One of the first things I look at when I am exposed to some "new thing" is the pitch. This could be a new TV commercial product, a new church, a new car, a new politician, a new housing addition, a new fitness program....whatever. ANYTHING!
I dissect the pitch. I can't help myself. Do you have any idea how we have been manipulated by advertising of all kinds since....oh...since snake oil was for sale. Since they sold chunks of wood from Jesus' cross many centuries ago? I can hear the embedded, key phrases pop up like clockwork.
Particularly distasteful to me are the old TRS sales pitch, form letter ads. They glare out at me as crap manipulation. But Lord knows there are many heartstrings to pluck out there. To move. To manipulate. Another one is that horrendous wrist energy bracelet TV commercial playing coast to coast this year in the USA. A group of evil adults actually conspired to make and sell this outlandish crap.
Here is a real piece of advertising irony.
Here is a page trying to get you to buy a book to avoid falling for advertising?!
http://www.truthpublishing.com/spamfilters_p/yprint-cat21268.3.htmThe ad layout itself is an approach that is a classic ad, sales pitch. I just found that really ironic. And we must live with such irony. It is inescapable.
But always take the time to dissect the sales pitch. Smell out the pitch! Does it at least respect your intelligence? We all have to advertise something, sometime. As Bob Dylan sang,
"But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody"
Hock
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Topic: Smell out the pitch (Read 867 times)