Do campain producers give us what we want?

1. Where are we headed? What's the future? What are your thoughts on how far the techniques of persuasion might go?

1) After watching “The Persuaders” the answers to the questions “where are we headed?” and “what’s the future?” can be hard to answer. It is amazing how much advertising has grown over the years and now more than ever advertising has to get more creative to keep peoples’ attention. I think that the advertising world is heading for bigger and brighter things; the future of ads is going to be determined by new technologies and advertisements we make over time. I do think the harder it becomes to sell something and persuade people to buy it, the harder and more money advertisers are going to put in to do anything to sell their product or idea. The constant search to find what people want to buy will never stop and I think more and more personal space and privacy will be
violated just so advertisers can figure out what they think we want.

2. Is there something distinctive in the American character that makes us susceptible to this world of advertising and messages? "The Persuaders" program explores the idea that Americans are seeking and finding a sort of identity in buying/joining a brand. What is this about?

2) I think the fact that we are Americans definitely has an effect on how we are susceptible to the “world of advertising and messages.” If there is one thing Americans are good at it’s wanting and buying things we do not need. For some reason the need to have all of this “stuff” has taken over and this is why the advertisers probably love selling to Americans. It can be tied into the last special we watched in class, everyone wants to be “cool” and because of this, many will buy their way into what they think is “cool”. The American culture will definitely always help advertisers because we are also not afraid to give feedback on how we feel about an ad or products. When “The Persuaders” talked about how Americans are looking for an identity in buying or joining a brand, I think this is talking about how people will buy a product because it is the kind of person they are and want others to see them as. For example people will buy a certain brand of clothing because they see it as the clothes “showing” their personality and want to show that off. When advertisers are trying to gear towards a certain type of “idea” or “style”, they want to make sure it will be to a large group that will want to buy their products. Many advertisers also try to sell to as many people as possible, showing many sides of a product. Take iPods for example, those commercials and ads all go towards many different types of music but will still use the same idea to keep the advertisement looking the same and therefore more recognizable.

3. What are the common elements in the persuasion/selling strategies of advertising and marketing? And how can we move about in this world with a degree of self-awareness as to what's happening, especially since all these messages are increasingly trying to move us to act and make choices on an emotional level?

3) Common elements in selling strategies come down to knowing what the person buying wants to see, wants to hear, and wants to show off when having that product. Like we saw in “The Persuaders”, advertisers are all about finding what people want to see and hear about in a product. We can see this in the fact that advertisers pay people to find out what words to use in an ad, what will make it more catchy to the people. Also we saw Clotaire Rapaille talk about how companies want to learn from his idea of figuring out what people want to buy. As he talked about how people don’t really know what they want, it is something deep down inside of them and the key is to find the “code” to what they want to buy. I do think that people need to become more self-aware about what they buy and how ads influence how they feel about buying a product. I know that advertising pulls me in a lot of times but one question I always ask myself before buying something is “do I really NEED this?” The answer to this question many times is no I don’t need the product and then I will not buy it. I think more people need to start THINKING about what they are buying and not just buy it because they like it or it is on sale. Advertisers are trying to touch us on an emotional level because they know that will affect us, and our thinking. The only thing any of us can really do is step back and ask ourselves, am I in control of buying these products or do they control me? I think everyone needs to start asking themselves if they really do need to buy something before they do or better yet people need to ask themselves did I really want to buy this. I hear that answer a lot when it comes to people buying - they say they bought it because they wanted to, but really did they want to or did they just have an emotional connection to the product and therefore, they feel they need to buy it. There are some questions we will never know the answer to when it comes to advertising and buying products. All we can do is try not to give into advertising and think about what we are buying before we really do it.