A tactic often used in marketing is to show you the lifestyle you think you want to live. These commercials use actors whose lives appear to be without problems, trials or tribulations. They are always smiling, hanging out with beautiful people, with their perfect children, just loving life without a care in the world.
Here’s a Corona commercial to illustrate what I mean:
See how everyone is relaxed, smiling, problem free and well… beautiful?
Logically, we know that everyone has problems and no one is perfect. But subconsciously (which is a far more powerful driver), we believe there is an elite class of people and we desire so desperately to join their ranks.
Just like we wanted to be accepted by the popular kids in high school, we want to be accepted by the imaginary commercial people. What advertisers are doing is showing your subconscious mind that the “In” crowd uses their product and you should too if you want to be accepted by them.
To be honest with you, that’s why I moved to New York City. I had visited a friend living in New York and saw people beautiful enough to be in commercials so I assumed I’d have a good chance of finding that allusive problem free class of people there.
I found plenty of beautiful people but I didn’t find any problem free ones and when I moved out of New York a few years later I was much wiser than I was before.
But marketers have this down to a science. They figure out the lifestyle that you THINK you want and then show you it and make it seem like their product is the key that will open the door.
This principle carries over into the realm of social media. Instagram influencers project an idealized lifestyle out to their followers but what’s import to remember is it’s marketing, it’s their product, it’s not their real life. No amount of money, fame or respect will keep you from getting your heart broken, struggling to find meaning in life, or feeling inadequate.
Of course, being in a position where people idolize the lifestyle you are projecting is a powerful position. It means fame, money, and respect which are hard things to turn down. However, I can tell you from experience that most of those people selling you on how great their life appears are in therapy more than the rest of us.
I’m not knocking therapy, I’ve been to therapy myself and think it’s great. The point is, that the people that appear perfect are dealing with the same problems you are.
There’s a great Tony Robbins quote relating to this topic:
“Your problem is you think you shouldn’t have any problems”
The point of this post is to tell you that life is hard for everyone, not just you. Despite what your unconscious mind want’s to think, there’s no class of people who live every moment in bliss. We all have challenges in life and to take them head on is to live with dignity. Marketer’s are always going to market, but don’t let their messages convince you that anyone live’s a problem free life.