Truth in Advertising

For more than a decade I worked in the advertising business, my clients were mostly small business owners who wanted to advertise on television locally. My job was to make their business look as good as possible and motivate people to use their services. Sometimes this meant making a not so great place look better than it was. I sometimes had to overlook the slimy car dealer or the slightly shady store owner and make them a commercial that would get people to do business with them. I never lost any sleep over this, for every "bad customer" I probably had ten good ones. We all know that advertising is not the "truth", it is more of a representation of the best case scenario. I was sometimes asked to tell out right lies by customers but I always found tactful ways to stretch the truth and avoid telling an actual fib, at least that's what I tell myself. Which brings me to the reason for this post, a few weeks ago my mother treated my family and I to a night at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City. We had a luxurious suite and could order all the room service we wanted. The kids got to swim and then that evening the kids settled in to a movie in the room and the adults went down to the casino. I have seen the television commercial at the top of this blog many times and expected some representation of that when I entered the casino. I was in for a shock! Now mind you, I am a veteran of television advertising and know that sometimes you have to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, but the disparity between the television representation and reality was jarring. There seemed to be an air of desperation in the casino, there were no smiles and there was an overall shabbiness about the majority of people bellied up to the slots. There was a sadness to the atmosphere that was disturbing. My wife is much more in tune with emotions and overall impressions of a group, so I turned to her and asked her if she was having the same impressions as I. The look of horror on her face answered my question right away. We decided to people watch for awhile and we did find people enjoying themselves, mostly we found them in the bar listening to the live music. We took in the general atmosphere of the place and decided that if we focus on ourselves and just tune out the oppressive sadness of the casino we could have fun, and we did. I do not mean to condemn the Blue Chip or gamblers but I do have a deeper understanding of why there are such strong opponents when a new casino wants to open in a city or town. This is not a place of joy or pure entertainment, this is a place of desperation and addiction. I have had some experience with addictions and I see a very familiar look on the faces of many of the people in the casino. There is a huge rift between what we see in the commercial for the Blue Chip and the reality of the Blue Chip, if you ever get the chance I invite you to see for yourself. If you are a fan of people watching as I am you will not be disappointed.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1086175,00.html