Spurlock's Documentary

I loved watching "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold". In the documentary, Morgan Spurlock showed us how advertising really works. I think after watching it, what fascinated me the most was the control the advertising agencies have. For example, when Spurlock was talking to that guy who knows how to place products well and he was discussing the placement of the alka-seltzer pill with the movie director. He basically put the director on the spot by saying if the pill was used in the way he intended, he would take back all the cars they were lending him too. That amazed me. Also, I loved how no huge companies were willing to be in the movie. I think it just goes to show that theses businesses are strictly profit; they do not care about the consumers. I believe businesses should be about profits, but it seems like from this movie that very few top companies care about consumers. People need to be made aware of how much they are actually marketed each day. I think Ralph Nader said it best when he said the best place to be, away from all this advertising, is asleep. That is really the only realistic place you can be to not see advertising. In the movie, Morgan visits a very large city in Brazil, Sao Paolo. This is a city that has almost 19 million people in it, 7th largest city in the world, and yet they have no outdoor advertising. I found this to be simply amazing. How could this get passed into law? Don't get me wrong, this idea is brilliant. Yet, I don't believe anyone in the political system here in the U.S would ever suggest this. I couldn't imagine all the ways this person could be criticized. With all the ads for political positions today, if someone brought this up people would begin to blame him for wanting to destroy businesses and all sorts of things. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. In Sao Paolo, 70% of the people reported that removing the advertisements was beneficial to them. I think it would have the same effect here. After seeing that city with no advertising outdoors, I think it just goes to show how overwhelmed our country is with advertisement.