Economists tell us that without advertisements, we would be poorly informed and unable to choose between competing products.
So what information is conveyed to us by two dancing superstars trying to fly a kite and singing that the sky isn’t enough for them; their heart asks for more?
As far as I can make out, Cola is a dark coloured sweet drink, stuffed with carbon dioxide and has thirst quenching properties. Neither Pepsi nor Coke ever gave me this bare-bones information.
So are they all wasting their ad-spend? Or are we customers getting fooled by seductive marketing campaign as alleged?
No. Pepsi is not just carbonated water. If it were, then the Taj Mahal is just an overblown tomb of marble, not a monument to love. The mango is just a fibrous fruit, not a sweet reminder to me of my summer vacations spent in Mangalore.
Objects do not have an intrinsic meaning. They acquire the meaning that we vest in them. When we buy a Pepsi, we are paying Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan to give word to our emotions and aspirations. They are symbols of society’s shared values. In other words, advertising is culture, not a distortion of culture. Advertisements refute the idea that we are moving towards materialism. If Pepsi has to create an aura of symbolism to make us drink carbonated water, then it is proof that what we seek is not just carbonated water and that we have needs beyond quenching thirst.