Customer Reviews

Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I encourage you to buy and read this book. It's a source of reason, enlightenment, passion, love. It's meaningful, revealing. I read it in a few days, subtracting time to my other activities. Each time it has been difficult to stop reading and close the book. If you are going to read only one book this year, choose this one.

This book is focused on a few, fundamental, issues (excerpts are between "quotation marks").
1 - It explains that advertising works. Most people think they are not influenced by advertising. But advertising works best precisely because people don't think it works on them.
"If you are like most people, you think that advertising has no influence on you. This is what advertisers want you to believe. But, if that were true, why would companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising? Why would they be willing to spend over $250,000 to produce an average television commercial and another $250,000 to air it? If they want to broadcast their commercial during the Super Bowl, they will gladly spend over a million dollars to produce it and over one and a half million to air it. After all, they might have the kind of success that Victoria's Secret did during the 1999 Super Bowl. When they paraded bra-and-panty-clad models across TV screens for a mere thirty seconds, one million people turned away from the game to log on to the Website promoted in the ad. No influence?"

2 - It makes you understand that the message mass media and advertising repeat us moment by moment ("The average American is exposed to at least three thousand ads every day") is that happiness comes from products. Alas, products are only things: no matter how much we love them, they won't love us back. By the way, didn't you ask why - in the car commercials - there are all those cars entering tunnels?
We are sold models impossible to follow - and just wrong. But effortlessly advertised: you are made up to think they're true. Thus, a sense of strain comes. I think that many problems our society faces (high divorce rate, violence, alcoholism, drugs) come from this split. I'm a pharmacist: it's amazing how many tranquilizers I sell every day.

3 - It lets you to realize that advertising often turns people into objects.
"It is becoming clearer that this objectification has consequences, one of which is the effect that it has on sexuality and desire. Sex in advertising and the media is often criticized from a puritanical perspective - there's too much of it, it's too blatant, it will encourage kids to be promiscuous, and so forth. But sex in advertising has far more to do with trivializing sex than promoting it, with narcissism than with promiscuity, with consuming than with connecting. The problem is not that it is sinful, but that it is synthetic and cynical. (...) We never see eroticized images of older people, imperfect people, people with disabilities. The gods have sex, the rest of us watch - and judge our own imperfect sex lives against the fantasy of constant desire and sexual fulfilment portrayed in the media. (...) We can never measure up. Inevitably, this affects our self-images and radically distorts reality. "You have the right to remain sexy", says an ad featuring a beautiful young woman, her legs spread wide, but the subtext is "only if you look like this". And she is an object - available, exposed, essentially passive. She has the right to remain sexy, but not the right to be actively sexual."

4 - Did you know that we are a product? Mass media sell us to advertisers.
"Make no mistake: The primary purpose of the mass media is to sell audiences to advertisers. We are the product. Although people are much more sophisticated about advertising now than even a few years ago, most are still shocked to learn this."

"Through focus groups and depth interviews, psychological researchers can zero in on very specific target audiences - and their leaders. "Buy this 24-year-old and get all his friends absolutely free", proclaims an ad for MTV directed to advertisers. MTV presents itself publicly as a place for rebels and nonconformists. Behind the scenes, however, it tells potential advertisers that its viewers are lemmings who will buy whatever they are told to buy."

5 - I think this book is also valuable because it re-states the ethical principle that there are no shortcuts to riches, no shortcuts to happiness. There are no free lunches.
"Today the promise is that we can change our lives instantly, effortlessly - by winning the lottery, selecting the right mutual fund, having a fashion makeover, losing weight, having tighter abs, buying the right car or soft drink. It is this belief that such transformation is possible that drives us to keep dieting, to buy more stuff, to read fashion magazines that give us the same information over and over again."

I loved this book when it was originally published at Deadly Persuasion. Be careful when ordering...in TINY letters on the cover it says "Originally published as Deadly Persuasion."

This book should be required reading for every female high school freshman. Every woman who has dieted, picked herself apart for her appearance or stared longingly at a magazine layout needs to read this book. It is such a fantastic book. You know you are living under myths and lies to a certain extent but just how many is amazing. I love all the excerpts about how magazines try to pull in major advertising dollars. I have recommened to all of my friends who have young female children. I wonder how much smarter I could have been if this had entered my life as a younger woman.

Can't Buy My Love is an extraordinary book, insightful, critical, and without a doubt, an eye-opener. This book should be required reading by all Americans! Personally, it has played a pivotal role in my life. I would say I'm your average American citizen. I grew up in New York, immersed in the typical American culture. I watched plenty of television and movies and thus was exposed to an endless array of advertisements. As most people, I didn't think that my thoughts and actions were influenced by these advertisements. But after reading this book, I clearly saw how the messages and images of the media had a huge impact in my life. Until I read this book, I was sort of unconscious of this influence. I just went shopping as though it was a ritual and followed the mainstream culture. I went out drinking and pretended to have a good time while engaged in superficial conversations in loud smoky bars. Essentially, this book brought me to many realizations and my mentality started to shift for the better. I started to see things for what they are. Jean Kilbourne does an excellent job of analyzing numerous ads and clearly demonstrates the manipulation and false promises imbedded within these cleverly designed ads. Corporations spend millions of dollars on advertising and psychological research. As the targets of these ads, we as citizens need to be critical thinkers and media literate. In this day and age, we need to have an understanding of how the media industry works and in particular, the advertising industry, which constantly bombards us with messages on how we should live our lives and what is considered "normal." I highly, highly recommend this book. It's clear, concise, understandable, and will definitely have a positive impact in your life. I especially recommend this book to teenagers, who unfortunately have become the victims of massive amounts of advertisements. Profit-driven corporations have taken advantage of young impressionable minds and for that reason, I urge you to pick up a copy of this book for yourself and someone you care about! This one book was able to jump start a transformation in my life. I promise you won't regret reading it!

Jean Kilbourne has a truly rare gift for finding purpose in and explicating insight into the thousands of ads that bombard us on a daily basis. It is fascinating to watch her meticulous, brilliant, even-handed exploration into the world of advertising. Her cogent remarks on the psychology of advertising bring a rare glimpse into previously unchartered waters. Having been a long-time fan of her films, it was also a distinct pleasure to read about her own personal and professional development in the first chapter as it was affected by the products advertisers insist we need to be fulfilled. Those interested in psychology, sociology, communication/cultural studies, and feminism should ensure this book is read and kept forefront on the bookshelf. It would be ideal as a college text as well.

Fantastic analysis and documentation. Proves that just like the empty slogans of "freedom" and "justice", in so called "advanced societies", woman's liberation is reduced to a slogan to sell products and held subservient to the economic aims of the "sellers" of such liberation. Exposes the ulterior motives of the corporate elite and their advertising propaganda network and the false consciousness they produce to control women and people around the world- the connections and extensions can easily be worked out by all thinking readers. I'm very grateful to the author for this great service to society.

Jean Kilbourne does an excellent job of taking you through the mindfield of advertising. I was shocked to learn that America is one of the few countries to allow advertising directed at kids and after reading this book, I know why it is outlawed in most places. Throughout this well developed and researched book, I found myself shocked and stunned -- and that's not easy to do to me.

Everyone should take a look at this book. The insidious nature of advertising is made apparent and if you think you aren't impacted by advertising then you truly should read this book. Fascinating and frightening.

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In our culture of product placements, "ambient" advertising (ie sticker ads on fruit peels, cars wrapped in company logos) and "tie ins" between just about every form of entertainment and commerce, this book does an amazing job of looking at how commercial forces shape definitions of 'normal', 'beautiful' etc.

I found Can't Buy My Love (which is written by Jean Kilbourne, NOT Mary Pipher) packed with interesting, relevant, easy-to-digest content that was both fascinating (companies spend over a half a million dollars to produce commercials aired during the Superbowl?!) and maddening (the real reason some companies seem suddenly to support a minority group, ie teens, the gay community etc, is that they seem them as an emerging market)--but I guess the maddening part is good because it lays bare how the media operate and how we're subjected to their sophisticated selling strategies whether we want to be or not .

I had no idea how much I *didn't* know about media and marketing until I read this book.... and having read some of the other titles mentioned by other reviewes, I think Kilbourne's book does a superior job explaining how the media (and manufacturers who hire them) affect nearly every aspect of our daily lives...and what we can do about it..

There is no greater expert on the subject of how aggressive marketing can degrade the quality of a culture than Jean Kilbourne. As a writer, filmmaker, and internationally recognized expert on advertising, addiction, and women's issues, it has been estimated that she has given lectures at roughly half the universities and colleges in the U.S. Her unique talent is her ability to see and expose the underlying strategies and tools employed by purveyors of all manner of goods to persuade us--methods that seem all the more shocking when we actually see them. Her book Deadly Persuasion, which has also been published under the title Can't Buy My Love, is a fascinating study of the power of the ubiquitous ads that surround us in our every waking moment.

(Before I go on, I'll point out that to oppose the manner in which much modern advertising is performed is not to oppose a healthy capitalistic economy, a system that quite clearly has worked better than any other. This is not a diatribe against the availability of every imaginable trifle, or the competition amongst companies to market a more useful product. It is rather about certain methods that advertisers continue to use that have, Kilbourne asserts, a negative effect on the way we interact and the way we view ourselves, others, and material goods. It is about devaluing the currency of genuine human contact.)

The book considers advertisements in magazines as television, and considers a number of different kinds of campaigns in dedicated chapters. There are individual discussions on alcohol marketing, the auto industry, food, tobacco, and the exploitation of human relationships.

"Advertising encourages us not only to objectify each other but also to feel that our most significant relationships are with the products we buy." Kilbourne states in her introduction. "Although we like to think of advertising as unimportant, it is in fact the most important aspect of the mass media. It is the point." She goes on to show how a key goal is to make us insecure about our present lives, for example, as is done in the ubiquitous women's magazines that juxtapose images of cheesecakes or pies on the cover with articles on weight loss tips and images of skinny models inside. After all, "people who feel empty make great consumers."

"Advertising... twists the notion that we can recreate ourselves - not through dedicated work, but merely by purchasing the right product... [It] often sells a great deal more than products. It sells values, images, and concepts of love and sexuality, romance, success, and perhaps most important, normalcy... we are surrounded by hundred, thousands of messages every day that link our deepest emotions to products, that objectify people and trivialize our most heartfelt moments and relationships."

To give some examples of the objectification she cites, I'll just mention the commodity that receives perhaps the most lavish attention from Madison Avenue: the automobile. Kilbourne devotes an early chapter to the subject of car advertising (Can an engine pump the valves in your heart?), and through a series of oddly similar examples, shows how many ad campaigns aim to humanize their machines: "Rekindle the romance"; "If anyone should ask, go ahead and show them your pride and joy" (this under a picture of a wallet showing two photographs - one of a couple of children and the family dog, the other a Honda); "We don't sell cars, we merely facilitate love connections"; "Stylish, responsive, fun-if it were a man you'd marry it"; "Drive the new Paseo, fall in love"; "She loves her new Mustang. Oh, and whatshisname too"; "A change from you high-maintenance relationship"; "It's not a car, its an aphrodesiac"; "What makes you happy? Is it the sparkle in a lover's smile? Or the warmth of a goodnight kiss? But could it be a car?";"While some cars can hug the road, very few can actually seduce it." And so on. Kilbourne does more than list these and countless other examples: she deconstructs them and their implications.

Another troubling issue that the book addresses is the pernicious effect of advertising that is directly aimed at children. This is even more troubling in light of studies that show that young children don't differentiate between the shows and the advertisements. The chapter on children led me to wonder how much of our national drug-abuse problem among teens is stoked by the way advertising is generally presented. While certainly the causes are many and varied, I think about my own typical childhood, growing up with hours of television every day. And the ads are still relentlessly telling us that purchasing a product makes wonderful things happen: a man opens a soda and a marching band explodes out of his TV into his room; the interior of an SUV becomes a landscape with waterfalls; wearing the right brand of jeans causes your world to shift into a nighttime city scene where a lovely brunette looks at you longingly. It seems quite rare anymore to see to a commercial anymore where use of a produce does not result in some kind of supernatural effect. Perhaps in the process of growing up, when we come to realize that the implicit, fantastical promises of the ads are not true - perhaps this adds to the appeal of drugs that can help make the world seem as magical as we thought it would be?

In short, if you've ever wondered how advertisers try to manipulate us, and what the consequences of the onslaught of false promises might be, I highly recommend Kilbourne's fascinating book. You will not look at your TV the same again, and you'll likely come to agree with the author's observation that "advertising and religion share a belief in transformation and transcendance... [but] in the world of advertising, enlightenment is achieved instantly by buying material goods." And that although one may "love" their possessions, they cannot love one back.

Kilbourne writes about the psychology of mass marketing, which is something she detests and refuses to let go of. Her remarks are often cloyingly accurate--that mass marketing turns people in addicts, disconnects people from genuine and authentic feeling, substitutes objects for people, turns people into objects, and values consumerism above community. Given that mass advertising is the water that we fishies swim in (nearly a zillion ads by the time we are ten years old), it's a pretty depressing and gives me a quasi-paranoid headache.

In contrast to another reviewer, however, I did not think Kilbourne was in the least bit funny. Angry--and she has enough to be angry about, every day, ranging from TV to magazines--but no, not funny.

Nevertheless, she writes very well and convincingly. This bitter pill gets 4*'s.