Covert Advertising
One of the Civics chapters for my 12 yo daughter is on advertising. After describing the purpose of advertising (to persuade you to do something), it gets into the various types of advertising – commercial (buy something), social (change your behavior), and political (vote for X). Interestingly, it also has a section on “covert advertisements”. I tried explaining that to my daughter with an example – if Virat Kohli wears Ray Ban glasses when he is out at an event, notice that he is never saying that Ray Ban is the best. But people notice what he is wearing and may decide it is a good set of shades and buy it. That’s covert advertising, I told her. I was very amused that her teacher had used a similar example too. Back in 2020, Cristiano Ronaldo had famously pushed aside Coca Cola bottles at a press conference as if to say it wasn’t good (either in taste or for health – Ronaldo is a fitness freak). If you haven’t seen it, or don’t remember it, have a look at the video before you read fu...