Issue 393 of New Internationalist

Reader-owned global journalism

September 2006

Advertising overload

In your face and up your nose, mass advertising pushes more than just a product, it pushes an entire consumerist, globalized worldview – and makes it ‘fun’. This is different from the small-scale, non-glam stuff the *NI* itself accepts and indulges in. Backed by the financial muscle of the world’s corporate giants, advertising is about creating hungers in cultures of cool which big business can feed. With most of the media dependent on it and the finest creative brains working for it, the ad biz is hammering out that expressway to your skull. We peer into its bag of tricks.

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In this issue

  • If people in the rich world associate Benin with anything at all, it is likely to be child trafficking, slavery or voodoo – not exactly the ideal calling cards for a nation. Latterly, however, Benin is developing an entirely new reputation.

  • We asked the CEO of a major London ad agency to give us pointers on how to decode adverts.

  • The end hoves into sight for Equatorial Guinea’s blood-soaked dictator *Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo* – despite having an uncle who is a god.

  • What is advertising? Jean Kilbourne on the gigantic propaganda effort and how it affects the way we think and feel.