great sick example of what advertising does

back-to-back commercials on canadian tv in winter:

commercial 1: expedia.ca ad for caribbean destination tickets showing depressed characters fed up with shoveling snow, how early it gets dark, etc., the characters actually crying and wailing.

commercial 2: a twinrix ad worrying northern travelers about that same vaunted, tempting caribbean rubbed in our faces in the previous commercial now suddenly dangerous because the pharmaceutical corporation needs us to be afraid in order to buy its product, a hepatitis vaccine.

we cannot be allowed to accept or enjoy the moment because then we wouldn't want to escape, wouldn't "need" their products, every momentary escape fraught with "danger" or "lack," too, so the cycle of dissatisfaction and yearning consumption never stops.

john berger's ways of seeing (1972) still the best book ever written on this carrot-and-stick of capitalism.