What Is Advertising? - A Primer For Beginners

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 28th, 2010

This land is your land. This land is my land. This land was made for you and me! No truer words were ever spoken. In fact, my palms tend to get a bit sweaty with excitement whenever I hum a few bars from that great uniter that was a childhood classic for me. I?m really a big fan of sharing. That?s why I?m so glad and thankful that the Native Americans that inhabited the area that is now the United States of America were so kind as to invite us to share their land, so that now it? made for you and me. I think that?s great.

And in the spirit of kindness, I am excited that people who came here from other places have given the proper respect that the land and its previously sole inhabitants deserve. It?s about community and connection and a land built upon altruistic generosity and selfless acts for the common good. That?s what I like. To be honest with you, I feel that sometimes I don?t live up to the standard that has been set by the friendly folks that came here from Western Europe. I try, but it?s sometimes difficult and I forget.

When I was a child, I even thought that it was cool to litter. I don?t know what got into me. Maybe I?m naturally a bad seed or maybe I was too concerned with impressing the older kids from down the street, like Kenny and Brian (who really were bad seeds). Regardless of the reasoning, I littered. I couldn?t see beyond my, then, present circumstances to realize that I was but a simple part of an enormous, loving entity. That was until I watched a commercial.

When I saw the tear roll down the check of a Native American due to a passing motorist?s disregard for the mutually beneficial gentleman?s agreement that was made between the previous and current peoples of North America by tossing trash out the window of his/her speeding car in a 1970?s television advertisement, I understood my role and I understood my misdeeds.

I now am a faithful ally of those who revere the environment as something which needs to be explicitly cared for. I view the environment as though it?s not mine do with as I please, because its not mine. It?s mine and yours. It all started with an ad. You want to ask me what advertising is? Twenty years of community-minded, selflessness?that?s advertising.