The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV, and American Culture (Culture And The Moving Image)

How does a blatant lying in TV commercials-like Joe Isuzu's manic claims-create public trust in a product or a company? How does a company associated with a disaster, Exxon or Du Pont for example, restore its reputation? What is the real story behind the rendering of the now infamous Joe Camel? And what is the deeper meaning of living in an ad, ad, ad world? For a decade, journalist Leslie Savan has been exposing the techniques used by advertisers to push products and pump up corporate images. In the lively essays in this collection, Savan penetrates beneath the slick surfaces of specific ads and marketing campaigns to show how they reflect and shape consumer desires.Savan's interviews with ad agencies and corporate clients-along with her insightful analyses of influential TV sports-reveal how successful advertising works. Ads do more than command attention. They are signposts to the political, cultural, and social trends that infiltrate the individual consumer's psyche. Think of the products associated with corporate mascots-the drum-beating bunny, the cereal-pushing tiger, the doughboy-that have become pop culture icons. Think cool. Think of the clothing manufacturer that uses multiracial imagery. Think progressive. Buy their worldview, buy their product. When virtually every product can be associate with some positive self-image, we are subtly refashioned into the advertiser's concept of a good citizen. Like it or not, we lead "the sponsored life." Author note: Leslie Savan is the advertising columnist for The Village Voice and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.Leslie Savan is the author of 'The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV, and American Culture (Culture And The Moving Image)', published 1994 under ISBN 9781566392440 and ISBN 1566392446.