Deadly Persuasion: Why Women And Girls Must Fight The Addictive Power Of Advertising

The average American views three thousand ads in one day. Yet remarkably, most of us believe we are not influenced by advertising. In this lively and shocking exposé, Jean Kilbourne reveals how deeply advertisers insinuate themselves into our daily lives. Advertisers do far more than influence our taste -- they manipulate our desires so that their products will become our closest friends.

Drawing upon twenty years of research and using hundreds of examples, Kilbourne reveals the true nature of our connection to the myriad products that advertisers sell to us. From the earliest days of our childhood to the mature years of our adulthood, advertisers encourage us to develop a relationship with things. Whether it is the ice cream that will comfort us when our blind date goes wrong, the nail polish that will make us feel wild, the car that carries us away from a boring spouse, or the wristwatch that is our true pride and joy -- the product promises us that it can be trusted when people let us down. But when we substitute things for people, we mirror the behavior of addicts -- dooming ourselves to return, unsatiated, to that pint of ice cream or new lipstick. This dynamic is nowhere more evident than in alcohol and tobacco advertising, where advertisers are explicitly promoting a relationship with an addictive substance. The next glass of wine can never love us back like a person does -- but with time, it can become the focus of all our emotions. This is exactly what alcohol advertisers want to happen, Kilbourne points out, for the alcoholic is the industry's best customer. No wonder, then, that such advertisers entice teenage consumers to take the first step in a lifelong relationship.

We are all at risk in this toxic cultural environment. But as Kilbourne shows, women and girls are at special risk. Because the psychology of women is so deeply rooted in relations with others, women are particularly vulnerable to the promise of a relationship with a product. Advertisers exploit this fact throughout a woman's life, from the onset of her teens, when she is susceptible to the lure of romance and rebellion in a cigarette advertisement, to her adult years, when she yearns for release through the promise of a chocolate binge or glamour through the next sip of a dry martini. That is why most ads aimed at women offer comfort, power, and gratification -- feelings that many women don't experience in their day-to-day lives. All of us, including women and girls, can learn to resist this kind of deadly persuasion; but in order to do so, we must first be attuned to advertising's methods and its messages.

Through her lectures and award-winning documentaries, Jean Kilbourne has alerted several generations to the dangers of advertising. Here, she brings her life's work together with the trademark intelligence, passion, and humor that have made her a national figure. A warning shot about the perils of the media and a call to resistance on the part of all women, parents, and educators, Deadly Persuasion is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our culture. After reading it, none of us will ever look at ads -- or ourselves -- the same way again.

Kilbourne is militant on these issues, and some readers may find her positions a bit too extreme, as when she lambastes ads that employ surre alism for imitating a drugged state of altered consciousness or when she declares that most sexual imagery in advertising is "pornographic," elaborating in such a way as to denigrate the very idea of casual sex. And, despite several attempts at grim sarcasm, Deadly Persuasion is ultimately rather humorless. Kilbourne's heart, though, is definitely in the right place, and her demonstration of the extent to which we allow corporations to shape our desires is truly eye-opening. --Ron Hogan