The Hidden Persuaders

I have limited time today so let me just cut right to the chase. You know those beer commericals where they feature these really obnoxious guys? Frat boy types? Not very smart? With all the eloquence and finesse of bull seals waddling on a beach? Not very attractive? In fact, below average in looks, with pudgy, doughy, unsightly bodies? And possessed of troglodyte moral standards.

In short, don't you just want to punch their faces back into their brains?

And aren't they always surrounded by hot chicks, or at least with cool toys or a superb abode that they are obviously too fucking dumb to have the means to afford?

And these commercials have been in place for decades. And don't you think the advertising guys know this?

Well, of course they do. They are bypassing your logic circuits and tapping right into your reptilian brain. "Look at these assholes" the advertisers say, "They are obviously losers. Life has played a cruel joke upon them. Much worse off than you. And yet these fucking clowns are turning away super hot chicks that want to fuck them. And the difference between them and you is that they are using our product".

Years ago, I read a book called "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. Packard recounts how advertisers teamed up wth behavioral psychologists, and tapped into the vast wealth of the subconscious. Packard wrote the book as a cautionary tale in 1957. The advertisers have become far more sophisticated, as now we have neurologists and brain scanning to tap into.

And the advertisers have moved beyond the manufacturing world to package some of the easiest product that ever was concieved - politicians. I'll have more to say about this as time allows.