Advertising: what's really for sale?

 My nine year old son said he wanted a beard and mustache trimmer for Christmas last year, not that he had any facial hair to deal with as of then, but rather he had seen the commercials and was convinced it would bequeath all that 'coolness' to him that the models in the commercial displayed whilst using the contraption.  That is the heart of advertising: make the viewers want something, anything, other than what you are selling.  How many commercials or annoying ditties can you remember from decades ago and of those, how many can you actually remember what they are selling rather than the humor, wit, or catchy song that lodged it in your head?

I was a young teenager, well beyond the age of bathtub toys, but I wanted a 'rub-a-dub doggie' for Christmas.  We had a little family exchange where each sibling was given a little money to buy something for another sibling and I convinced my brother to get me one, despite my mother's objections, but the reality was far from that promised by the commercial, but then I didn't want the toy, rather I wanted the fun and love and happiness exhibited by the mother and her daughter in the commercial.  My poor childish heart longed for something it needed but had never had, and I thought I could get it by investing in a toy!

Can you look through the advertising in life, official and not?  What are you really after?  What do you really need?  What is someone else trying to get from you?  What are you longing for and hope a relationship or job or money or power or fame or car or new location or trip or whatever will give you?  Look past the smiling facade, the cool music, the happy people, the wit or humor or unforgettable jingle, both on TV and in real life, to the core of the message, why does it attract you?  Do you really want the product or the trappings in which they are trying to sell it?  Can that product or relationship or whatever truly deliver what you are longing for?

Who are you?  Where did you come from?  Is there a purpose?  What happens afterward?  Does it mean anything?  Does anyone care?  These are the big questions.  Do you have an answer?  Advertisers and scam artists have mined them for millennia to control others or enrich themselves without giving away even a hint of an answer.  But there is an Answer, but we'd rather hum the tune from a gum commercial that hasn't aired in three decades!