Do Commercials Sell Something Other Than the Product They Advertise?

I've seen multiple car ads draped in scantily clad women selling...cars? Hardly. Everyone knows they are selling sex or sensuality. Carl's Jr. ads sell the same thing. One would think they were selling hamburgers, but that's not necessarily so.

I've seen beer commercials selling fun, community, joining the party. Everyone knows beer is really just a hangover or an addiction in a bottle (if one "parties" too much). The ads don't tell you that. They may linger on taste, or how it affects your waistline, but not for long.

Because of all these underlying selling points, ads focus in on what consumers may find as more important than just the product they are selling. Sometimes it's family, a sense of belonging, sentiment, memories, sexyness...anything to get us in the door to buy their product. I, personally, long for the days when ads just sold a product. Advertisers are spending too much of my time trying to get my dollars. That's why brand loyalty just isn't important to me. I would rather just buy what I need or want without all of the hype.

The article about Obama suppressing war images, was something I understood.  I don't feel war images (body parts blown to bits) is newsworthy.  That's what a war is.  That's the nature of war.  Someone in class brought up the images of the holocaust and how awful it was.  Would we be as knowledgeable about the holocaust without those images.  I think the two issues are vastly different.  Germany was not at war with the Jews.  The Nazi's were committing genocide to 6 million civilians.  That's vastly different than being at war against another group of people or another country.  The Jews didn't massively fight or shoot or imprison Nazis.  This warrants a different type of coverage.  War photos?  If historians will need these photos for reporting history, then I think the newspapers can archive the pictures on the internet and the site can be mentioned on the news or at the end of the news article.  I don't think the photos need to be included in a forum where children can easily be bombarded with it.