This guy’s “ceiling” had me rolling on the floor.
April 8th, 2008
It always cracks me up when someone ascribes miraculous powers of mind domination to advertising.
In his community column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, viagra cialis Roger Frank Bass wrote “marketing’s job is to control what we attend to and want.”
Ahhhhhhh, sale no.
Marketing’s job is to influence what people attend to.
“Controlling” what people attend to through marketing and advertising isn’t possible. If it were, cialis we would all be living in the United States of Coca Cola.
But, for one moment, let’s assume he’s right.
Let’s assume there are marketing mind control techniques that short circuit free will.
Instead of berating that “fact,” perhaps he should advocate applying those magical techniques to teaching kids the “solid academic and ethical foundation” that he thinks our marketing-dominated culture is denying them?
If he did, my guess is he would discover the same thing that John Wanamaker did in 1886, when he said:
“I know that 50% of my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.”
Not such an impressive percentage for the evil science of mind control, huh?
Entry Filed under: Media
1 Comment Add your own
1. David Casper | April 8th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Well, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that its job is to control what we attend to and want, I would just argue that generally it does a pretty miserable job.
Although I can’t recall the exact quote, I do recall an advertiser once saying, following accusations that they were using subliminal messages, that they had a hard enough time being liminal, much less subliminal.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.