The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV, and American Culture

Culture and the Moving Image

by Leslie Savan

How does a blatant lying in TV commercials—like Joe Isuzu's manic claims—create public trust in a product or a company? How does a company associated with a disaster, Exxon or Du Pont for example, restore its reputation? What is the real story behind the rendering of the now infamous Joe Camel? And what is the deeper meaning of living in an ad, ad, ad world? For a decade, journalist Leslie Savan has been exposing the techniques used by advertisers to push products and pump up corporate images. In the lively essays in this collection, Savan penetrates beneath the slick surfaces of specific ads and marketing campaigns to show how they reflect and shape consumer desires. Savan's interviews with ad agencies and corporate clients—along with her insightful analyses of influential TV sports—reveal how successful advertising works. Ads do more than command attention. They are signposts to the political, cultural, and social trends that infiltrate the individual consumer's psyche. Think of the products associated with corporate mascots—the drum-beating bunny, the cereal-pushing tiger, the doughboy—that have become pop culture icons. Think cool. Think of the clothing manufacturer that uses multiracial imagery. Think progressive. Buy their worldview, buy their product. When virtually every product can be associate with some positive self-image, we are subtly refashioned into the advertiser's concept of a good citizen. Like it or not, we lead "the sponsored life."

Genres: Nonfiction

354 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1994

Reviews

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing book is a collection of Ms Savan's columns about ads written for The Village Voice in the 80s and 90s. I love what she has to say, her liberal snarky voice, if you will. There is something so fascinating and powerful about reading these contemporary comments on culture. But also depressing. Confronting the fact that smart people 20 years ago were crying out about corporate hegemony, the environment- the greenwashing and smokescreening- and it's all still present and much worse now. Did people really have more respect and concern for Desert Storm than the endless wars we're in now?

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's basically a collection of essays originally published in The Village Voice from the mid 80's thru (so far) the early 1990's.

A definite anti-corporate viewpoint (like I expected something different?), and a bit dated - I'm having trouble recalling a good chunk of the ads she's referring to. I mostly enjoyed it- tho would like to also read something a little less biased (and more up-to-date) on the topic.

[Macalester Linguistics]

A 11.0

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forget exactly when I read this (soon after it was reviewed in The Nation ca. 1994 maybe, or sometime later, but before 2002.) It is indeed a collection of essays, but a very insightful one, humorous and nuanced. The overall tendency is anti-corporate, as noted by another reviewer here, who implies that this attitude is imposed on the essays from without rather than something the author arrived at after experience. As you like...