Shadee Elmasry – What Advertisers Are Really After

When advertisers when advertising companies are selling you

something, they're not selling you a product in a vacuum, right? Like

you should have this particular brand of clothing or this

particular handbag or this particular kind of car, in a

vacuum. That's not how they're doing it, what they're doing is

they're selling you this idea that you should have this lifestyle,

and that these are the accoutrement of that lifestyle,

right, like, you have to have these things to be part of this

lifestyle. So what they're selling us is the desire to be like,

whoever it is in advertising. So like, he mentioned, certain

cigarette brands, right. So back in the days, and some of you are

too young to remember this, but when there used to be cigarette

commercials, before they were banned by the government, they,

they would show like an active lifestyle, right, like people

playing football on the beach, or, you know, going out

biking in nature, and then pulling out a cigarette and smoking it.

Right. So they're we're selling you this idea that this is

pleasure. And this is fun, and this is enjoyable. And this is how

you get pleasure also by smoking our cigarettes as much as you

enjoy, you know, these other things hanging around with your

family on horseback riding for the Marlboro Man being rugged and

tough and out in an individualistic, so they're

selling you an entire brand and an entire ethos, not just the

product. The same thing with cars and clothing brands and whatever

else. If you look at the commercials, if you if you see

them, that's always what they're doing. They're engaging in young

people who are cooled where this stuff and are like the Lincoln

commercials now if you're, you know, a really successful, you

know, upper middle class, white guy in his 40s and 50s. You drive

a Lincoln, this is a classic car, and this is your lifestyle. And

isn't this really what you want? And you'll have like a young

girlfriend too.

So that

you can even look at McDonald's or whatever it is. Yeah. Jeremy, from

what age first grade? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's a good point,

this stuff that they do for children. And this is all

documented, like there's not like conspiracy theory, they actually

talk about this, in their in their publications. What they do for

children is they try to inculcate a brand in them, right, like brand

identification, they don't want to sell you a product when you're

three or four. It's a product that they want to sell you as a

teenager, but from a young young age that gets you to love it, so

that you'll be triggered when you get to that to that that teenage

or preteen age. And then you start asking your parents about it. And

they even measure for children, they even measure. And

they literally use as a measurement nags, how often that

child nags the parent to get them this thing. So yeah, so the most,

the more nags that they get out of, you know, when they test

people, when people sign up for this woefully, they don't even get

paid. So they test the kids and they show them something and then

they see which commercial develops the most nags from the kid to the

parent, and then that's the one that they use in their test

products. So this is what they're doing, right? So be aware of that

and be aware that this is all against you. They're just trying

to get money out of your pocket. That's all they really care about.

But it has a negative effect on you as a spiritual person, as a

religious person and as a Muslim, because it ties you to things that

are fleeting, and it distracts you because again, we're talking about

embracing a lifestyle, not just the price if it was just buying

things, and you had a lot of money, who cares? But really what

you're what you're buying is an entire lifestyle that's

antithetical to the remembrance of Allah to being generous, to being

unselfish, to being giving to others to caring about your family

more than about things, etc. So just be aware of that.