In marketing, the reality is less important than the perception.
When one hears Volvo, they think safety.
When one hears Subaru, they think liberalism and environmentalism.
Some Subaru ads even mention their commitment to environmentalism.
That Subaru was not randomly selected for that commercial, but placed there to send a message.
How many Christian families do you know that call today a holiday celebration?
I never did. I always just thought Japanese rice burner. My wife bought one because she wanted the all-time 4WD. It was a pretty damn good car, IMHO. Now she has a KIA, a Korean rice burner. But it's a really nice car too with lots of great features.
I don't see anything liberal or environmental about either.
When you hear Subaru, you think liberalism and environmentalism.
When I hear Subaru, I think durable, ultra-reliable, gets me to work in snow.
That’s all.
When you hear Apple, you think liberal promoter, computers for people who can’t understand technology, expensive and closed to independent development.
When I hear Apple, I think elegant, reliable, comprehensible, cost effective and efficient. And I say efficient because I am an IT professional whose skill set isn’t tied down to any one platform or technology. I think for myself, and chose the tools that suit the job best. Sometimes that tool may be Microsoft, when it comes to working a domain issue, and sometimes that tool may be an Apple product as I put together a tutorial sheet.
I don’t watch television except for one thing, and one thing only: NFL football. That is my last vice of the media. I don’t watch television, I don’t read papers or MSM magazines. I don’t view advertising as anything more than entertainment and and a commentary on current pop culture of which I am mercifully ignorant.
I don’t do Facebook. I don’t do Twitter. I am not a habitual cell phone talker or a texter, though I do use those technologies when they suit my needs.
I am not a consumer of advertising, and am not susceptible to it.
This ad being discussed that I saw while watching a football game was of interest to me, simply because the use of technology in the fashion is was being displayed is something I see as a corrosive part of technology. It is isolating and narrow in that sense. And I found it interesting that a company creating and promoting products that encourage those corrosive effects would try to be clever enough to attempt to turn that meme on its head, and largely succeed.
I am not a Luddite, and I tell people who I am educating about technology that there is a duality inherent in any technology. Technology can be used for good or ill, it can have positive and/or negative effects. When a kid isn’t interacting with people and learning social skills, that is bad. But if that same kid finds a video on YouTube that can explain covalent bonding in a way none of his teachers have been able to, that is good.
Advertising is largely pap that preys on the weak-minded, and if used for anything more than a cultural barometer or pure entertainment, is only going to have the effect of segregating common-sense from judgement.
But utilizing marketing to avoid a product is just as nonsensical as buying a product because of it. I buy a car not because of what I see on television, but because I have talked to people who have owned them, taken them out for test drives myself, compared them to their competition, drawn on my experience as a mechanic, and taken into account their business practices.
Making a choice on buying a product based on a commercial is silly.
And if that is true, the obverse of it must also be true (barring a moral or ideological reservation) that it is silly to NOT buy a product based on a commercial. Because barring a moral or ideological reservation, would you not buy a product because their ad did not describe a feature that is important? Of course not, you would research more to see if it was an oversight, or if the product did have what you were looking for.
If one decides not to patronize an advertised product based on someone pitching the product, the portrayal of culture that is counter to what you believe in (such as a commercial involving God vaporizing a competitor’s product for a perceived shortcoming) or whatever, that it the business of the person making the decision. It is all in what is important to you.
Case in point: I will not purchase any products from General Mills, due to their conscious, and OVERT courting of the homosexual community. I did not make this choice because I thought the leprechaun on Lucky Charms kind of “looked” like a homosexual. I never even thought of it. But the fact that they overtly used a product as a celebration of “diversity” and “inclusion” and advertised it in exactly that way, DOES make a huge difference to me. So I don’t patronize them. That is my choice.
If you hear Volvo and think Safety, you are most likely succumbing to advertising because that is exactly what they want you to hear. When I hear Volvo, I think performs well on safety tests, unattractive, overpriced, difficult to maintain, scarcity of parts, and expensive parts. Everything outweighs safety to me in that context. Sure, they may have done well on standardized safety tests, but there are other vehicles that probably perform just as well.