One of
defining features of Western civilization is that we're all amateur marketers by default. Regardless of what our mother tongue is, second language we are most exposed to is invariably Hype.By time a child is five years old he is probably able to sing more jingles than songs and identify more corporate logos than letters of alphabet. No wonder, since it can be very difficult to tell where a hamburger or a toy or a movie leaves off, and where a global marketing juggernaut begins.
Consider an average day in your own life. Because most precious commodity in our marketing-based society is Consumer Attention, fast and furious battle for our awareness clobbers us during every waking hour.
Rather than list all places and ways in which marketers grab our attention, it would be easier and more poignant to list places and situations that are free of any marketing message: to wit, none.
You pretty much have to leave society and head off into nature to get away from it all, right? Wrong. The average person dressed and equipped for great outdoors displays more corporate emblemry than a Nascar racer. If that's not enough, they're probably imprinting earth with a shoemaker's logo with every step.
The point isn't to decry this arguably greed-warped and spiritually bankrupt situation, but rather to sharpen our own marketing skills from it. For instance, don't be fooled by name - junk mail is a goldmine of marketing intelligentsia. Collect it. Become a student of it. Ask others to save theirs for you, especially those items that they like and dislike most.
