analogies on Advertising

Advertising as we now know it started not on Madison Avenue but in another city: Berlin. With another group of power brokers: the Nazis. They took the ideas of an Austrian psychotherapist named Freud,...

Have you noticed the ever-increasing arm of advertising in our lives? According to a New York Times article, supermarket eggs have begun to be stamped by CBS television shows, turnstiles in subways ar...

The influence of the familiar on our lives is something that advertisers never forget. The point of advertising is to capitalize on real needs or to create needs and then to provide a product to fill ...

I once heard a sermon that compared believers to commercials for God. “And God doesn’t need any bad commercials,” I remember the preacher saying. It stuck with me, and from then on I often made decisi...

Now today, with increased opportunity for personal-data collection via technology, target marketing has allowed sellers to become even more effective. No longer do they know just our age, gender, and...

Ikea: We throw in extra parts just to mess with you. Lays: Flavored Air Maybelline: Maybe it’s Photoshop Wikipedia: You’re Welcome, College Students Perrier: Rich People Water Bic: You Probably D...

You might have heard the story about the dog food company. They launched a new line of dog food, stocking it on shelves nationwide, but it didn’t sell well at all. Sales plummeted and the leadership d...

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

Why a story? We all think of our lives as stories, each with a main character (us) theme, and plot (interesteing so far, but as yet unfinished). We also love to hear stories about others and even abou...

On his hundredth birthday, a reporter asked the man the inevitable question: “What do you attribute your long life to?” The old man replied, “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still negotiating with a supple...

Advertising how humble we are will raise some eyebrows. Advertising your humility with a vanity license plate on a luxury car takes a special sort of hutzpah.  But that’s what I (Stu) saw today whi...

In 1989, the advertising world welcomed a new icon into the world. It was pink, it was furry, it wore sunglasses, and sported a drum-set. Can you picture him? It’s the Energizer bunny. Television scre...

The use of chemicals to alter thinking and feeling is as old as humanity itself, and alcohol was probably one of the first substances used. Even the earliest historical writings make note of alcohol d...

Reading Aquinas, I found the vices to have revealing and illuminating power. By contrast, many voices in contemporary culture, unfortunately, dismiss, redefine, psychologize, or trivialize them. Some...

Judged in the light of any ordinary standards of regal splendor, military display, political campaigning, or effective advertising, it was a rather pathetic and anti-climactic affair. Jesus rode from ...

In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...

While Christmas traditions vary the world over, gift-giving is a central practice just about anywhere Christ's birth is celebrated. Sometimes gifts are exchanged on De­cember 6, the feast day of S...

Known for their luxury watches, Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe has also become well-known for its clever advertising slogan: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe; you merely take care of it for t...

The oft-used front door to happiness is the one described by the advertising companies: acquire, retire, and aspire to drive faster, dress trendier, and drink more. Happiness depends on what you hang ...

Again, human attention is a zero-sum game. At some point we must close all our screens and fall asleep—which makes sleep the enemy of digital spectacle makers (and sleep was named chief competitor by ...

A while ago, I encountered such a finding when I read a study that gave volunteers an energy drink designed to increase mental abilities. Some volunteers were charged the retail price of the drink ($1...

Martin Lindstrom observes: When people viewed images associated with the strong brands-the iPods, the Harley-Davidson, the Ferrari, and others-their -their brains registered the exact same patterns of...

Smartphones make it possible for the attention economy to target our little attention gaps as we transition between tasks and duties. Our attention may be slightly elastic enough to fill up every empt...

Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French’s…It was a yellow mustard, made from ground white mustard seed with turmeric and vinegar, which gave it a mild, slightly metallic ...

I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w...

Tennis superstar Andre Agassi was only nineteen years old when he starred in a television commercial for Canon cameras. The spot featured him in all sorts of eye-grabbing poses, a spectacle on display...

I had a memorable lunch a few years ago with my friends Mike and Claudia, who had recently returned from Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa. We were sitting in a booth at one of those chai...

A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...

Early in this century a London newspaper carried an advertisement that read: “Men wanted for hazardous darkness, and constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” T...

I recently attended an event sponsored by Compassion International, the International Child Sponsorship Organization. The event was called “Stepping into My Shoes”. The purpose being to show children ...