Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06966_Field_TCUM T531.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

inclusive world of the group icon. That is certainly what
advertising does. Instead of presenting a private argument or
vista, it offers a way of life that is for everybody or nobody. It
offers this prospect with arguments that concern only
irrelevant and trivial matters. For example, a lush car ad
features a baby’s rattle on the rich rug of the back floor and
says that it has removed unwanted car rattles as easily as the
user could remove the baby’s rattle. This kind of copy has really
nothing to do with rattles. The copy is merely a punning gag to
distract the critical faculties while the image of the car goes to
work on the hypnotized viewer. Those who have spent their
lives protesting about “false and misleading ad copy” are
godsends to advertisers, as teetotalers are to brewers, and
moral censors are to books and films. The protesters are the
best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent of pictures,
the job of the ad copy is as incidental and latent, as the