What affects us most...

Everything that we consume..food, clothes, accessories and brands, but more than that are the thoughts that we consume. In today's consumerist society whether we like it or not, we are constantly fed with thoughts, ideas and emotions that are not ours. Interestingly, the more we feed on them, the less we realize how impaired our thinking has become. Now the situation has reached such proportions that while we do not know whose ideas are we associating with, we remain convinced that all along these have been our own. That’s the mad mad world of advertisement.

While the main object of the ad campaigns continue to help us feel good about the decisions we purportedly make based on our buying power, thereby willy nilly channelize our hard earned money which may or may not be in our best of interests, but we are hardly aware of the compromise that has been covertly implanted in our minds and contribute towards the “I me and myself” sphere of philosophy of existence. 

As an aware citizen here I am going to make use of this platform, with all my earnestness to decode the subtle messages in the popular ad campaigns that should not be ignored for it may have the potential to influence our thinking against our wishes. 

First in the series is the AIRTEL MAGICIAN ad campaign with a tagline…..

"जब ज़िंदगी सताए मनोरंजन बचाए

I understand and accept the fact that we are fun loving good hearted people and all good hearted people like to enjoy humor. I also accept that we are mature enough to differentiate between the light hearted banter and malicious campaigns. We also know that anybody with basic IQ level cannot be influence to ignore the real emergency however tempting be the promise of an “internet joke”. But please touch your heart and ask yourself if you can comfortably ignore the power of classical conditioning? Can you deny how conveniently the gravity of inappropriateness hides behind the cloak of "humor"?   

Did you notice how innocuously an undesirable message creeps in with this humorous 45 second ad? 

How can a sane and responsible young girl not decide to use her cell phone to call for immediate help but would consider dialing 56789 to get a humorous astro prediction if struck in a mishap? Where is her sense of priority? does this ad inadvertently allows you to smile and ignore the lapse?  

I love humor, but I have serious objection to any conscious, subconscious or unconscious efforts that impair my sense of priority and judgment even if as a bye product of selling me whatever brings in the mullah.

Think about it and tell me because my own young adult urban children do not agree with me and they feel that I am having PHANTOMS fears. Am I?