“I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about. What to listen to, what band to like. What to buy tickets for. What to joke about, what to not joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in. Who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them. I think I just want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”
It’s a line from the TV show Fleabag – striking in its relatability, haunting in its implication from an advertising perspective. In a market so oversaturated, so transient, consumers are looking for answers and brands are more than happy to sell them, or at least the promise of them, to anyone with a stable internet connection and disposable dollars.
Assisted by the ‘Father of PR’ Edward Bernays, the twentieth century saw advertising, in the traditional sense, uprooted. Instead of
