Companies that never think of anything else but to make money feed on consumers that are pushovers. This is why they know exactly how to sell their products--by making us feel insecure and always not enough. Either we're not thin enough, not flawless enough, not pretty enough, not young-looking enough, not perfect enough, so that we would fill our attacked self-esteems with their products, leaving ourselves only more enslaved to the opportunistic media.
I had an interesting conversation with a good friend a couple of weeks ago who works for a famous and esteemed ad company. I asked why most of the time, ad agencies use the same strategies in creating ads to sell products, e.g. perfect looking women and sex. I told him I've come across a number of cleverly conceptualized ads which I think were more unique than what I've usually seen (remember that Biolink VCO commercial?), hence, leaving a stronger impression and a more lasting recall to me. (Check out the Kotex ads below.) His answer was blunt, saying that though ad agencies can go the creative and witty way in constructing advertising ideas, it is still the companies' decision on how they want to market their product. And these companies' goal is pure and simple: it's just to sell as much products as they can to earn money. That's it. It is also precisely the reason why they'd often publicize their products the way it would usually sell, as my friend put it plainly, "'Dun na sila sa subok na, sa tried and tested na kikita sila." (Which is more often than not through provocative ways to get the consumers' attention.)
We all know the idiotic clichés presented in napkin/tampon commercials are far from the truth, but still they insist on fooling us into believing that buying their product would make us feel fresh, happy, and friendly, when in fact whenever I get my period, my hormones reach the beyond-crazy-level (SOMETIMES :D) and I turn into an irritable monster who bitches about the pettiest things.
We all know the idiotic clichés presented in napkin/tampon commercials are far from the truth, but still they insist on fooling us into believing that buying their product would make us feel fresh, happy, and friendly, when in fact whenever I get my period, my hormones reach the beyond-crazy-level (SOMETIMES :D) and I turn into an irritable monster who bitches about the pettiest things.
Watch this trailer of the documentary Killing Us Softly (how appropriate the title is!) and know more about how the media have gone overboard with the ridiculously impossible standards they have been setting on women. I really hope I get a DVD copy of this!
I want you women to KNOW that you are more than your images. You are more than your curves, than your silky smooth hair, than your breasts, than your slim waists, than your flawless legs. I'm upset to admit it but I know a lot of young women who invest on nothing but their beauty, making it the core of their very selves, and using and perfecting their looks to feel satisfaction within themselves. It is a shallow and sad situation, but truth nonetheless. I'll admit that it is great to look good (because it makes you feel good), but there hundreds of things more important in life than physical perfection that must not be overlooked.
Since we all know that it's impossible to win the battle against the media and the values they promote, let's just be the ones to open our eyes and make ourselves aware of the harmful damages that seemingly innocuous things (like magazines, ads, commercials) can do to us. Let's remind ourselves whenever we point to a model in a magazine and wish that we look like her that she has been edited and she's not as real as she looks in the photo. Know that you are unique and beautiful in your own way, and no one has the right, and definitely not even the stinkin' media, to tell you otherwise.
Be smart, girls. Don't let the media easily sway you and your convictions. Don't be pushovers.
Keep loving your awesome self,
Stacy