Penny Lane-Adorno Late

Advertising impacts opinion at both a conscious and unconscious level. Most people recognize that a product is no substitute for natural ability. Higher value is assigned to objects that promise us something more than the ordinary. Brands often perpetuate this divergence of prescribed worth. Adorno states: “That is the triumph of advertising in the culture industry: the compulsive imitation by consumers of cultural commodities which, at the same time, they recognize as false.” For instance, it is logical to assert that two prescription drugs (one brand name and the other generic) are made from the same chemical compounds and produce the same effect. Despite this conclusion, society still designates more worth to the first producer. We hold them to be more knowledgeable or reliable when buying drugs. I was recently at the grocery store with a friend and we began talking about this exact subject. Coincidentally, her brother works for Unilever and she was able to provide me with some much needed clarity on the subject. If you have ever been to Publix or Walgreens, than you have probably noticed that they frequently sell their own brand of products that compare those produced by large brands. This practice is applied to everything from cough medicine to saltine cracker. What I did not realize is that these distributors are selling literally the exact same product. Companies often over produce their own product, leaving them at a loss if they cannot sell it in the marketplace due to over saturation. In a situation like that, they would sell the excess at bottom barrel prices to the same sellers that buy their name brand product. So next time you are trying to decide whether you should buy Nyquil or Publix nighttime (the exact situation I was in when our conversation arose)…remember that it is all Nyquil regardless of the packaging. Differentiation through branding is an excepted ideological fallacy due to the vast influence of advertising.