): Adventure Memoirs and Wilderness Study from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Picturesque California & Steep Trails
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“... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up.”

IfsShouldTryingChildrenHas BeensEnoughStuffObjectsMonthsOughtHumorousOur ChildrenYour ChildrenTiesHolidayBagsShoppingTiedRopeSantaMallsAdvertisementsSanta ClausFrenzyShoppers
Author:Dave Barry
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“Lying and cheating in advertising, in the long run, are commercial suicide. Dishonesty in advertising destroys not only confidence in advertising, but also in the medium which carries the dishonest advertisement. . . . No one can be ill in a community without endangering others; no advertiser can be dishonest without casting suspicion upon others.”

LongRunningLyingCommunitySuicideIllMediumsAdvertisingCheatingCarrieLong RunsSuspicionCastingDishonestyAdvertisementsAdvertisersLying And Cheating
Author:Daniel Starch
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“All the elements in an advertisement are primarily designed to do one thing and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy.”

FirstsOne ThingElementsSentencesCopiesAdvertisements
Book:The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters
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“Consumers will purchase high quality products even if they are expensive, or in other words, even if there are slightly reasonable discount offers, consumers will not purchase products unless they truly understand and are satisfied with the quality. Also, product appeal must be properly communicated to consumers, but advertisements that are pushed on consumers are gradually losing their effect, and we have to take the approach that encourages consumers to retrieve information at their own will.”

IfsQualityEffectsInformationProductsOffersApproachLosingSatisfiedAppealsConsumersReasonableExpensiveAdvertisementsHigh QualityDiscounts
Author:Satoru Iwata
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“During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance ... has seeped down into the lowest publications. ... Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature's spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.”

LittlesEyeLastsSpiritualUsedGirlLiteratureResultsRichCenturyAuthorityFunctionGuidancePriestsVillageQuartersPossessedCreamLowestNo PointContinuityPublicationAdvertisementsBreachUsurpationSpiritual GuidanceQuarter Of A Century
Author:Simone Weil
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“A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.”

WorldCountryEarthPainForceCenturyIgnoranceCivilizationPureSucceedEnglandSeekingChinaChiefsConquerBrownVillageMediocrityDedicatedCigaretteAspireLeafsBullySalesmanAdvertisementsVictorianArchesRestfulDerby
Author:Sinclair Lewis
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“Recognizing that the world is governed by a minority, the sexually active, and that they hold sway of a huge majority of the nonsexual, those people too young or too old or too poor or too homely or sick or crazy or powerless to be able to afford sexual partners (or the luxury of systematic, sustained and shared introspection, so sexual in its own way). All advertisements and films and songs are addressed to sexuals, to their rash whims and finicky tastes.”

PeopleWorldWayAbleFilmYoungSongPoorCrazyHugeTasteSickMajorityActivePartnersLuxuryMinoritiesIntrospectionPowerlessRecognizingSexuallySystematicWhimAdvertisementsHomely
Author:Edmund White
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“There are a lot of people who say we need to cut the amount of money that's spent in politics. I'm not sure that I agree. But I am sure that if you were talking about cutting the amount of money spent in politics, the media would have a strong interest in opposing you, because they make an enormous amount of money from political advertisements.”

PeopleIfsNeedsPoliticalStrongInterestTalkingCuttingMediaAmountAgreeEnormousNot SureOpposingAdvertisements
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“Whereas Absurdism in Europe seemed a logical, almost inevitable response to the irrationality of war, the analogous elements that surfaced in American drama seemed more a response to a materialist society run amok. The American-style Absurdism seemed to spring full-blown out of television advertisements and situation comedies, which had become new myth-making machines.”

WarRunningSituationComedyStyleTelevisionDramaElementsSpringEuropeMachinesResponseMythInevitableLogicalAdvertisementsIrrationality
Author:Arnold Aronson
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“Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines?”

WritingEnoughFactsAbleSituationPiecesExerciseAmbitionMachinesComicUncomfortablePensComposerOfferingPrivilegedChamberAdvertisementsCartoonistUnheardComic StripsIllustratorsToyotaUncomfortable SituationsChoosy
Author:Chris Ware
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“After a certain age our memories are so intertwined with one another that what we are thinking of, the book we are reading, scarcely matters any more. We have put something of ourselves everywhere, everything is fertile, everything is dangerous, and we can make discoveries no less precious than in Pascal's Pensées in an advertisement for soap.”

ThinkingBookMatterAgeCertainReadingMemoriesDangerousDiscoveryPensSoapOur MemoriesFertileAdvertisementsIntertwinedPascal
Book:The captive, The fugitive
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“The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace - the handcuff, the last - the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives - the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labor of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart - these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather that the exception, in the slave's experience.”

MindHeartChildrenBodyRealityWould BeLastsFormParentDifficultImaginationCommonWifeHusbandDespairLaborSlaveryMiserySlaveDetailsNewspapersInsultSicknessDescriptionExceptionSouthernWearyHighwaysScornExceedMenaceAdvertisementsFugitiveParent ChildDerisionHusband Wife
Book:Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839
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“it is only on posters and in advertisement pages that Americans have those chubby cheeks, expanding smiles, smooth looks, and faces flushed with well-being. In fact, almost all are at odds with themselves; drink offers a remedy for this inner malady of which boredom is the most usual sign: as drinking is accepted by society, it does not appear as a sign of their [Americans'] inability to adapt themselves; it is rather the adapted form of inadaptability.”

WellsLooksDoeFactsFacesFormDrinkOffersPagesDrinkingAcceptedWell BeingBoredomUsualCheeksRemedyOddsSmoothInabilityExpandingPostersAdaptedAdvertisementsMaladyChubby Cheeks
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“Even if every program were educational and every advertisement bore the seal of approval of the American Dental Association, we would still have a critical problem. It's not just the programs but the act of watching television hour after hour after hour that's destructive.”

IfsStillsProblemHoursTelevisionProgramEducationalCriticalDestructiveAssociationApprovalBoresSealsAdvertisementsDentalWatching TelevisionAfter Hours
Book:Close to Home
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“Buildings are seldom just buildings in downtown Chicago, they are Examples, and not a city on Earth, I swear, is as knowledgeably preoccupied with architectural meaning. Where else would a department store include in its advertisements the name of the architect who created it, or a newspaper property section throw in a scholarly exposition of theoretical design?”

EarthNamesCitiesExampleDesignBuildingPropertyStoresArchitectureNewspapersDepartmentChicagoArchitectSwearSectionsTheoreticalAdvertisementsDowntownScholarlyDepartment StoresDowntown Chicago
Book:Locations
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“Americans were people who wanted to leave every place better than they found it, to leave every man more of a man than they found him. ... Americans could open doors to almost all that was admirable - it was their misfortune, not their fault, that movies and victrolas and advertisements squeezed in when they opened the door.”

PeopleMenWantedFoundUnited StatesDoorsFaultsEvery ManMisfortunesAdmirableAdvertisements
Book:Pipers and a dancer
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