In advertising lies a danger: it does not usually represent the actual value an advertised object has to an average audience, it rather evokes a basic lust within the human and connects that to a brand name. Advertising is a means of getting people to do what someone else wants them to do, but because it is not done by violence, it is wholly accepted.
Ads aim at the most vulnerable, susceptible parts of the human brain, and affect them with messages which are not checked for the kind of effect they might have on a persons well being. Is it perhaps legitimate to view advertisement as a form of non physical violence?
Advertisement forms an authority in our daily lives. I would even say it’s the first and foremost. I don’t mean the fact that the president of the USA is elected on the basis of the quantity of advertisements, but all other advertisements for all products serve as authority. Advertisement is the authority that tells us which nourishments we buy and which president we elect.
In as far as this is a hyperbole I am aware of it being one. It’s true that we can ignore advertising, some even claim to be uninfluenced by it. It’s also true that not all products can be advertised so as to be sold.
In order to answer whether there is or isn’t any morality implicit in advertising, let’s address the question of what can not be advertised so as to be sold. Is such an item thinkable - or is there an a priori condition in the very act of advertising that disallows for certain realities to be advanced?
On how advertising was designed to penetrate the depths of the human psyche, or “heart”: The Century of the Self.