Adverts and Why they are Bad for You
There is only so much television advertsing I can physically take. They drive me round the bend. The only ones that I remember are the ones that are halfway witty or decent and even then it would in no way want to make me go out and buy the product. For example, I do not understand product placement in the slightest. The sight of Vin Diesel or Tom Cruise drinking a particular drink, or wearing a particular label would in no way shape or form make me more disposed to going out and buying the damn thing.
This becomes a bit of a pain because advertising ends up turning me off from products that I really should be wanting to buy. For example, the iPhone is pretty cool but I am sick to death of the adverts so wont be getting it. Channel 5 has saturated the airwaves with adverts for a new television series called Minder that I otherwise might have watched, but after being forced to watch the trailer twice every ad break meant that as soon as the actual TV show came on I switched off.
And what about the stuff that really matters? Home insurance , for example - something that could actually set about saving you money and even some of your life (if you have seen what a flood can do to your house having decent home insurance means you can at least replace the stuff you lost. No policy means no replacement which is as close as you can get to losing your life without actually shuffling off) are made irrelevant and useless by advertising.
I really do wonder if this endless saturation of our airwaves is making us more apathetic. It really isn't good to not get car insurance or home insurance or whatever just because you get annoyed with the advert, but this is the way that the human race works. It is irrational, illogical and bloody minded. I'm not a massive fan of adverts anyway, I think people are more than capable of deciding for themselves.
Adverts mean that it is the biggest, not necessarily the best, products that get the most exposure. As I have focussed on insurance mainly I'll take that; can you name four home insurance providers on the basis of their adverts? Is one of them Co-operative Insurance? No? Unsurprising. They are quite a small company; you may have heard of the Co-op shop but the chances you know about the insurance side is slim to none. They are an ethical company and as such they get rather swamped by the competition who are willing to go to any lengths possible. However, they are well worth checking out. They are ethical, customer focussed and growing (slowly but steadily). The credit crunch and the environmental dangers facing the world have brought about a new interest in ethical and moral trades so you can rest easy knowing that you are with the Co-op.
I just hope that when the advertising campaign starts they aren't too irritating.
Rates from 7.4% APR variable to 14.0% APR variable MOST customers pay 10.9% APR typical variable or less