Advertising Quote by Peter Sloterdijk
““This background enables us to understand a fact that is symptomatic of the current phase of saturation: there are countless people who want to withdraw from the omnipresence of advertising, who even avoid it like the plague. Here too, it is helpful to distinguish between the states before and after. From the perspective of the burgeoning world of products, advertising could be justified by the argument that spreading the word about the existence of new means of life improvements was indispensable, as the populations of industrial and trading nations would otherwise have been cheated of major knowledge about discreet improvements to the world. As the ambassador of new bringers of advantage, early advertising was the general training medium for contemporary performance collectives thoughtlessly denounced in culture-conservative milieus as 'consumer societies'. The aversion to advertising that pervades the saturated infospheres of the present, however, is based on the correct intuition that, in most of its manifestations, it has long since become a form of downward training. It no longer passes on what people should know in order to access advantageous innovations; it creates illusions of purchasable self-elevations that de facto usually lead to weakenings.””
About This Quote
Source Book: Advertising and Society, 2015
Advertising has shifted from informing about beneficial innovations to creating false aspirations that weaken individuals.
In simple terms: Ads now sell illusion, not utility.
Critically evaluate media messages.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- media literacy workshops
- critical reading groups
- policy advocacy
- personal media consumption
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- What ads have genuinely helped you?
- How can we differentiate truth from hype?
Some advertising still provides valuable information.