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** Our heroes discuss how RockAndRoll pretends to be rebellious, but the stars are either [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand 45-year old zillionaires]] or they [[Music/MichaelJackson endorse soft drinks.]] Instead of listening to that, Calvin prefers easy-listening muzak, which he considers protest music for today's youth because it drives his parents nuts. He even plays it real quiet, too.
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The concept was popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter[[note]] based on theories by Creator/KarlMarx which have been unironically adopted by Wall Street as good business advice[[/note]] as "creative destruction". The basic principle is that, in an economy with a finite amount of wealth, entrepreneurs and companies are incentivized to come up with ways to devalue the wealth controlled by "the establishment" and claim it for themselves, forcing the establishment to either evolve or collapse into bankruptcy. Often, this creative destruction takes the form of new technologies and more efficient production processes (like streaming services and ride-sharing apps putting video rental stores and traditional taxicabs out of business), but it can also include seizing on social trends and moral crusades (such as attacking companies over human rights or environmental issues to position their own product as the "moral[=/=]green alternative"). In Schumpeter's view, capitalism is not just a static, monolithic bloc of monopolies but an endless churn of businesses and entrepreneurs attacking and destroying the wealth of the old guard, [[MeetTheNewBoss rising in triumph to become the old guard]], and then [[FullCircleRevolution being destroyed by the newer guard when their time is up]].
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The concept was popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter[[note]] based on theories by Creator/KarlMarx which have been unironically adopted by Wall Street as good business advice[[/note]] as "creative destruction". The basic principle is that, in an economy with a finite amount of wealth, entrepreneurs and companies are incentivized to come up with ways to devalue the wealth controlled by "the establishment" and claim it for themselves, forcing the establishment to either evolve or collapse into bankruptcy. Often, this creative destruction takes the form of new technologies and more efficient production processes (like streaming services and ride-sharing apps putting video rental stores and traditional taxicabs out of business), but it can also include seizing on social trends and moral crusades (such as attacking companies over human rights or environmental issues to position their own product as the "moral[=/=]green alternative"). In Schumpeter's view, capitalism is not just a static, monolithic bloc of monopolies but an endless churn of businesses and entrepreneurs attacking and destroying the wealth of the old guard, [[MeetTheNewBoss rising in triumph to become the old new guard]], and then [[FullCircleRevolution being destroyed by the newer guard when their time is up]].
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The antithesis of the BandwagonTechnique, and often used by competitors of companies that can use said technique. Tends to invoke the RuleAbidingRebel, since by nature they're telling you to rebel by joining a status quo. {{Hipster}}s are known to fall for this sort of trick.
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The antithesis of the BandwagonTechnique, BandWagonTechnique, and often used by competitors of companies that can use said technique. Tends to invoke the RuleAbidingRebel, since by nature they're telling you to rebel by joining a status quo. {{Hipster}}s are known to fall for this sort of trick.
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Trope was cut/disambiguated due to cleanup
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* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'': Miguel starts as a corporate executive and scientist working for the EvilInc Alchemax, very close to become {{Corrupt|CorporateExecutive}}ed himself. Initially, the only reason he fights against Alchemax's {{Corporate Samurai}}'s is because he's angry at the CEO Tyler Stone for getting him addicted to [[FantasticDrug Rapture]], or self defense from those hired to capture Spider-Man. Part of his CharacterDevelopment over the course of the series is to geniunly want to erase the negative influence of Alchemax after seeing how much harm they do; he never actually opposes the concept of a MegaCorp, he just believes they must be ethical.
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* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'': Miguel starts as a corporate executive and scientist working for the EvilInc Alchemax, very close to become {{Corrupt|CorporateExecutive}}ed himself. Initially, the only reason he fights against Alchemax's {{Corporate Samurai}}'s Samurai}}s is because he's angry at the CEO Tyler Stone for getting him addicted to [[FantasticDrug Rapture]], or self defense from those hired to capture Spider-Man. Part of his CharacterDevelopment over the course of the series is to geniunly want to erase the negative influence of Alchemax after seeing how much harm they do; he never actually opposes the concept of a MegaCorp, he just believes they must be ethical.
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* The movie ''Film/TheChase1994'' provides an excellent example of the two incarnations of "The Man" coming into conflict, with the film intrinsically claiming that the "hip" Man is somehow less of a Man than the stodgy old corporate Man. Kristy Swanson is the daughter of a mega-successful California businessman. After she is kidnapped by a desperate prison escapee (played by Creator/CharlieSheen) and finds herself [[StockholmSyndrome slowly falling in love with him]], she decides she's had enough of her father trying to control her life. Long story short, the couple abscond to Mexico ... and how do they "rebel" when they get there? [[TropicalEpilogue They lie on the beach and drink margaritas]] – something the girl's father most likely did a lot of in private himself.
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* The movie ''Film/TheChase1994'' provides an excellent example of the two incarnations of "The Man" coming into conflict, with the film intrinsically claiming that the "hip" Man is somehow less of a Man than the stodgy old corporate Man. Kristy Swanson is the daughter of a mega-successful California businessman. After she is kidnapped by a desperate prison escapee (played by Creator/CharlieSheen) and finds herself [[StockholmSyndrome [[AMatchMadeInStockholm slowly falling in love with him]], she decides she's had enough of her father trying to control her life. Long story short, the couple abscond to Mexico ... and how do they "rebel" when they get there? [[TropicalEpilogue They lie on the beach and drink margaritas]] – something the girl's father most likely did a lot of in private himself.
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* Creator/FrankTashlin's Film/TheGirlCantHelpIt showed this. TheFifties Rock and Roll era was basically run by gangsters from TheThirties who turned legitimate. One of the gangsters, played by Edmond O'Brien, wants to cash in on the youth market by launching his own pop sensation and finds out his ex-rival now runs the big music company. At the end of film, he becomes a rising pop star himself and his rival is so impressed with his success that he hires him and gives him a contract, because hey, he's a hit with the kids.
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* Creator/FrankTashlin's Film/TheGirlCantHelpIt ''Film/TheGirlCantHelpIt'' showed this. TheFifties Rock and Roll era was basically run by gangsters from TheThirties who turned legitimate. One of the gangsters, played by Edmond O'Brien, wants to cash in on the youth market by launching his own pop sensation and finds out his ex-rival now runs the big music company. At the end of film, he becomes a rising pop star himself and his rival is so impressed with his success that he hires him and gives him a contract, because hey, he's a hit with the kids.
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* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/{{Disco Elysium}}'' through Joyce Messier, a CoolOldLady and self-aware corporate agent (she calls herself "deuille", or "devil"). During the conversation about the philosophy of ultraliberalism (basically libertarianism) she bitterly states that this trope is pretty much inevitable:
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* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/{{Disco Elysium}}'' ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' through Joyce Messier, a CoolOldLady and self-aware corporate agent (she calls herself "deuille", or "devil"). During the conversation about the philosophy of ultraliberalism (basically libertarianism) she bitterly states that this trope is pretty much inevitable:
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* The [[MegaCorp Vladof Corporation]] in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' always mentions in its radio adverts that true socialist warriors and the proletariat buy Vladof to overthrow the [[{{Hypocrisy}} capitalist pigs]].
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* The [[MegaCorp Vladof Corporation]] in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' always mentions in its radio adverts that true socialist warriors and the proletariat buy Vladof to overthrow the [[{{Hypocrisy}} capitalist pigs]].
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In Universe Examples Only. The OK Cola might be an example, based on the natter, but I can't salvage it.
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* Possibly the UrExample: In 1968, Creator/ColumbiaRecords ran a notorious ad in ''Magazine/RollingStone'' showing a bunch of picket sign-toting young radicals in a jail cell with the caption "But The Man can't bust our music." For extra hilarity, the albums shown in the ad are all ClassicalMusic. (Music/WendyCarlos' early electronica album ''Music/SwitchedOnBach'' was a bit more far out then.)
* Also in the late 1960s was a TV ad for one of Dodge's muscle cars in which the driver is pulled over by a cop straight out of ''Film/EasyRider'' who eventually gets so offended by the car and its carefully-enunciated features that he ends up booking the driver for "sassin' a law officer."
* Often the theme of Sprite's "Obey Your Thirst" campaign, particularly in later commercials, where they make fun of commercial gimmicks to get you to buy their products, by using commercial gimmicks to get you to buy their products. The initial ads of this type were more like 30-second motivational spots that were sponsored by Sprite. e.g. A teen sees Grant Hill drinking Sprite and then effortlessly dunking. The teen thinks, "''Grant Hill'' drinks ''Sprite''". He gets a Sprite, drinks it, and tries to dunk, while a deep voiceover says, "If you wanna make it to the NBA..." The kid fails miserably, landing on his ass. "...practice." Then, the little tag at the end, which seemed to say, "Incidentally, Sprite can't make you dunk, but it quenches thirst, so why not get some next time?"
** Sprite's later "Wanna Sprite?" campaign would repeat the celebrity endorsement ribbing. The usual setup would have UsefulNotes/LeBronJames in the middle of filming a Sprite commercial or hang some pretty heavy fourth wall-breaking lampshades on his presence, with the slogan even coming from him asking the viewer if they'd like to drink what he's endorsing instead of demanding them. Some commercials like the infamous Sprite Cranberry ad would drop this aspect.
* Also in the late 1960s was a TV ad for one of Dodge's muscle cars in which the driver is pulled over by a cop straight out of ''Film/EasyRider'' who eventually gets so offended by the car and its carefully-enunciated features that he ends up booking the driver for "sassin' a law officer."
* Often the theme of Sprite's "Obey Your Thirst" campaign, particularly in later commercials, where they make fun of commercial gimmicks to get you to buy their products, by using commercial gimmicks to get you to buy their products. The initial ads of this type were more like 30-second motivational spots that were sponsored by Sprite. e.g. A teen sees Grant Hill drinking Sprite and then effortlessly dunking. The teen thinks, "''Grant Hill'' drinks ''Sprite''". He gets a Sprite, drinks it, and tries to dunk, while a deep voiceover says, "If you wanna make it to the NBA..." The kid fails miserably, landing on his ass. "...practice." Then, the little tag at the end, which seemed to say, "Incidentally, Sprite can't make you dunk, but it quenches thirst, so why not get some next time?"
** Sprite's later "Wanna Sprite?" campaign would repeat the celebrity endorsement ribbing. The usual setup would have UsefulNotes/LeBronJames in the middle of filming a Sprite commercial or hang some pretty heavy fourth wall-breaking lampshades on his presence, with the slogan even coming from him asking the viewer if they'd like to drink what he's endorsing instead of demanding them. Some commercials like the infamous Sprite Cranberry ad would drop this aspect.
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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_%28television_commercial%29 Apple's famous "1984" commercial]] equated the [[HowTheMightyHaveFallen then-dominant IBM]] with Creator/GeorgeOrwell's "[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Big Brother]]", and offered the new Macintosh as a way of reclaiming your individuality. The motto "think different" was emblematic of the "everyone have the same difference" mentality. To this day, Apple emphasizes its distinctiveness, though it's become large and successful enough that it can no longer present itself as the rebel minority. It can be argued that they still do, but it's more presented as being "cooler" than the competition--see the "I'm a Mac"/"I'm a PC" ads. Whether ''that's'' better or worse depends on whether or not you agree. In any case, considering the strength of the line is in its lower compatibility, which gives you fewer options in using their products (and ostensibly allows better performance in the things you ''can'' do), the success of this tactic is ironic.
** One iPod Nano ad was set to "Bourgeois Shangri-La" by Miss Li, which is an [[IsntItIronic anti-commercialist song]].
** Look at their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE "Crazy Ones"]] commercial. Remember, everyone: If you buy an Apple-brand computer, you too can be just like UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, Music/BobDylan, [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Martin Luther King Jr.]], and Music/JohnLennon!
* The Hot Topic chain of clothing stores is ''built'' on this, with an edgy, rebellious image carefully crafted by some marketing suit in City of Industry, CA, where the main offices are located. Yeah, the city looks exactly like you think it does. The Hot Topic building is generally non-descript, but driving past at night you can see that the lobby is decked out with a 27-foot tall gothic altar, and the receptionist sits at an antique autopsy table. ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20110329175924/http://community.hottopic.com/content/hq-photos Second photo.]]) Apparently the rest of the building is no let-down either.
* The infamous "Don't Be So Mayo" and "We Will Not Tone It Down" Miracle Whip commercials apply this trope to ''[[MundaneMadeAwesome eating mayonnaise]]''.
* Used in a Scion commercial, painting people in other cars as "Sheeple" and Scion owners as rebellious "Little Deviants" who feed on them. Yes, we're all going to blindly buy your car in order to reclaim our own free will.
** An even more blatant example was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scion_Audio/Visual Scion AV "punk label,"]] which had a roster of bands including Music/{{Meshuggah}} and Music/BlackLips to promote the Scion.
* Dr. Pepper's "Be part of an original crowd". No, seriously.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02vku-6fZWQ "Always One of a Kind."]] Show your individuality by wearing a red-and-white shirt all but identical to everyone else's!
* An old drug PSA used the tagline of "Be An Original". How does doing what the commercial tells you to do make you an original? They probably meant: "Don't be like all those drugged-out kids out there, because you're morally superior to them." Not only an arrogant point of view, but pretty cynical as well. (Later ads evoke the same theme, with their "Above the Influence" slogan.)
* Reebok's U.B.U. campaign, which was brazen enough to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on self-reliance.
* Budweiser beer is now ''viciously and sarcastically attacking'' morons who drink beer in some of their ads, such as the "Real Men of Genius" series. [[http://contemporaryinsanity.org/audio-video/bud-light-real-men-of-genius.html Weird, huh?]] Some of the guys in Marketing must really hate their own company...
* Advertisements for Total Gym have Creator/ChuckNorris giving a runby of how the workout equipment works and stating how while other commercials use gimmicks to sell their product, this stands on its own. Hmm. Using a washed up celebrity to advertise a product? And one [[MemeticBadass whose tears can cure cancer]] to boot? Not a gimmick at all!
* Sega ran a campaign of "pirate TV" ads advertised by sticking flyers on billboards, because flyposting and pirate transmissions are cool and edgy. But also illegal, so they put up their own billboards for fictional products and flyposted them.
* In the nineties Subaru ran spots of a know-it-all skater kid explaining how "This car is like punk rock." Which probably drove their business with actual punk rockers down by 75%.
** The skater kid was [[Series/{{Lost}} Daniel Faraday]], no less.
** Not that something as middle-class and suburban as buying a ''brand-new'' car is punk in any way, shape or form...
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda OK Soda]]. Made by the Coca-Cola Company in 1993 to target the Gen-X/grunge demographic, it's... well, just read the page on Website/TheOtherWiki. And somebody thought that angsty grunge teens would buy into this?
** Looking at the advertisements and artwork for the soda makes you wonder if it didn't turn its target demographics into alcoholics.
** The campaign itself {{Lampshaded}} and [[{{Parody}} Parodied]] this trope, rather than playing it straight. The campaign assumed that the Gen-X market believed they were being exploited and manipulated by advertising in general, and so was simply [[AtLeastIAdmitIt transparent about it]].
** Around the same time Coca-Cola also introduced [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitopia Fruitopia]], which used a more gentle version of the trope. Its marketing had a heavy NewAgeRetroHippie vibe, with the implication that Fruitopia's main concern was helping you achieve self-actualization, and only incidentally were they also in the soft drink business. After a few years they dropped the campaign and had a more conventional rebranding, but it didn't help sales and it ultimately got scrapped in the US market (it's still sold in Canada).
* Dove has received a great deal of attention for their Campaign For Real Beauty, that includes commercials like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U Evolution]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=321Kb8pBu5s Onslaught]]. What they don't advertise is that their parent company, Unilever, also owns the Axe/Lynx deodorants which have inflicted us with commercials like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU this]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsxK36HAf9k this]]. Both Dove and Axe/Lynx are trying to "stick it" to each other, with Unilever cheerfully raking in the cash they make off both sides. Considering that the Axe/Lynx spots are ''parodies'', they're doing basically the same thing, just from a different direction. Axe isn't even the bad part. The company, Unilever, also sells skin-lightening creams to women in other countries, with some pretty atrocious commercials. There's one from India where a woman is finishing up a news report and a male coworker gives her this nasty look. She complains about how her dark skin is holding her career back ([[ButNotTooBlack which is a little strange given her skin isn't that dark to begin with, but whatever]]). She uses the skin-lightening cream, she moves forward in her career, and the male coworker smiles at her. Contradicts the "Campaign For Real Beauty", no? The "Campaign For Real Beauty" itself began receiving flak when it was revealed they were looking for a very specific ''type'' of real beauty - women who were between a certain weight range, with unblemished skin, around a certain height... not to mention the inherent contradiction in a ''make-up company'' telling people to appreciate their natural beauty.
* 7-Up's short-lived "Are You An Un?" ad depicted their competitors as Orwellian overlords hunting down the "Uns," people who thought for themselves by drinking... 7-Up. Viewers saw right through it, and it was soon pulled.
* Nintendo's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQAbQ1hJZw "Play It Loud"]] ad campaign made it look like buying SNES games was an excellent way of rebelling against those stuffy, repressive authority figures, as well as trying to make them look [[NeverTrustATrailer much edgier than they actually were in most cases]]. Mind, ''this'' was coming from the Nintendo that simultaneously demanded ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' and ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' be severely {{bowdlerized}}. Equally amusing was that one of the ads featured a Music/ButtholeSurfers song that was ''released on a major label'' and proceeded to bleep out the word "Hell" in said song. Of course, pretty much every "anti-authority" video game censors its music. Illegal street racing while blasting gangsta rap and ramming into cop cars? Fine, but said rap will be thoroughly clean.
* In 2004, a short-lived ad campaign for ''V -- The Ultimate Variety Show'' appeared in at least one UsefulNotes/LasVegas freebie magazine (publications left in hotel rooms, etc. for tourists), encouraging potential theatergoers to "Dare to be different" and choose it over Music/BlueManGroup, Creator/CirqueDuSoleil, and/or Music/CelineDion. It even had a cartoon illustration with a black sheep choosing the variety show while tons of white sheep chose the others. The show is a B-list, low-budget production compared to those A-list ones, so the ad was assuming the target audience did not know that.
* An infamous example of The Woman Sticking It To The Man is Virginia Slims' "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" campaign from TheSixties.
* Pepsi's 2010 "Refresh Your World Campaign", at least in the Czech Republic. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DYiTaizF8 this ad]] they reach out to some young "[[TheStoner edgy]]" types to help put some stickers on the communist landscape but [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]] get in their way. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkKA8ynToNs&NR=1 This one]] shows a pair of [[CoolOldGuy hip pensioners]] painting a bus stop to a hip hop beat. Also, the project's website is noted by its use of colloquial spoken language, which indicates some unplugged executive is behind it all.
* A short time ago Levis ran ads for their "go forth" campaign in black and white, showing young models doing things like standing alone in a field with either recordings of a Walt Whitman [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdW1CjbCNxw&feature=related poem]] or a voice over that that spends the entire commercial calling the people in the commercial (and by extension everyone who wears Levi's jeans) "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG8tqEUTlvs pioneers.]]" What makes it more confusing is that without the last three second of the commercial, there is no way of telling who made it, what they are selling or if it was just some film class project someone got on the air. Needless to say Levi Strauss & Co. is just another clothing company and are hardly the revolutionary game changers they think they are. Alternately, they're trying to create an association between their product and a really good poem.
* Pace Picante Sauce commercials: Pace is made by a big company, but to differentiate themselves from other picante sauces, they point out that their competitors' sauces are made in big factories that aren't in Texas.
-->'''''[[FelonyMisdemeanor NEW YORK CITY]]?!'''''
* The "Hold Fast" series of advertisements for Sailor Jerry purport to chronicle nonconformists and rebels...who all drink Sailor Jerry.
* [=McDonalds=] ran a series of ads in New Zealand for its new "Lamb Burger", one of which had a man complain about how New Zealand is now overrun by overseas influences, such as American TV shows and European cars, until he is told that [=McDonalds=] now offer Lamb Burger. All this, coming from an American franchise. Indeed, [=McDonalds=] in particular is a prime focal point for the ambivalence harbored toward American consumer culture by foreigners, such as in the case of the French embracing [=McDonalds=] (it's been in Paris since at least the 1980s) but insisting on [[Film/PulpFiction "Frenchifying" its menu]].
* When New York was still threatening to implement the 16 ounce soda ban (a judge has since tossed it out), every soda corporation in the city joined forces for an advertising campaign on each delivery truck reading, quote-unquote, "Don't let bureaucrats tell you what size beverage to buy." Complete with a silhouetted figure raising a fist in defiance, with a soda bottle in his clenched hand.
* Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi took one look at the "cult of Apple" and crafted its [[http://thenextweb.com/asia/2012/08/19/why-chinas-xiaomi-inspiring-loyalty-rivals-apple-fanboys-google-fandroids/#!wvvOm own cult]]. The name of the company refers to revolution, supported by a Chinese revolutionary bunny mascot, and you too can be a ''"mi fen"'' and part of the in-crowd if you buy their t-shirts, dolls and of course their actual phones, which are [[http://www.gizchina.com/2013/08/27/xiaomi-hongmi-50000-phone-sold-3-minutes-39-seconds/ anything but exclusive]] and whose MIUI operating system shamelessly borrows from Apple's iOS.
* Pretty much every political campaign will at some point claim that their candidate or party represents the common man while the opposing side is "the elite" or "the establishment".
* A pair of commercials (can't remember what for) try to depict the spokesmodels in it as rebels, shaking up people's preconceptions. The narrator even refers to said spokesmodels as "you" to make the viewer identify with them. And what are these [[RuleAbidingRebel play-by-their-own-rules trendsetters]] doing? One commercial features a woman ''putting her arm around her date's shoulder'' at the movies (scandalous in the 1950s. In 2014? Not so much). The other shows a man going to work on casual Friday ''in a three-piece suit!'' The commercial even shows people staring at the man in shock, as if he was naked, rather than smartly dressed. One would think no one in that building has important meetings on Friday they would need to dress up for.
* [[http://vimeo.com/6638586 This ad]] for the "Attack-A-Snack" Cheesestrings spin-off, doubling as a ''Film/FightClub'' homage. Eat food with your hands? You're a non-conformist, apparently.
* All those sidebar adverts infesting websites, with headings like ''Doctors/Dentists/Dermatologists/dieticians hate her!" in which it alleged that an anonymous "mom" somehow came up with a home-brewed remedy in her own kitchen, which for $5 worth of commonly available ingredients will do the job of $5,000 dollars worth of medical prescription/dental treatment/dermatological preparation/constitute a guaranteed weight-loss plan. Hence the Big Medical corporations would happily take out a Mafia hit on her for rendering them irrelevant and hitting their ill-gotten gains. It is never explained as to why Big Medicine has not taken the Mom from Massachusetts on board and is not marketing her breakthrough concept themselves, which would seem more logical than impotent teeth-grinding loathing.[[note]]Hilariously for British recipients of these ads, any attempt to rehash them for the British market is horribly inconsistent, so you get the "Mom From Manchester" who in the same spiel variously deals in "£5 worth of ingredients" replacing "$5,000 dollars worth of expensive treatment".[[/note]]
** [[http://www.tofugu.com/2012/10/17/language-professors-hate-him-pimsleur-his-method-and-talking-fast/ "Language Professors HATE Him!"]] He's a prominent ''[[BoomerangBigot language professor]]'', Paul Pimsleur, whose language-learning method is considered very mainstream and non-controversial. Also, he's been dead since 1976.
* On a can of Monster Assault energy drink, they claim that the camo pattern the can is decorated with "helps fire [them] up to fight the big multi-national companies who dominate the beverage business." Elsewhere on the can, at least those sold in Canada, can be found the words "Distributed by Coca-Cola Refreshments Canada."
* In 1970, Melanie Safka released a song called "Look what they've done to my song, ma", which opined in the destructive effects of commercialism on music. A few years later, Generals Mills modified the song and used it in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiyQC_t0MY commercial for breakfast cereal.]]
* A TV commercial for Converse sneakers depicts a bunch of young people dancing in a nightclub in slow motion. Onscreen text scrolling upwards describes how this commercial was made by a bunch of old white men in a corporate office whose knowledge of teenagers and young adults is entirely derived through focus testing. At no point in the commercial does it ever remotely suggest the viewer to buy Converse sneakers, nowhere do the shoes ever appear in the commercial, and the logo doesn't even show up until a less-than-a-second shot at the end.
* Nearly every commercial for ambulance-chasing lawyers follows the same formula: big insurance companies are penny-pinching evil incarnate who exist solely to profit from your misfortune. So, hire our big law firm to go after them and "recover" all the money you "deserve" (minus a sizable cut for ourselves, of course).
** One iPod Nano ad was set to "Bourgeois Shangri-La" by Miss Li, which is an [[IsntItIronic anti-commercialist song]].
** Look at their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE "Crazy Ones"]] commercial. Remember, everyone: If you buy an Apple-brand computer, you too can be just like UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, Music/BobDylan, [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Martin Luther King Jr.]], and Music/JohnLennon!
* The Hot Topic chain of clothing stores is ''built'' on this, with an edgy, rebellious image carefully crafted by some marketing suit in City of Industry, CA, where the main offices are located. Yeah, the city looks exactly like you think it does. The Hot Topic building is generally non-descript, but driving past at night you can see that the lobby is decked out with a 27-foot tall gothic altar, and the receptionist sits at an antique autopsy table. ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20110329175924/http://community.hottopic.com/content/hq-photos Second photo.]]) Apparently the rest of the building is no let-down either.
* The infamous "Don't Be So Mayo" and "We Will Not Tone It Down" Miracle Whip commercials apply this trope to ''[[MundaneMadeAwesome eating mayonnaise]]''.
* Used in a Scion commercial, painting people in other cars as "Sheeple" and Scion owners as rebellious "Little Deviants" who feed on them. Yes, we're all going to blindly buy your car in order to reclaim our own free will.
** An even more blatant example was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scion_Audio/Visual Scion AV "punk label,"]] which had a roster of bands including Music/{{Meshuggah}} and Music/BlackLips to promote the Scion.
* Dr. Pepper's "Be part of an original crowd". No, seriously.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02vku-6fZWQ "Always One of a Kind."]] Show your individuality by wearing a red-and-white shirt all but identical to everyone else's!
* An old drug PSA used the tagline of "Be An Original". How does doing what the commercial tells you to do make you an original? They probably meant: "Don't be like all those drugged-out kids out there, because you're morally superior to them." Not only an arrogant point of view, but pretty cynical as well. (Later ads evoke the same theme, with their "Above the Influence" slogan.)
* Reebok's U.B.U. campaign, which was brazen enough to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on self-reliance.
* Budweiser beer is now ''viciously and sarcastically attacking'' morons who drink beer in some of their ads, such as the "Real Men of Genius" series. [[http://contemporaryinsanity.org/audio-video/bud-light-real-men-of-genius.html Weird, huh?]] Some of the guys in Marketing must really hate their own company...
* Advertisements for Total Gym have Creator/ChuckNorris giving a runby of how the workout equipment works and stating how while other commercials use gimmicks to sell their product, this stands on its own. Hmm. Using a washed up celebrity to advertise a product? And one [[MemeticBadass whose tears can cure cancer]] to boot? Not a gimmick at all!
* Sega ran a campaign of "pirate TV" ads advertised by sticking flyers on billboards, because flyposting and pirate transmissions are cool and edgy. But also illegal, so they put up their own billboards for fictional products and flyposted them.
* In the nineties Subaru ran spots of a know-it-all skater kid explaining how "This car is like punk rock." Which probably drove their business with actual punk rockers down by 75%.
** The skater kid was [[Series/{{Lost}} Daniel Faraday]], no less.
** Not that something as middle-class and suburban as buying a ''brand-new'' car is punk in any way, shape or form...
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda OK Soda]]. Made by the Coca-Cola Company in 1993 to target the Gen-X/grunge demographic, it's... well, just read the page on Website/TheOtherWiki. And somebody thought that angsty grunge teens would buy into this?
** Looking at the advertisements and artwork for the soda makes you wonder if it didn't turn its target demographics into alcoholics.
** The campaign itself {{Lampshaded}} and [[{{Parody}} Parodied]] this trope, rather than playing it straight. The campaign assumed that the Gen-X market believed they were being exploited and manipulated by advertising in general, and so was simply [[AtLeastIAdmitIt transparent about it]].
** Around the same time Coca-Cola also introduced [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitopia Fruitopia]], which used a more gentle version of the trope. Its marketing had a heavy NewAgeRetroHippie vibe, with the implication that Fruitopia's main concern was helping you achieve self-actualization, and only incidentally were they also in the soft drink business. After a few years they dropped the campaign and had a more conventional rebranding, but it didn't help sales and it ultimately got scrapped in the US market (it's still sold in Canada).
* Dove has received a great deal of attention for their Campaign For Real Beauty, that includes commercials like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U Evolution]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=321Kb8pBu5s Onslaught]]. What they don't advertise is that their parent company, Unilever, also owns the Axe/Lynx deodorants which have inflicted us with commercials like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU this]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsxK36HAf9k this]]. Both Dove and Axe/Lynx are trying to "stick it" to each other, with Unilever cheerfully raking in the cash they make off both sides. Considering that the Axe/Lynx spots are ''parodies'', they're doing basically the same thing, just from a different direction. Axe isn't even the bad part. The company, Unilever, also sells skin-lightening creams to women in other countries, with some pretty atrocious commercials. There's one from India where a woman is finishing up a news report and a male coworker gives her this nasty look. She complains about how her dark skin is holding her career back ([[ButNotTooBlack which is a little strange given her skin isn't that dark to begin with, but whatever]]). She uses the skin-lightening cream, she moves forward in her career, and the male coworker smiles at her. Contradicts the "Campaign For Real Beauty", no? The "Campaign For Real Beauty" itself began receiving flak when it was revealed they were looking for a very specific ''type'' of real beauty - women who were between a certain weight range, with unblemished skin, around a certain height... not to mention the inherent contradiction in a ''make-up company'' telling people to appreciate their natural beauty.
* 7-Up's short-lived "Are You An Un?" ad depicted their competitors as Orwellian overlords hunting down the "Uns," people who thought for themselves by drinking... 7-Up. Viewers saw right through it, and it was soon pulled.
* Nintendo's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQAbQ1hJZw "Play It Loud"]] ad campaign made it look like buying SNES games was an excellent way of rebelling against those stuffy, repressive authority figures, as well as trying to make them look [[NeverTrustATrailer much edgier than they actually were in most cases]]. Mind, ''this'' was coming from the Nintendo that simultaneously demanded ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' and ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' be severely {{bowdlerized}}. Equally amusing was that one of the ads featured a Music/ButtholeSurfers song that was ''released on a major label'' and proceeded to bleep out the word "Hell" in said song. Of course, pretty much every "anti-authority" video game censors its music. Illegal street racing while blasting gangsta rap and ramming into cop cars? Fine, but said rap will be thoroughly clean.
* In 2004, a short-lived ad campaign for ''V -- The Ultimate Variety Show'' appeared in at least one UsefulNotes/LasVegas freebie magazine (publications left in hotel rooms, etc. for tourists), encouraging potential theatergoers to "Dare to be different" and choose it over Music/BlueManGroup, Creator/CirqueDuSoleil, and/or Music/CelineDion. It even had a cartoon illustration with a black sheep choosing the variety show while tons of white sheep chose the others. The show is a B-list, low-budget production compared to those A-list ones, so the ad was assuming the target audience did not know that.
* An infamous example of The Woman Sticking It To The Man is Virginia Slims' "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" campaign from TheSixties.
* Pepsi's 2010 "Refresh Your World Campaign", at least in the Czech Republic. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DYiTaizF8 this ad]] they reach out to some young "[[TheStoner edgy]]" types to help put some stickers on the communist landscape but [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]] get in their way. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkKA8ynToNs&NR=1 This one]] shows a pair of [[CoolOldGuy hip pensioners]] painting a bus stop to a hip hop beat. Also, the project's website is noted by its use of colloquial spoken language, which indicates some unplugged executive is behind it all.
* A short time ago Levis ran ads for their "go forth" campaign in black and white, showing young models doing things like standing alone in a field with either recordings of a Walt Whitman [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdW1CjbCNxw&feature=related poem]] or a voice over that that spends the entire commercial calling the people in the commercial (and by extension everyone who wears Levi's jeans) "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG8tqEUTlvs pioneers.]]" What makes it more confusing is that without the last three second of the commercial, there is no way of telling who made it, what they are selling or if it was just some film class project someone got on the air. Needless to say Levi Strauss & Co. is just another clothing company and are hardly the revolutionary game changers they think they are. Alternately, they're trying to create an association between their product and a really good poem.
* Pace Picante Sauce commercials: Pace is made by a big company, but to differentiate themselves from other picante sauces, they point out that their competitors' sauces are made in big factories that aren't in Texas.
-->'''''[[FelonyMisdemeanor NEW YORK CITY]]?!'''''
* The "Hold Fast" series of advertisements for Sailor Jerry purport to chronicle nonconformists and rebels...who all drink Sailor Jerry.
* [=McDonalds=] ran a series of ads in New Zealand for its new "Lamb Burger", one of which had a man complain about how New Zealand is now overrun by overseas influences, such as American TV shows and European cars, until he is told that [=McDonalds=] now offer Lamb Burger. All this, coming from an American franchise. Indeed, [=McDonalds=] in particular is a prime focal point for the ambivalence harbored toward American consumer culture by foreigners, such as in the case of the French embracing [=McDonalds=] (it's been in Paris since at least the 1980s) but insisting on [[Film/PulpFiction "Frenchifying" its menu]].
* When New York was still threatening to implement the 16 ounce soda ban (a judge has since tossed it out), every soda corporation in the city joined forces for an advertising campaign on each delivery truck reading, quote-unquote, "Don't let bureaucrats tell you what size beverage to buy." Complete with a silhouetted figure raising a fist in defiance, with a soda bottle in his clenched hand.
* Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi took one look at the "cult of Apple" and crafted its [[http://thenextweb.com/asia/2012/08/19/why-chinas-xiaomi-inspiring-loyalty-rivals-apple-fanboys-google-fandroids/#!wvvOm own cult]]. The name of the company refers to revolution, supported by a Chinese revolutionary bunny mascot, and you too can be a ''"mi fen"'' and part of the in-crowd if you buy their t-shirts, dolls and of course their actual phones, which are [[http://www.gizchina.com/2013/08/27/xiaomi-hongmi-50000-phone-sold-3-minutes-39-seconds/ anything but exclusive]] and whose MIUI operating system shamelessly borrows from Apple's iOS.
* Pretty much every political campaign will at some point claim that their candidate or party represents the common man while the opposing side is "the elite" or "the establishment".
* A pair of commercials (can't remember what for) try to depict the spokesmodels in it as rebels, shaking up people's preconceptions. The narrator even refers to said spokesmodels as "you" to make the viewer identify with them. And what are these [[RuleAbidingRebel play-by-their-own-rules trendsetters]] doing? One commercial features a woman ''putting her arm around her date's shoulder'' at the movies (scandalous in the 1950s. In 2014? Not so much). The other shows a man going to work on casual Friday ''in a three-piece suit!'' The commercial even shows people staring at the man in shock, as if he was naked, rather than smartly dressed. One would think no one in that building has important meetings on Friday they would need to dress up for.
* [[http://vimeo.com/6638586 This ad]] for the "Attack-A-Snack" Cheesestrings spin-off, doubling as a ''Film/FightClub'' homage. Eat food with your hands? You're a non-conformist, apparently.
* All those sidebar adverts infesting websites, with headings like ''Doctors/Dentists/Dermatologists/dieticians hate her!" in which it alleged that an anonymous "mom" somehow came up with a home-brewed remedy in her own kitchen, which for $5 worth of commonly available ingredients will do the job of $5,000 dollars worth of medical prescription/dental treatment/dermatological preparation/constitute a guaranteed weight-loss plan. Hence the Big Medical corporations would happily take out a Mafia hit on her for rendering them irrelevant and hitting their ill-gotten gains. It is never explained as to why Big Medicine has not taken the Mom from Massachusetts on board and is not marketing her breakthrough concept themselves, which would seem more logical than impotent teeth-grinding loathing.[[note]]Hilariously for British recipients of these ads, any attempt to rehash them for the British market is horribly inconsistent, so you get the "Mom From Manchester" who in the same spiel variously deals in "£5 worth of ingredients" replacing "$5,000 dollars worth of expensive treatment".[[/note]]
** [[http://www.tofugu.com/2012/10/17/language-professors-hate-him-pimsleur-his-method-and-talking-fast/ "Language Professors HATE Him!"]] He's a prominent ''[[BoomerangBigot language professor]]'', Paul Pimsleur, whose language-learning method is considered very mainstream and non-controversial. Also, he's been dead since 1976.
* On a can of Monster Assault energy drink, they claim that the camo pattern the can is decorated with "helps fire [them] up to fight the big multi-national companies who dominate the beverage business." Elsewhere on the can, at least those sold in Canada, can be found the words "Distributed by Coca-Cola Refreshments Canada."
* In 1970, Melanie Safka released a song called "Look what they've done to my song, ma", which opined in the destructive effects of commercialism on music. A few years later, Generals Mills modified the song and used it in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiyQC_t0MY commercial for breakfast cereal.]]
* A TV commercial for Converse sneakers depicts a bunch of young people dancing in a nightclub in slow motion. Onscreen text scrolling upwards describes how this commercial was made by a bunch of old white men in a corporate office whose knowledge of teenagers and young adults is entirely derived through focus testing. At no point in the commercial does it ever remotely suggest the viewer to buy Converse sneakers, nowhere do the shoes ever appear in the commercial, and the logo doesn't even show up until a less-than-a-second shot at the end.
* Nearly every commercial for ambulance-chasing lawyers follows the same formula: big insurance companies are penny-pinching evil incarnate who exist solely to profit from your misfortune. So, hire our big law firm to go after them and "recover" all the money you "deserve" (minus a sizable cut for ourselves, of course).
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The concept was popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter[[note]] based on theories by Creator/KarlMarx which have been unironically adopted by Wall Street as good business advice[[/note]] as "creative destruction". The basic principle is that, in an economy with a finite amount of wealth, entrepreneurs and companies are incentivized to come up with ways to devalue the wealth controlled by "the establishment" and claim it for themselves, forcing the establishment to either evolve or collapse into bankruptcy. Often, this creative destruction takes the form of new technologies and more efficient production processes (like streaming services and ride-sharing apps putting video rental stores and traditional taxicabs out of business), but it can also include seizing on social trends and moral crusades (such as attacking companies over human rights or environmental issues to position their own product as the "moral[=/=]green alternative"). In Schumpeter's view, capitalism is not just a static, monolithic bloc of monopolies but an endless churn of businesses and entrepreneurs attacking and destroying the wealth of the old guard, [[MeetTheNewBoss rising in triumph to become the]] ''[[MeetTheNewBoss new]]'' [[MeetTheNewBoss old guard]], and then [[FullCircleRevolution being destroyed by the]] ''[[FullCircleRevolution new]]'' [[FullCircleRevolution new guard when their time is up]].
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The concept was popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter[[note]] based on theories by Creator/KarlMarx which have been unironically adopted by Wall Street as good business advice[[/note]] as "creative destruction". The basic principle is that, in an economy with a finite amount of wealth, entrepreneurs and companies are incentivized to come up with ways to devalue the wealth controlled by "the establishment" and claim it for themselves, forcing the establishment to either evolve or collapse into bankruptcy. Often, this creative destruction takes the form of new technologies and more efficient production processes (like streaming services and ride-sharing apps putting video rental stores and traditional taxicabs out of business), but it can also include seizing on social trends and moral crusades (such as attacking companies over human rights or environmental issues to position their own product as the "moral[=/=]green alternative"). In Schumpeter's view, capitalism is not just a static, monolithic bloc of monopolies but an endless churn of businesses and entrepreneurs attacking and destroying the wealth of the old guard, [[MeetTheNewBoss rising in triumph to become the]] ''[[MeetTheNewBoss new]]'' [[MeetTheNewBoss the old guard]], and then [[FullCircleRevolution being destroyed by the]] ''[[FullCircleRevolution new]]'' [[FullCircleRevolution new the newer guard when their time is up]].
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* Forms part of the DownerEnding of ''Series/BlackMirror'''s "[[Recap/BlackMirrorFifteenMillionMerits Fifteen Million Merits]]" -- after an impassioned speech decrying the society he is living in with a glass shard to his throat, Bing sells out and begins delivering similar speeches on behalf of said society. The glass shard he now uses as a prop even becomes a popular item for others to own via their virtual avatars.
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* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/{{Disco Elysium}}'' through Joyce Messier, a CoolOldLady and self-aware corporate agent (she calls herself "deuille", or "devil"). During the conversation about the philosophy of ultraliberalism (basically libertarianism) she bitterly states that this trope is pretty much inevitable:
-->'''Joyce''': Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would *critique* capital end up *reinforcing* it instead.
-->'''Joyce''': Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would *critique* capital end up *reinforcing* it instead.
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[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'': Miguel starts as a corporate executive and scientist working for the EvilInc Alchemax, very close to become {{Corrupt|CorporateExecutive}}ed himself. Initially, the only reason he fights against Alchemax's {{Corporate Samurai}}'s is because he's angry at the CEO Tyler Stone for getting him addicted to [[FantasticDrug Rapture]], or self defense from those hired to capture Spider-Man. Part of his CharacterDevelopment over the course of the series is to geniunly want to erase the negative influence of Alchemax after seeing how much harm they do; he never actually opposes the concept of a MegaCorp, he just believes they must be ethical.
[[/folder]]
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'': Miguel starts as a corporate executive and scientist working for the EvilInc Alchemax, very close to become {{Corrupt|CorporateExecutive}}ed himself. Initially, the only reason he fights against Alchemax's {{Corporate Samurai}}'s is because he's angry at the CEO Tyler Stone for getting him addicted to [[FantasticDrug Rapture]], or self defense from those hired to capture Spider-Man. Part of his CharacterDevelopment over the course of the series is to geniunly want to erase the negative influence of Alchemax after seeing how much harm they do; he never actually opposes the concept of a MegaCorp, he just believes they must be ethical.
[[/folder]]
