Advertising : Matchmaker of Ancient and Modern

In advertising we find the marriage of the most advanced and most ancient technologies: desire for status or sex is married to the latest products to emerge from corporate labs and factories. We buy the newest stuff for the oldest of reasons.

The ad, properly done, creates a false association. Gorgeous, svelte women are somehow associated with beer. The rational mind knows that imbibing 200 calories per glass is probably not going to make one more desirable to a woman who so obviously values fitness. But something has already happened in the process of watching TV. Fictional shows put the snap into the trap of ads.

Science fiction and fantasy in particular - but really any fiction - depends on a suspension of disbelief. Once we've sat before the TV we've already laid aside our capacity for critical thinking. We are ready to believe. So, when the ad comes on, although no one explicitly says that beer will make gorgeous women want you, the implication is enough. We buy the pitch and then buy the product. (And of course, those of us who are superior know that it is not beer that works like this. We know it is actually the whitening toothpaste or luxury car that will make her want us.)

The Internet, as much as biotechnology, represents a current apotheosis of technology. So many amazing advances come together to enable us to watch a dog on a skateboard. And it is a running joke with real substance that the Internet is funded by porn. My work email address spam does not work when I log on remotely and it amazes me how many writers of emails are offering to make my penis longer (an offer that seems odd coming from a total stranger). Advanced technology is funded by stimulating ancient impulses.

Modern technology is really just a sophisticated repression of base impulses. People who cut advertising costs during a recession naively believe that the ads get financed by the companies who produce new technology and products. In actuality, the companies able to sell this new technology are financed by the magic of ads: ads that give repressed desires a acceptable outlet.

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Of course, one of the problem with reading blogs is one never knows whether the author is merely speculating out loud or really means what he or she has written. Of course, until the comments come in, even the blogger is uncertain.

Nazi Propaganda, Modern Advertising, and the Psychology of Manipulating the Masses

One reason that the liberal economies rose to prominence while Germany self destructed under the Nazis is that they used the powers of mass psychology to stimulate visions of consumption rather than world domination.

We really did learn a great deal about psychology early in the 20th century. Sadly, what we’ve learned has largely been mis-used. The Nazis may have been the first to use the power of psychology. Specifically, they applied these principles to propaganda and the manipulation of mass media as a tool to create the consensus trance, to define national opinion. Used as a tool for stimulating delusions of world domination, the Nazis caused Germany to self destruct, killing about 60+ million people before they were done.

The Allies – the UK and even more so, the US – used this newfound power of mass psychology for something better. Rather than focus the masses on world domination, they focused the masses on consumption. Advertising, branding, and admonitions to “go shopping” keep us all focused on the importance of making and spending more money. This way, the masses are still manipulated but rather benignly. I’m almost positive that’s better.

Updike on Modern America

John Updike is one of our most amazing writers. His new paperback, Terrorist, includes this brilliant little riff from one of the characters.

Bush complains about Putin turning into Stalin, but we’re worse than the poor old clunky Kremlin ever was. The Commies just wanted to brainwash you. The new powers that be, the international corporations, want to wash your brains away, period. They want to turn you into machines for consuming – the chicken-coop society. All this entertainment – Madam, it’s crap, the same crap that kept the masses zombified in the Depression, only then you stood in line and paid a quarter for the movie, where today they hand it to you free, with the advertisers paying a million a minute for the chance to mess with your heads.

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[the TV programming – sports and comedies and talk shows] It’s slop. And Leno and Letterman, more slop. But the commercials, they are fantastic. They’re like Faberge eggs. When somebody in this country wants to sell you something, they really buckle down. They get intense. You watch the same commercial twenty times, you see how every second has been weighed out in gold. They’re full of what physicists call information.

The Future of Advertising

It gets harder and harder to capture your attention. The competition is fierce, funny, and shocking.

In the future, folks strolling through public areas will be hit with pop-up holograms advertising products. They'll be suddenly, and unexpectedly, confronting a catchy spiel from a supermodel or popular athlete who is close enough to touch. Given that collision avoidance technology will be so robust by this point, these pop ups will even bombard us as we drive, placing celebrities in a lotus position on our hoods as they tell us about the miracle of whiter teeth, thicker hair, or smaller feet.

Obviously, these shocking interruptions will be unsettling. The advertisers will know this and the most popular products advertised in this fashion will be powerful stress-reduction drugs.