Surveys, sprite and sex appeal

A can of Sprite (you probably 

 already knew this)

Recently I have become a colossal and embarrassing sellout. Due to a still worryingly negative bank balance, I have given up on my traditional scruples and begun prostituting myself to the advertising industry by answering surveys online for small change.

As ashamed as I am by this experience, it has also offered me the chance to learn all sorts of new and exciting things about the world. I'm not just talking about the different shades of Dulux paint on offer or the fact that there is apparently a fizzy drink called Pepsi (who knew!) but also about a disturbing and terrifying insight into the surreal dreamworld of advertising executives.

We have presumably all read about the vast amount of money paid to a publicity consulting firm to come up with the decision to change the University of Durham's official name to Durham University. When you think about it, though, there's some sense in this - although presumably any idiot could have thought it up for five pounds and a free set of colouring pencils, there are going to be a lot less results when searching for 'Durham' than for 'University', right? Most of them will presumably be university-related counselling groups for bitter bourgeois Oxbridge rejects (Doxbridge lololololol), but we can at least assume that the most popular will be the University's website, right?

Right. However, this is only the tip of the publicity iceberg. In the course of filling out various online surveys, I have been asked - in all seriousness - which of the sponsor companies of the Olympics made me feel most proud to be British, whether I would describe people who drink Sprite as 'sexy' and 'attractive' (or conversely 'boring' and 'square'), whether I realised that superheroes in a Kit-Kat advert were spoofs, and on one memorable occasion, to watch an advert and use a sliding scale to indicate which parts made me feel inadequate.

All of which indicates what? Firstly, obviously, that they assume that all people doing surveys are stupid. But secondly, and more worryingly, that they have a profound belief in their own effectiveness. Before now I had assumed that advertising companies were basically aware of their function: produce enough adverts with enough pretty colours and loud noises to keep audiences aware of a given product. It turns out, though, that these people - probably overfed, sleek-coated Oxbridge phillies without the first idea of what normal people are like, a bit like our current Prime Minister - genuinely think that people go around judging people's sex appeal on which of a small range of soft drinks they consume! They genuinely think that as a result of McDonald's sponsoring the Olympics, people are going to be filled with a profound British What-Ho Patriotism that will prevent them from using any other fast food chain!

All of this has led me to the inescapable conclusion that the advertising industry aren't just deceiving companies into believing that the rubbish they come out with to make 7UP the drink for people with enormous penises or whatever is actually worth their while, they are deceiving themselves, too. Or, even more chillingly - that people actually do go around judging people's sex appeal by what soft drink they regularly consume. A bleak, bleak prospect.