Is most advertising condescending?

First most advertising is not effective, and the condescending part of it is like a giant iceberg of old media attitude that is gradually shifting, especially with the impact of social media on the whole advertising world.

Old school advertising tends to be condescending because that's the way it was done and it's hard to get the old dog to learn new tricks for one, but more importantly because of the poisonous attitude among advertisers that their audience is stupid and needs to be manipulated, a pervasive attitude that is hard to get rid of, and is not just limited to the old school advertisers.

I do think it can be more effective by being less condescending, because in the old media and the old days when brands ruled, people followed them almost blindly. Those days are gone, but the old habits are not.

While this is keeping it pretty simple, I think you see companies like Apple using wit as Craig Weiland so rightly says, to make it memorable.  and they have always had a more positive/less condescending attitude towards their audience, that these people are smart (Think Different), and even in their anti-Windows ads from a few years ago, they smartly used the condescending character of the windows user as opposed to the smart, younger, hip user who doesn't need the old advertising attitude, almost recognizing the audience as smart and in control.

In an advertising world increasing mobile and driven by social recommendations and friendships, I see that old approach less successful, it just takes a company willing to take the risk, because in advertising, it's easy to sell, the audience is stupid argument...or at least it used to be.

It probably depends on whether it is hitting its intended target. If ads written to speak to a certain age group are viewed by someone outside that group, then there will be a 'misfire' and that will result in either the viewer feeling put off by the ad or just ignoring it completely.

I did my thesis on the efficacy of targeting specific generations with advertising, and found that if an ad designed to be viewed by Boomers is viewed by Gen Xers or Ys, the Xers and Ys would respond very negatively to it. One person I interviewed, a professional art director for a major Chicago ad agency, claimed there was a campaign on billboards around Chicago that were clearly aimed for a demo older than her, but she was infuriated by its tone and message, such that she developed an animosity towards the brand in general. The ads in question had nothing to do with her as a consumer, as she was outside the target demo. But of course she saw them, and had a highly negative reaction. Meanwhile people who were in the intended demographic were shown the same ad series and responded positively to it.

There's been a faddish tendency over the last decade for advertisers to attempt to engage viewers with a personal question (Capital One: "What's in YOUR wallet?"). Perhaps this is effective, but to me it's just blatant marketeering which I find annoying, for the reasons Cate mentions. ("Why do you care? Are you even listening to me?") It's a cheap trick. The most effective advertising, to me, is not second-person at all, and delivers a succinct and tightly composed message with as little nonsense as possible. If it's delivered with wit, it's easier to swallow and remember.

We're hearing a lot about this around social marketing. The Gap, for example, is doing a decent job (generally) but should stop asking things like "What's your favorite color?" It's not that fans and followers don't want to answer the question, they just don't believe that The Gap really cares or is really listening. Who cares? What are you going to do with my opinion?  Those things need to be communicated or, yeah, it's condescending and the consumers is too smart for that.