Do you and I buy or keep buying things because of image advertising?

I used to, but no longer. Nowadays it’s a rare image ad that doesn’t make me wonder if a company has been taken over by the sophomore class of Oberlin College.

I first noticed the effect right after the last presidential election when J&R (an electronics store near City Hall in NYC) took out full page ads in local newspapers consisting entirely of a logo and a headline declaring “Change is good.” I laughed.

Most image advertising these days, while not as silly as J&R’s, is pure b.s., like Jennifer Lopez for Fiat or Lite (and Light) beer spots.

Uber-dopes spend scads of corporate bucks on environmental issues. BP had government and lawyer guns to its head after the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, so we can cut them a break, but what compelled Coca-Cola to start saving polar bears? There’s even a web site called the Coca-Cola Polar Bear Support Fund that contains these words: “Help us take action to reduce our human impact on global climate change.”

I know they’re in Atlanta, but they should know by now that the polar bears are fine. As grownups they should know that the human impact on global climate change (they mean global warming – climate change is gobbledygook) is not a big deal. Most of all they should know that the bubbles in Coca Cola are carbon dioxide which, sophomores at Oberlin believe, contributes mightily to “ … our human impact on global climate change.” This could bite Coke in the butt when the lunatics take over every corner of the asylum.

Image advertising, in theory anyway, is supposed to help create a positive feeling about a company and it’s not supposed to get people feeling like the character in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I suggest a moratorium, at least until grownups get back in charge.