Persuaders

I've always kind of had a weird little binary of admiration/disgust going on when it comes to my opinion of ad executives. I mean, concerning that 'car shrink', the Frenchman, who obviously understands base human motives and fears and emotions and in turn CHOOSES to use that knowledge to sell stuff, to dupe humankind rather than aid it...it makes my skin crawl. Synonymously, though I am amazed at the ingenuity of these ad men, the way they can seemingly crawl inside the average American human's brain.
The little surveys that the execs for these agencies/companies conducted reminded me of an art project produced in tandem by Stanley Downwood and Radiohead (probably just Thom) caleld No Data, which I'll link to:http://www.radiohead.com/Archive/Site4/NODATA/data_enter2.html

It basically asks a series of questions, each one more personal than the last, about the survey-taker's opinion on consumerism, life, death, looks, finance, etc...and the scary thing is that when I first laid eyes on this in about 2000, I thought it was "far off" from how these companies actually conducted their "focus groups". I generally mute commericals, but there are a few that I've seen where I've actually caught myself going "ooo, cool use of such-and-such technique" or "ooh, I want that!" and I inevitably despise myself afterwards for being fooled by an ad.

I particularly liked the way the film referred to the "clutter"--ads placed all over cities, obscuring buildings and objects and in some cases, the thoughts of the spectator. Think about it: it's like a sensory overload! I attended a concert this past weekend and all around me were ads for beer, soda, cds, ipods, record companies, energy drinks, and the people AT the concert were walking around in oh-so-ironic t-shirts doing some unconscious subliminal advertising for products they probably don't really give a damn about (brands of soda, etc) but they are unwittingly supporting the machine through their apparent disdaim of it. I'm not saying I am any better than these people (in many cases, I'm worse) but the more aware of the psychology and weird Orwellian techniques behind advertising, the more uncomfortable around ads and mass consumption I become. Of course, I'm typing this while drinking a Coke and eating a bag of Sun Chips, both the names of which I've captialized, so I can't be that immune, can I ;)