Advertising & influence

I recently learned about the origins of PR, celebrity endorsements, product placement and other such tools of mass consumer influence. Ironically, I learned more about these through my interest in psychology and sociology than I ever did in business school.

Then it occurred to me, that the great successes of such influence were inspired by Freud, not mad-men on Madison Avenue. And the failures of today’s idiotic interpretation of advertising are not the fault of agencies and brand consultants, it’s the fault is Clients who accept arrogant mediocrity of mad-men wannabies. Agencies nowadays complain that great creative is lost on the marketing ranks almost as much as women complain about the lack of good men. But neither the agencies nor the fair ladies are confessing their own sins!

Every campaign produced by an agency works on the assumption that their own, superficial, understanding of consumers, group behaviour and qualitative research is accurate. Then they wonder why campaigns fail even though the research is solid, the strategy is sound and the creative is mind blowing. Well, let me enlighten you... get a pen and write this down... campaigns fail for many reasons, one of which happens to be, your interpretation of the info at hand is as shallow as a piss puddle.

Have a look at the best advertising minds of the last half century, and as you do, you’ll start to realise they are good because they have learned about the likes of Eddie Bernays and other masters of consumer behaviour. And just so we are clear.. I don’t mean you should hire the average psychotherapist (or Psycho-the-rapist as the great Richard Bandler likes to call them). What I mean is that you need to find some people who know about the unconscious and the science of reading between the lines to do the interpreting for you, before you go into a creative brain storm.

The effectiveness of true mass influence comes from good knowledge of some very exciting sciences that really should never have been taken out of the agency in the first place.

Now, reading this, there are two groups of you. One group, currently foaming at the mouth from anger – you are the ones I refer to earlier as “arrogant mediocrity”, your days are numbered, I recommend you start packing. And the other group, currently having mini orgasms & getting wet from the thought that there’s a way to improve on your already flourishing careers, because that’s how enlightened ones think. You are the true leaders of mass consumer influence in the new age.

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