Advertising

I am probably close to being part of an advertiser's worst nightmare.  We have no TV.  Our newspaper subscription is to our small local weekly paper with limited advertising, mostly for upcoming events.  I only listen to the radio when I am in the car and then mostly Christian, classical and NPR.  The one lonely AM station to which I listen does have commercials and for many of those I turn the volume down.  I skip YouTube commercials after the mandatory 4 seconds and only view the Facebook videos I truly want to see because of the advertising inserted in the middle of some of them.  The billboards on some local roads do garner my attention, but only to look for the negatively notable, such as a local hospital proclaiming they have been preventing colon cancer for over 15 years (if that were true the world would be beating a path to their door, early detection--yes, prevention--no) or the jewelry store that is still advertising their holiday sales event.    Unsolicited flyers in the mail go in the trash.  We are on the Do Not Call list and if an unrecognizable number does show up on the Caller ID, it goes to voicemail.  When I go to the store, I prefer to be in and out as quickly as possible, ignoring product placement endcaps and the advertising videos sometimes playing in various departments.  I do enjoy shopping with my sister when visiting South Carolina, but the local thrift stores are our destination.  I do appreciate all the effort and creativity that go into an advertising campaign, but for the most part I am immune, well, except for books and things fiber related. Fortunately, the advertising in those realms is limited.

That being said, I did hear an amazing piece of salesmanship today at a local flea market.  The vendor was in the midst of pointing out all the features of a fishing rod to the customer when he said (and I quote), "Now this here, this is brand new.  It was just put on three years ago."  Maybe I should have stayed around for the rest of the spiel.