What started of as a way to make one's product known to the public, has now turned into a dirty game, whose only objective is to appease the public and tease them into buying ones product, even if it's not exactly what they need. The advertising industry has vowed to deceive the public by making them fall prey to one of their many charades and end up proving their marketing sops a perfect bait.
Celebrities and individuals of public appeal can easily be spotted endorsing a variety of products in add campaigns and on TV. However, there is one really important question that comes to the surface from here. Are these products really useful to the extent that our much-revered and fanatically-followed celebrities force us to believe???
Their personality juxtaposed with their aura, charisma and public image has such captivating effect on the minds of the people that they cease to cogitate the utility of the product.
Nevertheless, what really intrigues me is this question - Do our celebrities ever use the product that they endorse with so much conviction, in the first place???
Do we really know and for that part, should we really believe that Katrina Kaif's long silky hair, that she loves to flaunt, are the way they are because of a constant nourishment from the shampoo she endorses??? That seems a bit too hard to get into the head, at least for hardliners like me.
Furthermore, do you really believe when you see a Hrithik Roshan jumping 10ft down a cliff into water after having gulped down a soft drink??? And before jumping he chants the famous catch line of the even more famous soft-drink, to make believe the naive people that all the adrenalin that was needed to execute this super human effort was managed as a by-product of the drink. If it's true then it is expedient for the Sports Ministry in India to make that drink the official refreshment of the Olympic contagion we send every four years to different places around the world only to witness ignominious defeat in most of the sporting events, if not all.
The truth however is far from what we perceive. The celebrities endorse the product to receive fat pay cheques and contracts. But the public taken by the aura of their favorite celebrities end up shopping a not-so-useful product.
So advertising, in today's world of cut-throat competition, has become more about luring or tempting the customers to buy a product than the mere traditional motive of making it known amongst the people.
Another perfect trick that people succumb to is what I would call the "conditions-apply" catch. So the companies, to all extent, try to prove a deal way more profitable and favorable to people than it really is by using just two words and an asterisk - "*conditions apply".
They advertise rampantly about a particular deal offered or a discount given. Tempting, so much so these deals sound, that the customers can't help but to check it once. This however proves to be a futile mistake because the articulate salesperson inveigles them into buying that deal. The gullible customer only realizes later that he/she did not qualify for the deal or got only a fraction of what was promised because of a small miniscule footer - in possibly the minimum font size - whispering in a muffled tone: "Dude!!! You almost got mugged. This is what would happen if you would fail to notice me. Better luck next time."
A study also proves that a customer actually ends up spending more money when he , or precisely 'she', shops during a sale. That's because of the frame of mind a person is in when shopping in a sale. A false feeling of "I'm saving money, if I'm buying something now" dominates the thought process and by the time that feeling subsides half the work is already done. Indeed the customer might have saved some money, but effectively he/she has spent much more in proportion.
But we, the people, innocent as we are, have a relatively fading memory. We are foolish and blind and make such 'Oh-my-God-I-wasted-it' type investments again and yet again.
In the end no more serious talks and absolutely no suggestions, just two more words - Happy Shopping!!!
Pseudonym : h!v
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