Shadee Elmasry – What Advertisers Are Really After
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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.