While most of the folks gathered across the United States for the Super Bowl were hoping for a good game, Jean Kilbourne cared only about the ads. And her interest in this annual ad fest isn't a labor of love. In a new book, Deadly Persuasion, she says advertising poisons human relationships and encourages people to pursue addictive behavior. Advertising pro motes an addictive mind-set, and says that products can fulfill us and that boredom should never be tolerated. It's the whole idea that life should constantly be exciting, and if it isn't you should be able to buy something that makes it exciting.
Ads cleverly promote addictive products.
A former smoker and a recovering alcoholic, she saves her harshest criticism for cigarette and alcohol advertisers. She recalls that she took up smoking as a teen as a form of rebellion against the system. And she accuses tobacco merchants of preying on this impulse, trying to yoke their smokes to an attitude of self-reliance, of bucking the system. Also, although major brewers such as Anheuser-Busch state that their advertising is aimed only at adults, research has shown that teens are fully aware, for example, of Budweiser's frogs and lizards ads. Advertising debases human relationships.