As I was thinking about the "Merchants of Cool" and advertising in general (as everyone else in our class is hopefully doing...), I wondered when advertisements went from innocuous to dangerous. Reading Jasmine's post, it's true that not all advertising is BAD. If you like a certain product, then you will continue to be loyal to that brand for the brand's content alone. This also goes for the opposite: if you despise a certain product (for me, fast food) then you will refrain from purchasing that product no matter how effective the advertisements are at convincing others to buy it (like the Wendy's ad...haha).
But to ask again, where is the line? I believe that an advertisement truly becomes dangerous when the audience is not aware that they are being marketed to. This is especially true of subliminal messages, which are supposed to affect the subconscious mind. Now, of course actions have been taken in the US and around the world to curb the usage of subliminal messaging, but in its heyday it was certainly true that one was not completely in control of one's thoughts. Since advertisers cannot use subliminal messaging, they often use more sneaky techniques which aren't quite subliminal but certain show up on the radar. For example, the infamous Sprite is blatantly advertising a "sublymonal" (yes it's spelled wrong for a reason) messaging technique in its nonsensical commercials. If you've seen these bizarre commercials then you know that the stereotypical types of these messages- such as rapid flashes of images- are used; but they are slow enough so that we can consciously perceive them. What is Sprite trying to say? Is it trying to convince customers that they're so smart they can detect subliminal messages? We cannot answer this question- only the cunning marketing executives can. But I still don't drink Sprite.
By the way, I found some interesting links related to subliminal messaging:
http://www.umich.edu/~onebook/pages/tablepages/uses.html#sh
http://www.poleshift.org/sublim/ntro/How_To_See.html (this one is kind of funny but creepy...)
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Hey, it's Erin.
I think part of the effectiveness of commercials is their ability to stick in your mind, until you can regurgitate on command something like the Meow-Mix song or "trust the Midas touch", etc. They have this one new car commercial (not sure for what car) where the song is "the wheels on the car go round and round". I'm not kidding; I was singing that the whole day. Annoying, yes. Effective, absolutely.
But I think the effectiveness of repetition can be used in so many venues, for so many different purposes and in so many ways, not just advertising. If you hear something over and over again your whole life, you will take it as fact without even thinking twice about it. It was a revelation to me when I was asked why an easter bunny carries eggs. Because bunnies don't lay eggs. And I had gone my whole life up to that moment without even wondering why, because it had been before my eyes, reinforced over and over. You can get people to believe that black is white if you tell them constantly. Because they won't question, especially when they feel that the "fact" comes from a creditable person/source. And that's where I think the danger comes in.
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