The Product Is You, No. 10

[The Product Is You is an occasional Murketing series collecting advertising that is aimed at advertisers: Magazines or television networks packaging up their consumers — that is, you, the potential ad target — in ways designed to attract advertisers. Previous installments here.]

A recent CNBC campaign touting its audience to potential advertisers emphasizes (once again) that those audience members are supposedly rich. The point is made repeatedly, juxtaposing the high-end version of some thing (a watch, kobe beef, Faberge egg, fancy car) against the mass version. You, the CNBC viewer, are special. Why? Because you have money to burn. According to these ads, anyway. The ad above and below says that “97 percent of CNBC viewers own securities with an average value of $1,631,000.” Another says the average CNBC watcher has a net worth that “exceeds $2.7 million.” All the ads use the phrase that matters most to potential advertisers: “purchasing power.”