The Persuaders Response

We live in an age dominated by money. The Bible tells us that, “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). What is meant by this? One could argue that it is the cause of all kinds of evil, because in a sense, it fuels evil. The notorious villain of DC Comics, the Joker once said, that “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” This quote summarizes the thought process of the world. We live in an age dominate by a vicious cycle of sin and money where it pays to sin. And, in a world dominated by the confines of money, innovation is a necessity. But innovation is pointless if no one is aware of its existence. This is where advertising comes in.

According to the dictionary, advertising is “The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services.” In other words, advertising is the art and challenge of attempting to effectively inform and persuade as many people as possible to spend their money on your idea. All things considered, this is a difficult task! Keeping in mind how the world idolizes money, advertising agencies are essentially trying to convince people to give their hard-earned money to them, on the premise of trust. Thus, one can understand how most people try to ignore the thousands of advertisements they are continually surrounded by. It is for this reason that advertisers must continually find different mediums through which they can do their advertising. However, this simply causes “clutter.” The average American is bombarded with over 1,600 ads every day^[1]! I was absolutely shocked by this.

One of the ways that advertisers have found to get around this problem of clutter had been the creation of a true identity. If they can tap into the emotion and the subconscious  of the consumer, then they can tailor their messages to these emotions. For this, advertisers go to experts like Clotaire Rapaille. This was shocking to me. Rapaille is a millionaire who gets paid ridiculous sums of money to find what he calls the “code.” In the end however, there is no real way to prove whether or not his methods work!

Since seeing this documentary, I have noticed that Nike identifies with athletics and winning. This is seen in the new Tiger Woods ad: “Winning takes care of everything.”

Other advertisers do not go as deep as the emotion—they simply find out the likes and dislikes of their target consumers. For this, advertisers go to companies such as Axiom—which has information on almost every legal American adult. This was shocking and scaring to me as well.

Since seeing this documentary, I have also noticed that many of the ads I see on Facebook are tailored to my likes.

“The Persuaders” has definitely changed my perspective on advertising. Now that I know the amount of money and work that goes into it, I will surely pay more attention, but I will be careful not to be swayed!

(Word Count: 505)

1. Stovall, James Glen. Writing for the Mass Media. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985. Print.