The Persuaders (Subliminal Messaging)

In the documentary "The Persuaders" directors Douglas Rush, Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio jump into the world of advertising agencies, what they are doing, and how they are doing it.

Advertising agencies today are incredible at what they do. They can take almost anything a consumer needs and weave it into a cult like experience. People feel that they not only need the product, but that they want it as well. The price for figuring out how to "cultify" a product has been an incredible amount of advertising white noise. In big cities there is no space anymore. No walls of nothingness just noise on walls. I say it's noise because no one really pay's attention to it. We know it's there but it doesn't really affect us so we ignore it.

So because of that noise advertising agencies learned how to make the average person completely devoted to a product. I like to think of the people who get completely devoted to a product as one of those ants that breaks away from the group and just starts circling. Other ants start to follow and then you just have a giant ant circle. It's the same thing that happens when someone raises a product to a deity like status.

But how are they doing that when advertising has become just noise? Two ways actually. The first way is that advertising agencies have integrated their adds into the entertainment industry. Movies and television programs are now chalk full of adds that you can notice if you take the few seconds to look past the cool affects and plot. Prime example of this is Transformers 1&2. EVERYTHING in that movie is an add. Car adds, travel adds, beverage adds, phone adds, digital media adds, adds adds adds. Movie was still great but lots of adds.

The second way they've done it which I feel is subtler then filling up entertainment with adds is key words. Scientists have figured out that each word we learn has an imprint of how we felt when we learned the word. At least I think thats what they were saying, let's assume it is. So they polled people with these words and got a baseline for the average persons emotion surrounding that word. Then taking all the words that say; made someone feel safe, they through them into a car add. Reliable, tough, long-lasting etc. etc. etc.

So that's what add agencies are doing today. Brain bending the minds of the people to get themselves some money. They are doing it quite well to. Subliminal messaging for the win.