- What in "The Persuaders" surprised you (or not)? Name one new thing you learned about marketing or politics from watching the film. Name one new thing you learned about yourself from watching the film, or one thing that the film reiterated about yourself.
One thing I learned about advertising in the documentary is that product placement is not simply a company going to a network and asking to be in the show. Rather, it is the other way around, with the networks pitching shows to companies. I'm not sure if I learned anything about myself from this, as I knew most of the things they talked about. Advertising is really no different than any other industry. It's full of sociopaths who only care about the bottom line and themselves, which leads to terrible "outside of the box" things like the Song campaign that tried way too hard, and that nut who used his wacko psychology to explain that people like certain things. Despite the fact I find his results to be repugnant, I have a modicum of respect for Frank Luntz. The way he played with language was startling. The first key that anyone in advertising or marketing needs to realize is that the masses are not nearly as smart as they think they are, and easily manipulated, something Luntz realized immediately.
- "The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?
I think comparing it to ads from 20-30 years ago is too short a distance. There was product placement and t-shirts and billboards and all that jazz 20-30 years ago. It wasn't that much different. Looking back about 40-50 years ago is where it gets interesting, because the problem in advertising wasn't the amount, but rather the presentation. Take this incredibly offensive Jell-O commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCKxWQCs3f0. It's full of racism and stereotyping. While people wore nice, logoless clothing, and there was less advertising overall, advertising was more malcious. Cartoons like The Flintstones pushed cigarettes. Advertisements as a whole were incredibly racist and misogynistic, treating women like objects whose only purpose in life was to serve man. It's quality vs. quantity, and I think that was much more damaging to society than the gigantic amount of advertising we are served up everyday.