The Persuaders

The video focuses on advertising/marketing and the progression of the business over time. I agree that a lot of messages targeting consumers have lost their meaning. Marketers are focusing on new messages, ones that create a meaning system in the mind of consumers. Marketing is now about experiences/creating an emotional connection with a consumer. As the video delved more into the demographic services/narrowcasting and the amount of information that is available about consumers/citizens, I was intrigued but at the same time frightened. It is important to examine how political parties are using marketing and data mining to target and profile constituents and what kinds of impacts this may have on our democracy. This Frontline brought up a lot of ethical issues marketing students/consumers should think about. For example in the segment about goods and services being marketed as having the ability to fulfill consumers emotional/spiritual ads. When the product doesn’t fulfill those needs, the consumer will look for something else, which is good for business. I also thought it was very interesting how P&G actually studied cults and associate it with branding. I think their research concluded the reason why people join cults and brands was to make meaning, create a sense of belonging, and connectivity. The segment on product placement or “seemless integration of merchandise and narrative” was awesome. I think some product placement comes across really well, Castaway and Sex and the City are good examples they showed. I am really interested in advertising as entertainment and webisodes as new media for marketing and entertainment. The interview with Clotaire Rapaille was interesting as well as the reptilian hot button theory. Although I don’t agree with his politics...Frank Luntz has some good insights into language and how it can be used to manipulate people. He is incredibly successful at it. Examples of marketing strategies included Saturn Homecoming (family/community), Adidas (guerilla), Tide (family), Nike(spiritual/transcendence). At some point the phrase “when a culture becomes advertising friendly, it ceases to be a culture” and this is a topic I have previously discussed with people; Are we a society of perfect consumers? The film ends with something like…the Persuaders have found a way to go to our core and make us feel that we are not being persuaded but that we are being empowered… “when the market becomes the lens in which we see our world then we become the persuaders”. This video raises some philosophical questions to ponder.

It also made me wonder how do I really feel about white bread?
Just kidding. I think it's gross.