Advertising: The Social Heirarchy and Financial Ads

Well its the start of a brand new week..   Nice to see the Dow keep going down albiet by 40 measly points..

Don't worry traders n' players-- it will surely spike up for no reason by week's end and all the continually perpetually unemployed will cheer 'Hail the recovery..'

So we'll talk on something of interest to us:  Advertising...

We we're all glutted with it..

Ads in TV and magazines and radio and billboards; Ads before YouTube videos play.. Even ads before movie trailers which are nothing but ads in themselves.

And we all know there's basic rules for the ad:  Be postive and persuasive, appeal to emotion not intellect, celebrity endorsement attracts interest, etc...

Did you know there's also social rules; a hierarchy if you will of who can be made fun of and look stupid in an advertisement and who can not..

The following structure is 100% true... You may agree, disagree or think 'so what!'.. That's totally up to you-- it doesn't invalidate the facts...

* The white male is always stupider/sillier/goofier than the black male

* The black man can be stupid as long as with other black males... but not goofy-stupid

* The white woman is stupider than the black woman but more subtle than among males

* The man is always stupider than the woman, especially if she is girlfriend or wife

* The black man is always stupider than the black woman but done more subtle than among whites to avoid old stereotype

* The male parent is always stupider than the child or teenager

* The female parent always gets full respect from the child

* The elderly is always smarter than the 30-40 something Dad..

* No person of Muslim or Jewish faith is ever to be represented ...

~ This ad was controversial.. what if the races were opposite?

So in other words, the middle aged white man is dumber than his spouse, his child, his parents, his black friend and pretty much the entire world..  But magically this 'stupid' man was quite brainy when he was 8 and in another twenty years when he's silver haired, he'll suddenly get smart again...

We won't even go into all the other advertisement stereotypes such as all 20-something male beer drinkers are utter homely looking loser slobs who look like they live in their parents basement, can't enjoy each other's company without some alcohol in them and probably never had a real woman in their lives..

Hmm..  maybe that one has some truth..  

Financial advertising has some 'rules' as well....

1)  Never admit failure:

Not a single investment firm, bank or financial corporation ever admitted its part in the 2008 collapse or that it would conduct business different..  It just gave slogans and used famous voice overs to convey them...

2)  Never openly admit or acknowledge you will be investing against the client:

Goldman Sachs was Big on this as was others.. they'd package mortgage backed securities and promote them as great investments to their clients and once purchased Goldman Sachs would short the sales, thus making massive profits against their clients' interests.

Goldman and others were legally covered from litigation because in teeny-tiny small print, they warned clients they would do so.  This was 'notification'.. Of course the financial ads never mentioned it...

3)  Social hierarchy rules apply..

When the client is a male, or a couple, show visuals of a woman, black person or someone of another minority group explaining the complicated concepts..

Or depict the person or couple in their early 30s listening to a well groomed silver haired man who represents reliability and trustworthiness...

Or have a 'precious' little 6 year old child explain to his/her college educated father all the ins and outs of investing because it sounds so adorable when little children say complicated jargon..

You may not like it.. you may feel 'about time!'  or you may not give two bleeps... But that's the world we all live in..  manipulated every way humanly imaginable via advertising...

Start paying attention to the ads you watch..  We dare you to find where these rules do not apply..

Really no different then watching a magician do his/her tricks.. Once you understand the secrets, you can't get duped...

That is unless you consciously choose to...