My Advertising Development

I have taken 10 psychology classes in my life. In every one I have had to sit through a lecture about Sigmund Freud. If you aren't familiar, Freud was an absolutely crazy cocaine addicted fiction writer/ evil genius who moonlighted as a psychologist. Despite saying almost nothing logical, psychologists still admire Freud as a stalwart in the field. He did contribute to the idea of developmental stages, which if nothing else is an average way of organizing life. Going along with this idea, I figure the best way to begin my blogging is to mix my psych knowledge with my past advertising experiences using stages.

"I Want It" Stage Ages 2-8

My first memory of advertising happened when I was five or six. I was at my buddy Donald's house during a commercial break of a Power Rangers episode. During every toy ad I listened to Donald declare over and over, "I want that." He wanted every Hot wheel and every action figure no matter how big, small or far from his interests. Donald was a year older than me, which naturally made him cooler, so I followed suit, excitedly declaring my need for each toy on the screen (minus the Barbies, those were for girls!) Each ad was the same. They all had two older boys doing the most elaborate thing they could do with a simple toy and a loud narrator acting way too excited about the product for a man his age. It didn't matter to me what they were selling, all I cared about was being as cool as the kids in the commercial and my friend.

Beer Stage Ages 10-13

No, I did not drink beer when I was 13, but I did love beer commercials. To this day I remember laughing my face off at the first Budweiser "wassup" ad. I obviously could care less about the product at the time, but the hilarity of the beer commercials that were and are still thrown at Americans left me feeling like I had just watched a mini sitcom. I could not buy my own things, so I evaluated ads not by the message but instead by how entertained I felt after each commercial.

Smart Teenager Stage Ages 14-18

In the 9th grade I had an assignment to find a fraudulent advertising claim. This was a dangerous task because giving a teenager a reason to be cynical about the world is like giving Sigmund Freud pen and paper (I won't stop until my professors do.) I became the kid who after every ad had something critical to say about the product. I thought this made me intelligent, but instead I was just annoying. In my evaluations I wasn't thinking about the advertisement as much as I was finding ways to criticize the product. To follow a teenage tradition, I will now use hormones as a scapegoat for my stupidity.

Intelligent Stage 18-Present

I realize how self-serving and conceited this title is, but I don't care. I am a smarter evaluator now. I have put aside my cynicism and have instead moved on to using the knowledge I have gained about people in order to think about why an ad is successful.

Going forward as a fresh new intern at BG, I plan on learning as much as I can from the experts that surround me so that I can both contribute to the best of my abilities as well as grow individually. If that doesn't work I'll just become a psychology professor and give sarcastic, half hearted Freud lectures while he laughs at me from the grave.