response blog to "the persuaders"

Rushkoff is a technology and media commentator for CNN.

In an innovative 90-minute documentary entitled "The Persuaders", commentator Douglas Rushkoff explored the abstract concepts surrounding the path advertisers track to the hearts, minds, and, ultimately, wallets of consumers. His preliminary conclusion was that reaching a target audience involves more than merely marketing what a product does, but also what the product means. Beyond simply fulfilling a physical need, such as satisfying your chocolate craving or washing your hair, the products must be seen as fulfilling several intangible needs. These needs include:

• Community
  As consumers, we want to belong to a community. We want to know that  not only are there other people out there, but that there are other people out there like us.
• Narrative
  We want to understand how things fit into our story of life, an ongoing narrative that creates who we are and what we pursue.
• Transcendence
  We want to experience life beyond a superficial level. The products we use must reflect a transcendental attitude.

Since we're all human with the same basic attitudes about life, you would think that tapping into these core needs would be easy. However, as marketing specialist Claire Rapaille discovered, the analysis of these needs lies beyond the superficial language we use. It's locked away in what Rapaille terms a mental "highway" or "code." That code must be broken in order for advertisers to successfully market their products and services.

As I watched "The Persuaders," the above information made sense. I could attest to the three basic needs of community, narrative and transcendence in my own life. I understood the reality of the mental code Rapaille discovered. 

However, what intrigued me the most was the emotional connection that many of these professional persuaders sought to make with their target audience. No longer is the strategy to sell me on the comparative benefits of a certain paper towel brand. Instead, the goal is to engage my emotions, beyond a logical level, on a heart level. I must believe that the paper towels will satisfy a deep innate need in my life.

What is advertising, then, but a manipulation of humanity? The persuaders aren't selling products; they're selling ideas.

Lifestyles.

Worldviews.

They're shaping the way we perceive the world on a daily basis. Why? Because they know these deeper connections will rivet themselves to the core of our being to the point where we just can't say no. After all, who ever finds it easy to say no to themselves?

While watching the documentary, I felt a chill run up my spine. A very personal part of me seemed to have been laid bare. It was as if these "persuaders," manipulating my emotions to sell transient products and services, were making me something less...human. I felt like they were stepping beyond ethical boundaries and tinkering with my psyche's circuitry, a sphere only relegated to the divine.

"Hey!" I wanted to bark. "That's mine! Don't touch!" But I couldn't, because I knew they were, in a strange way, right.

They know how to make their industry tick.

The basic solution is simple: instead of giving us what we want, advertisers use the concept of Rapaille's mental code to tell us what we want. Then they hand us a well-researched conglomeration of what they want us to have, and we're naive enough to think we were the ones originally clamoring for it.

Such a strategy is intriguing. It's also terrifying, like letting an identity thief look over my shoulder while I'm balancing my bank statement. But as long as the consumer cry is "Give us what we want!", then advertisers who want to survive in the day-to-day chaos will have to figure out a way to satisfy that cry.

But they will. They almost always do.

They are, after all, the persuaders.