Synopses & Reviews
How does a blatant lying in TV commercials—like Joe Isuzu's manic claims—create public trust in a product or a company? How does a company associated with a disaster, Exxon or Du Pont for example, restore its reputation? What is the real story behind the rendering of the now infamous Joe Camel? And what is the deeper meaning of living in an ad, ad, ad world? For a decade, journalist Leslie Savan has been exposing the techniques used by advertisers to push products and pump up corporate images. In the lively essays in this collection, Savan penetrates beneath the slick surfaces of specific ads and marketing campaigns to show how they reflect and shape consumer desires.
Savan's interviews with ad agencies and corporate clients—along with her insightful analyses of influential TV sports—reveal how successful advertising works. Ads do more than command attention. They are signposts to the political, cultural, and social trends that infiltrate the individual consumer's psyche. Think of the products associated with corporate mascots—the drum-beating bunny, the cereal-pushing tiger, the doughboy—that have become pop culture icons. Think cool. Think of the clothing manufacturer that uses multiracial imagery. Think progressive. Buy their worldview, buy their product. When virtually every product can be associate with some positive self-image, we are subtly refashioned into the advertiser's concept of a good citizen. Like it or not, we lead "the sponsored life."
Review
"Her delectably sarcastic analyses offer disturbing insights into the images that millions of citizens seek to adopt."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
"Savan straps one ad campaign after another to here lab table and dissects each with humor, insight and a healthy dose of rage....This thoughtful collection will appeal to anyone concerned with how ads work, what they're hiding and why they have such a hold on us."—Publishers Weekly
Review
"[A] smart, stingingly funny collection.... Ms. Savan brings to bear a pithy style, a peppery wit and an unerring moral compass that enables her to score hits on the corporate fictions that increasingly structure our world view.
—New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Leslie Savan is the advertising columnist for The Village Voice and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.