This Is How Advertising Works

Lately, while watching ESPN's Sports Center in the mornings, I've seen a lot of commercials for a body spray called RGX Life. I don't use body sprays, and for all I know it smells like rotten cabbage. The ads simply consist of the woman, pictured above, talking seductively into the camera. My eyes feel like they are bulging out of my head as if in a Tex Avery cartoon. Now I feel compelled to buy this product, like Homer Simpson was compelled to go to Krusty's Clown College after seeing it advertised on a billboard.

The whole world of advertising gets under my skin, mostly in a negative way, and I'm sure I'm not alone. We all hate television commercials, but in a way they are kind of celebrated. It seems like the Super Bowl telecast is less concerned with the game than with the razzle-dazzle of the ads. And most TV commercials fly in the face of what would seem to be common sense for an advertisement: tell us what the product is, how much it costs, where I can get it, and why I should get it. The ads for RGX Life say nothing about the quality of the product, only that a smokin' hot girl seems to like men who wear it. Ads about perfume and cologne are fundamentally ridiculous, anyway, because we can't smell the stuff over the airwaves, so advertisers are reduced to suggesting that wearing a particular scent will make the opposite sex go crazy, which I guess appeals to our biological imperative.

When I was just out of college and looking for a job, I scanned the "College Grad" ads in the New York Times, which seemed to fall into a few categories: publishing, public relations, and advertising. Being an ad guy would have made some sense, as it probably is a good job for someone who can write and think creatively. But I was wary of it, as if it were dabbling in black magic, an ethical quagmire. What if, I thought to myself back then, I was put to work on a campaign for cigarettes, or the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney? I couldn't possibly sleep at night. And I would also sit awake nights, wondering how a television manufacturer could effectively advertise a set with a great picture--if you're watching the commercial on a crappy TV, you can't tell how good the picture is, and if you can see how good the picture is, you don't need a new TV!

So I ended up working as a copy editor for a legal publishing company, which was as exciting as it sounds. I have no regrets about shunning the advertising industry, except perhaps that it would have afforded me the chance to meet the RGX girl, who I discovered after a bit of Googling, is named Rachel Specter. Va va voom!