The Persuaders, and recollections.

Having spent two years taking Communication Design classes, I'm not that surprised by the film. Just about every class I took had an emphasis on how to sell product. "Art of art's sake" was left for the Fine Art majors, I suppose. In fact, I clearly remember one of my professors giving us his definition of advertising. It was this, "Advertising is selling a product to a consumer that he/she does not need and, furthermore, did not want until you told him/her to want it!" This may sound callous, considering some of the responses from class, but my fellow Com Design majors were not shocked. We looked around at each other and nodded. We smiled. We knew it was true. You don't have to sell something someone needs. That takes care of itself. Advertising is about making the consumer believe they need your product.

One thing about the film that did capture my attention was Luntz. For as much as he has changed the way concepts are "coined" I was surprised that he wasn't 1) older and 2) more intimidating in appearance. I certainly didn't picture him as the sort of man that jumped up and down, like he was at some Euro-rock concert, when he got the numbers he wanted for data research!