The Sponsored Life

How do Nike or Pepsi ads convince you that you're a rebellious individual-even while they sell you the same sneakers or sugar water bought by millions? How does a company associated with a disaster, Exxon or DuPont, for example, restore its reputation? What gender and racial stereotypes lurk in TV commercials for beer, cars, cologne, and diamond rings? And what is the deeper meaning of living in an ad, ad, ad world? For more than a decade, journalist Leslie Savan exposed the techniques...
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How do Nike or Pepsi ads convince you that you're a rebellious individual-even while they sell you the same sneakers or sugar water bought by millions? How does a company associated with a disaster, Exxon or DuPont, for example, restore its reputation? What gender and racial stereotypes lurk in TV commercials for beer, cars, cologne, and diamond rings? And what is the deeper meaning of living in an ad, ad, ad world? For more than a decade, journalist Leslie Savan exposed the techniques advertisers use 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 both reflect and shape our lives. Savan's pioneering use of advertising as a lens to examine society and politics made her a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. "With unerring perception," the 1992 Pulitzer jury in criticism wrote, Savan "has seen advertising, PR and political chicanery as a new field of socio-aesthetic criticism. Her merciless prose impales both the electronic and print media." Though technology and tastes have changed since Savan's essays first appeared in The Village Voice, her analysis is timeless. The fundamentals of exploiting desire remain the same: sex and fear, flattery and patriotism, humor and cool still sell.Savan's interviews with ad agencies and corporate clients-along with her often hilarious take-downs of Adland's "Big Lies"-reveal how successful advertising works.But ads do more than sell products. They are signposts to the evolving American psyche. Think of female athletes sweating hard while wearing Reeboks: think "empowerment." Hear solemn New Age music for Crystal Light drink mixes or KitchenAid appliances: think "spiritual." When virtually any product can be associated with a powerful self-image, we are subtly refashioned into the advertiser's concept of a good consumer. Like it or not, we lead "the sponsored life."