Mass Media Mind Control - Page 16 - Tilted Forum Project - TFP - Sexuality, Philosophy and Political Discussion

Cynthetiq · 06-25-2008, 10:41 AM

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View: Frosted Mini-Wheats ad gets frosty review
Source: LA Times
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Frosted Mini-Wheats ad gets frosty review
Frosted Mini-Wheats ad gets frosty review
6:14 PM, June 24, 2008

An ad for Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats didn't wow the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which is part of the advertising industry's self-regulation program.

In the ad, a teacher says, "Where were we?" and a smarty-pants kid replies "We were on the third paragraph of page 57 and you were explaining that the stone structures made by ancient Romans were called aqueducts and as you were writing that up on the board, your chalk broke ... into three pieces." After a little cartoon Mini-Wheat expresses his pride, a voice-over describes a clinical study in which "kids who had a filling breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal improved their attentiveness by nearly 20%." The ad division's problem with the ad: That voice didn't explain that the kids the Mini-Wheat group were compared with were kids who got no breakfast at all. (This was, however, explained in text that appeared with the ad at the same time.) In other words, there's no evidence that Mini-Wheats would be any better than Lucky Charms or a chunk of dry bread or a big bag of potato chips or a Big Mac, and that wasn't expressed straightly enough for the ad division's liking.

The National Advertising Division, according to its news release, also noted that "the commercial does not make clear how much time elapsed between the start of the lesson referenced by the teacher and the student's detailed recollection of the lesson." The longer the lag, the ad division says, "the stronger the performance claims and the uniqueness benefit attributed to the product." It recommends the ad be adjusted to make clear that the event the kid remembered had just happened (!).

The Kellogg Co. "accepts NAD's decision and will take it into future advertising relating to this issue," according to the same ad division release.

For the nutritional content of various cereals as compiled by the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, go here. (But note: the numbers are from 2006 .)

an interesting thing how simple the exclusion/ommission is but yet how powerful the message

Cynthetiq · 07-07-2008, 07:35 PM

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View: It’s American Brandstand: Marketers Underwrite Performers
Source: NYTimes
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It’s American Brandstand: Marketers Underwrite Performers
July 7, 2008
It’s American Brandstand: Marketers Underwrite Performers
By ROBERT LEVINE
The hip-hop and R&B producer Jermaine Dupri has discovered best-selling acts like Kris Kross and Da Brat, has produced hits for Mariah Carey and Jay-Z, and now runs the urban music division of the Island Def Jam Music Group. He’s also looking for fresh talent for a new label financed by a company new to the music industry.

The new player? Procter & Gamble.

The consumer goods giant is part of a wave of companies getting into the music business to promote their own products, essentially becoming record labels themselves.

Procter & Gamble, for example, is joining Island Def Jam in a joint venture called Tag Records, a label that will sign and release albums by new hip-hop acts. It is named after a brand of body spray that P.& G. acquired when it bought Gillette.

And Mr. Dupri, a music-industry veteran and the longtime partner of the singer Janet Jackson, sounds quite pleased with his new gig.

“I’ve never seen someone wanting to devote this much money to breaking new artists,” said Mr. Dupri, who will serve as president of Tag Records while keeping his position at Island Def Jam. “Nobody in the music business has the marketing budget that I have.”

At a time when online file-sharing is rampant, record stores are closing and consumers are buying singles instead of albums, getting into the music business might seem like running into a burning building. But as record labels struggle to adjust to a harsh new digital reality, other companies are stepping up their involvement in music, going far beyond standard endorsement contracts and the use of songs in commercials.

These companies — like Procter & Gamble, Red Bull and Nike — are stepping outside of their core businesses to promote, finance and even distribute music themselves.

A few months ago, Bacardi announced that it would help the English electronic music duo Groove Armada pay for and promote its next release. Caress, the body-care line owned by Unilever, commissioned the Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger to record a version of Duran Duran’s “Rio” that it gave away on its Web site to promote its “Brazilian body wash” product. The energy drink company Red Bull is starting a label that is expected to release music before the end of the year.

And at least some of this music is credible: a hip-hop song that Nike released by Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One was nominated for a Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group.

Unlike Starbucks, which got into the music business to sell CDs at its stores, these companies want to use music to promote products they already sell.

“It’s not about money,” said Sarah Tinsley, a global marketing manager at Bacardi. “It’s a branding exercise.”

Unlike the exclusive album deals that Wal-Mart is striking with groups like the Eagles, these companies are attracting artists at the height of their relevance. Two weeks ago, Converse released a single by a combination of artists that The Times of London called “a three-headed Frankenstein’s monster of coolness”: the Strokes singer Julian Casablancas, the producer Pharrell Williams and the R&B performer Santogold. Offered as a free download on Converse’s Web site, the song received mostly favorable reviews from both blogs and newspapers.

“Our instructions to them were to have fun, as though they were doing any song,” said Jon Cohen, co-founder of Cornerstone, a music marketing company that has set up music deals for Converse, Nike, Caress and Smirnoff. “It doesn’t matter where the music comes from as long as it’s great.”

A decade ago, signing a record contract with a body spray company would have been unthinkable for most artists. But at a time when labels’ promotion budgets are declining, consumer brands can offer valuable exposure in print and television ads. Jeff Straughn, Island Def Jam’s vice president for strategic marketing, said that Tag might spend seven times as much promoting a release as a traditional label.

“When I started in this business 10 years ago, it was hard to get an artist to stand in front of a sign with a logo on it,” said David Caruso, the co-founder of Acme, the agency that negotiated the deal between Island Def Jam and Tag. “Now brands are engaging their audiences with content.”

But the brands walk a fine line by making sure that consumers are aware that they financed a song without having it simply seem like a commercial.

“We wanted it to be like they were making their own record,” said Rob Stone, a Cornerstone co-founder, referring to the song that Kanye West, Nas and KRS-One made for Nike with a celebrated producer, Rick Rubin. “None of them had to mention the Air Force 1,” a Nike shoe.

Instead, Cornerstone asked the artists to write a track about the theme of timelessness and promoted it like any other song, making a video, promoting it to radio and selling it on iTunes. (Nike’s profits went to the Force4Change Fund, a charity for youth leadership programs.) As it turned out, the song, “Better Than I’ve Ever Been,” does mention the sneakers as well as “Nike’s straight classic.”

For artists, deals with brands can be more lucrative than traditional record contracts. Performers usually get an advance or fee in addition to a royalty rate higher than that given by record labels, which is usually $1 to $2 per sale. If the artist is signed to a label, he usually has to share the money he makes. In most cases, control of the recording copyright reverts to the artist or label after a set period of time.

In another deal Cornerstone negotiated, the electronic music duo Crystal Method remixed some of its songs to create a workout soundtrack that Nike could sell on its page in Apple’s iTunes store. The sneaker company gave Crystal Method a small advance but a generous royalty, according to Richard Bishop, the duo’s manager.

The mix sold nearly 40,000 copies online, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and more than 15,000 copies in traditional stores once Nike’s period of exclusivity ended. Crystal Method’s last traditional album sold 184,000 copies, but Mr. Bishop said the duo made more money on the Nike project because the royalty rate was so much better.

“I think in the world today, it doesn’t make a difference to the consumer if a record comes out on Warner Music, EMI, Red Bull or Diesel Jeans,” Mr. Bishop said. “Artists may be better advised to put their music out with a brand to get better reach and bigger advertising.”

Groove Armada should also do well in its deal with Bacardi, according to the band’s manager, Dan O’Neill. The yearlong contract calls for the duo to play 25 Bacardi events and give the liquor company online distribution rights to its new E.P. — a release with less music than a CD — which is due in October.

In exchange, Groove Armada receives a monthly fee, money for recording costs and a generous royalty on music Bacardi sells or gives away. It retains the copyright to its recording, as well as the right to sell its E.P. in traditional outlets, where it will presumably benefit from the money Bacardi spends on marketing.

Music executives say many of the acts now striking deals with brands are popular enough to do so because they have already benefited from major-label marketing campaigns: Crystal Method was signed to Interscope, Groove Armada to Sony.

Although consumer brands are taking on roles once reserved for labels, they are investing so much money in music because the same digital technology that whipsawed the music business is also making it harder to reach consumers.

“We don’t just want to talk to people,” said Anne Jensen, a brand-building director at Unilever who works with Caress. “We want to give them something that adds value to their lives.” She said that Ms. Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls was perfect for the campaign because she embodied the spirit of Brazil. (Though, truth be told, she is Hawaiian, Russian and Filipino.)

Ms. Scherzinger will get money from her deal with Caress as well as exposure in the brand’s television campaign — the kind of advertising that a major label would not buy, even for a star.

“If you’re only looking at these deals in terms of money, you’re going to miss what they do for each party,” said Jeff Haddad, who manages Ms. Scherzinger and the Pussycat Dolls.

Danny Goldberg, founder of the management company Gold Village Entertainment and former chairman and chief executive of Mercury Records, said that deals with brands would turn off fans of some bands but could be effective in promoting other performers.

“In another era, there was a stigma attached to this,” he said. “Now it’s just another way to expose your music.”

Procter and Gamble being in the music business????

ARTelevision · 07-07-2008, 08:36 PM

Cynthetiq,
Your efforts lately to keep us informed here regarding these important issues is invaluable. Thanks for putting things we need to hear within range of our critical awareness.

Appreciated,
Art

blackop7 · 07-08-2008, 03:12 PM

I think I have an idea what ARTelevision is talking about. Most people in the world live on default and compare themselves to other people and mostly to Media icons. All people have to do is start living and doing the things that they want to do, and that would be thinking for yourself. Just continualy ask yourself, and be brutally honest, "Am I enjoying this?" "Do I feel good about this?" "Would I do that if I felt no fear?"

Cynthetiq · 07-08-2008, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

Cynthetiq,
Your efforts lately to keep us informed here regarding these important issues is invaluable. Thanks for putting things we need to hear within range of our critical awareness.

Appreciated,
Art

Just working it.

This article comes from Dec 24, 1992. The images that we can see as we read the point show how the power of advertising really saturates.

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View: THE MEDIA BUSINESS -- ADVERTISING; Seasonal Messages That Appeal or Annoy
Source: NYTimes
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THE MEDIA BUSINESS -- ADVERTISING; Seasonal Messages That Appeal or Annoy
December 24, 1992
THE MEDIA BUSINESS -- ADVERTISING; Seasonal Messages That Appeal or Annoy
By STUART ELLIOTT
ONE more day! One more day!

That is not the joyful chant of children eager to see what Santa Claus will leave under the tree, nor of workers anticipating a long weekend. It is the grateful cry of American consumers, counting the hours until Christmas arrives, bringing to an end the annual spate of coarse, crass and overcommercialized Christmas ad pitches.

Even those who believed themselves inured to the frenzied hyper bole of the holiday season must be dismayed at how deep the bottom turned out to be this year. A prestigious group of clergy even wrote a contentious open letter to Madison Avenue's "advertising lords," castigating them for having "reduced Christmas to a carnival of mass marketing."

It's enough to spur a sequel to "It's a Wonderful Life" in which George Bailey wishes that Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn had never been born.

All that is not to say that holiday themes should be verboten to advertisers. The season's spirited joys and harmonious impulses are particularly appropriate after a year as troubled as 1992. After all, as Angela Lansbury sang in "Mame," "We need a little Christmas" -- but, please, take note of the word "little."

What follows is a review of this year's holiday advertising highs and lows, as ranked on a special seasonal rating scale of "Ho, ho, ho!" (as welcome as Santa himself) or "Bah, humbug!" (an ad only a Scrooge could admire.)

Absolut. A colorful print advertisement for the vodka carrying the headline "Absolut Harmony," showing the New York Choral Society performing before the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, inspires festive thoughts. Ho, ho, ho! Agency: TBWA Advertising.

Campbell. "Have a red and white Christmas!," urges a print ad in which a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup wears a stocking cap, complete with pom-pom, and a striped scarf. Santa Claus as soup can -- not even Andy Warhol concocted such a travesty. Bah, humbug! Agency: Backer Spielvogel Bates Inc.

Coca-Cola Classic. In this seasonal spot, a boy who sees Santa Claus pausing at a Coke machine alerts his father, who thinks he means the picture of Santa appearing on holiday cans of Coke Classic. As syrupy as a soft drink before the fizz is added. Bah, humbug! Agency: McCann-Erickson.

Energizer. The battery brand's omnipresent bunny barges its way into a parody of those annoying Christmas music commercials, featuring a harpist who plucks implausible tunes like "Rapping with Santa." The satire is wickedly accurate, down to a toll-free telephone number briefly flashed on screen; dial it -- 800-729-0730 -- and the bunny interrupts a recording informing callers that imaginary order-taking operators are "presently busy." Ho, ho, ho! Agency: Chiat/ Day.

Hershey. A print ad wishes chocolate lovers "Happy holidays from Hershey's Kisses" with a photograph of Kisses in seasonal red and green foil (in addition to the regular silver variety.) The headline: "Free gift wrap." Ho, ho, ho! Agency: Ogilvy & Mather New York.

Marlboro. In a print ad reminiscent of a greeting card, wishing smokers "Merry Christmas from Marlboro Country," two cowboys on horseback, one with a tree, ride through a snowy Western night. Perhaps they're on their way to the hospital to cheer up a friend after his lung-cancer operation. Bah, humbug! Agency: Leo Burnett U.S.A.

Marriott Residence Inn. Dominating this charmingly low-key print ad is a sketch of Santa climbing down a chimney. "This time of year," the ad advises, "a fireplace in your hotel room could really come in handy." Ho, ho, ho! Agency: the Martin Agency.

Nestle. Farfel, the floppy-eared dog from Nestle ads of the 1950's and 1960's, comes home for Christmas, joining a choir of canine puppets to introduce a line of miniature candies in holiday wrappers. A sweetly whimsical and delightfully silly commercial; one puppet holding a Butterfinger candy bar keeps dropping it. Ho, ho, ho! Agency: J. Walter Thompson New York.

Roy Rogers. Pieces of fried chicken and biscuits are arranged in the shape of a wreath as "Deck the Halls" is heard on the soundtrack. The punch line: "Seasoned greetings from Roy Rogers." Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean you can play with your food. Bah, humbug! Agency: Earle Palmer Brown.

U.S. Postal Service. Even pun-lovers -- all 43 of them -- are groaning at the seasonal modification made to "We deliver for you," the Postal Service's regular slogan. Whoever thought up the holiday version -- "We deliver for Yule" -- ought to be sent to sort dead letters in Juneau in January. Bah, humbug! Agency: Young & Rubicam New York.

Cynthetiq · 07-09-2008, 02:35 PM

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View: A Plane? More Like a Flying Magazine
Source: NYTimes
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A Plane? More Like a Flying Magazine
July 6, 2008
Practical Traveler | In-Flight Ads
A Plane? More Like a Flying Magazine
By MICHELLE HIGGINS

ON a recent US Airways flight from New York to Jamaica, coach passengers nursing their drinks were greeted with ads on their tray tables promoting General Motors’ OnStar navigation system.

Later, a flight attendant strolled up and down the aisles offering applications for US Airways-branded Bank of America credit cards. An announcement was made over the public address system notifying passengers of the 500 extra bonus miles they’d get by signing up onboard.

“If you have family, friends, co-workers who you think may be interested,” one announcement went, “take an extra application for them.”

As if flying wasn’t miserable enough, now, after being frisked at security, jockeying for overhead bin space, and squeezing into that remaining middle seat, passengers must endure a string of in-flight advertisements. US Airways, which also offers advertisers spots on ticket jackets, cocktail napkins and even air-sickness bags, has, until recently, been one of the few airlines running tray-table ads. But as airlines continue to search for every opportunity to offset rising fuel costs and other operating expenses, more are considering onboard ads. Such ancillary ads are worth about $20 million a year to US Airways, a spokeswoman said.

AirTran Airways offers in-flight credit card applications (even rewarding flight attendants with commissions) and carries 17 different Coca-Cola products with napkins and cups that promote those drinks. The airline plans to roll out tray-table ads this fall. Brand Connections, the New York marketing firm that provides the laminated tray table ads for US Airways, said it has been contacted by three carriers in the last month alone and has plans to supply tray-table ads to at least two more airlines by 2009.

JetBlue Airways has begun to leverage the TVs in its seatbacks for advertising partnerships, including one with The New York Times, which features videos of journalists upon takeoff. In a deal with Dove, the carrier passed out samples of that beauty brand’s moisturizer onboard and showed an ad about the product on Channel 13, its live flight-tracker screen.

Though the airline doesn’t plan to introduce tray-table advertising at this time, it hasn’t completely ruled out the option. “Right now we don’t see tray table advertising as fitting the JetBlue brand,” wrote a spokesman in an e-mail message, “but in this environment, everything needs to be on the table for the future.”

Southwest, which plans to test onboard Wi-Fi later this year, said that though no decisions had been made, in-flight Internet access could lead to some new advertising possibilities.

Perhaps no airline has taken onboard advertising quite as far as the low-cost European carrier Ryanair. It plasters ads not just on closed tray tables, but also on the overhead luggage bins. Advertising announcements, which last about 30 seconds each, are made as passengers board the plane. And the bulkheads are also available for advertising plugs.

United States domestic airlines say they don’t want to overwhelm passengers with ad blitzes. “We are very cautious about too much advertising,” said a JetBlue spokesman. “We don’t want to disrupt the experience.”

Subtle or not, passengers are already acutely aware of the ad creep. “When I flew on JetBlue last year between New York and Las Vegas, their free seat-back TV programs were loaded with advertisements,” said Robert Owen Jr., a high school language teacher from Long Island, N.Y. “Even the map charting the plane’s progress was interrupted regularly to display an ad. Every snack they offered came individually wrapped, prominently displaying each item’s respective brand.”

As for those midflight credit card announcements on US Airways, “it’s getting really annoying to listen to that pitch 100 times a year,” said Brian Kush, a technology consultant from New Kensington, Pa ., in an e-mail message.

Advertising firms recognize that bombarding passengers with ads may turn off potential customers. “You never want to upset a passenger,” said Brian Martin, chief executive of Brand Connections. “It won’t bode well for the brand or the venue that’s housing that advertisement.” The best onboard ads, he said, provide relevant information or fun diversions for passengers.

For example, a recent tray-table ad by Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol PM offered some simple exercises passengers could do in their seat (knee lifts, foot rolls, etc.) so they wouldn’t get stiff. Another onboard ad, via Brand Connections, was presented in a board game format on the tray-table.

But advertisers are well aware of the unparalleled opportunity offered by an airplane, with its captive audience of strapped-in passengers.

“You’ve got a billboard in your face for two hours,” said Gilles Parent, advertising and partnership manager for the Quebec Department of Tourism, which ran tray-table ads on 42 US Airways planes over the winter. The campaign, he said, was so successful that the company is introducing ads on 21 more planes this summer.

Nearly 90 percent of passengers on the planes with the Quebec ads were able to recall at least some of the ad, according to an e-mail survey conducted six weeks after the flight. Roughly 54 percent were able to name the advertiser and 7.5 percent remembered the tourism Web site.

Perhaps no one is more affected by the ads than flight attendants, who are not only exposed to them in and day out but who must also listen to customer grumbles about having to sit through commercials, or be woke from their naps by a credit card announcement mid-flight.

“It’s gotten mixed reviews,” said Mike Flores, president of the US Airways unit of the Association of Flight Attendants. “A lot of passengers complain about it because they don’t want to listen to ads in flight.”

Flight attendants aren’t required to make the credit card announcements onboard US Airways flights, but those who choose to can earn a $50 commission for each passenger who signs up for a card.

Bette Burke-Nash, a long-time flight attendant for the carrier, points out one advantage to the tray tables with ads. Hard-to-rub-out stains are no longer an issue, since the laminated advertisements are periodically changed. “Now they’re always clean,” she said.

yet more information being bombarded to us when we have no ability to turn it off or tune it out.

Cynthetiq · 07-14-2008, 08:51 AM

Quote:

View: Warning: Habits May Be Good for You
Source: NYTimes
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Warning: Habits May Be Good for You
July 13, 2008
Warning: Habits May Be Good for You
By CHARLES DUHIGG
A FEW years ago, a self-described “militant liberal” named Val Curtis decided that it was time to save millions of children from death and disease. So Dr. Curtis, an anthropologist then living in the African nation of Burkina Faso, contacted some of the largest multinational corporations and asked them, in effect, to teach her how to manipulate consumer habits worldwide.

Dr. Curtis, now the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, had spent years trying to persuade people in the developing world to wash their hands habitually with soap. Diseases and disorders caused by dirty hands — like diarrhea — kill a child somewhere in the world about every 15 seconds, and about half those deaths could be prevented with the regular use of soap, studies indicate.

But getting people into a soap habit, it turns out, is surprisingly hard.

To overcome this hurdle, Dr. Curtis called on three top consumer goods companies to find out how to sell hand-washing the same way they sell Speed Stick deodorant and Pringles potato chips.

She knew that over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors — habits — among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks, apply lotions and wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.

“There are fundamental public health problems, like hand washing with soap, that remain killers only because we can’t figure out how to change people’s habits,” Dr. Curtis said. “We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically.”

The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to — Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever — had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers’ lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.

If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of canny advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands advertising that no morning is complete without a minty-fresh mouth.

A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers — which are effective even if applied at high noon — are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”

Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through relentless advertising.

As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods. But for activists like Dr. Curtis, this emerging research offers a type of salvation.

For years, many public health campaigns that aimed at changing habits have been failures. Earlier this decade, two researchers affiliated with Vanderbilt University examined more than 100 studies on the effectiveness of antidrug campaigns and found that, in some cases, viewers’ levels of drug abuse actually increased when commercials were shown, perhaps in part because the ads reminded them about that bag of weed in the sock drawer.

A few years later, another group examined the effectiveness of advertising condom use to prevent AIDS. In some cases, rates of unprotected sex actually went up — which some researchers suspected was because the commercials made people more frisky than cautious.

To teach hand washing, about seven years ago Dr. Curtis persuaded Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever to join an initiative called the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing With Soap. The group’s goal was to double the hand-washing rate in Ghana, a West African nation where almost every home contains a soap bar but only 4 percent of adults regularly lather up after using the toilet.

Over the last several years, such partnerships between corporations and those trying to save the world have become commonplace. Companies like Microsoft, Pfizer and General Electric have worked with nonprofit groups on health, technology and energy programs.

Not everyone is comfortable with the arrangements. Some critics complain that public health professionals are becoming too cozy with companies ultimately focused on their bottom lines. Others worry that these advertising techniques may be manipulative.

But what Dr. Curtis learned in Ghana suggests that saving the world may be as easy as hawking chewing gum, or, to use a more contemporary example, as simple as training Americans to spray perfumed water on couches that are already clean.

FEBREZE — the perfumed water used on couches — is one of the most successful examples of a habit-creation campaign, and, in a sense, the playbook for how Ghana learned to wash its hands.

Procter & Gamble introduced Febreze in 1996 as a way to remove odors from smelly clothes. Consumer surveys had shown that people were leaving their jackets and blouses outside after an evening in a smoke-filled bar. P.& G., which at the time already sold products that cleaned one out of every two laundry loads washed in American homes, decided to spend millions to create a spray to remove offensive smells.

The company ran advertisements of a woman complaining about a blazer that smelled like cigarette smoke. Other ads focused on smelly pets, sweaty teenagers and stinky minivan interiors.

But Febreze flopped. In fact, early sales were so disappointing that the company considered canceling the entire project.

One of the biggest problems, P.& G.’s researchers discovered, was that bad smells simply didn’t happen often enough in consumers’ lives. Interviews showed that consumers liked Febreze when they used it, but that many customers simply forgot that it was in the house.

At about the same time, the company’s staff psychologists were beginning to extend their understanding of how habits are formed.

“For most of our history, we’ve sold newer and better products for habits that already existed,” said Dr. Berning, the P.& G. psychologist. “But about a decade ago, we realized we needed to create new products. So we began thinking about how to create habits for products that had never existed before.”

Academics were also beginning to focus on habit formation. Researchers like Wendy Wood at Duke University and Brian Wansink at Cornell were examining how often smokers quit while vacationing and how much people eat when their plates are deceptively large or small.

Those and other studies revealed that as much as 45 percent of what we do every day is habitual — that is, performed almost without thinking in the same location or at the same time each day, usually because of subtle cues.

For example, the urge to check e-mail or to grab a cookie is likely a habit with a specific prompt. Researchers found that most cues fall into four broad categories: a specific location or time of day, a certain series of actions, particular moods, or the company of specific people. The e-mail urge, for instance, probably occurs after you’ve finished reading a document or completed a certain kind of task. The cookie grab probably occurs when you’re walking out of the cafeteria, or feeling sluggish or blue.

Our capacity to develop such habits is an invaluable evolutionary advantage. But when they run amok, things can become tricky.

Consider a series of experiments Dr. Wansink performed with a bowl of tomato soup that was secretly connected to a tube that pumped more and more liquid into the bowl. Diners ended up eating almost twice as much soup as usual, though they didn’t report feeling any fuller after the meal.

Dr. Wood studied exercise habits among students who transferred from one college to another. When locations remained stable — the new school had an outdoor track just like the old school, for example — students continued running regularly. But if the tracks were too different, the exercise tapered off, on average. In another experiment, conducted by researchers studying smokers, those wanting to quit were more than twice as successful if they started kicking the habit while on vacation, when surrounded by unfamiliar people and places.

“Habits are formed when the memory associates specific actions with specific places or moods,” said Dr. Wood, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. “If you regularly eat chips while sitting on the couch, after a while, seeing the couch will automatically prompt you to reach for the Doritos. These associations are sometimes so strong that you have to replace the couch with a wooden chair for a diet to succeed.”

The researchers at P.& G. realized that these types of findings had enormous implications for selling Febreze. Because bad smells occurred too infrequently for a Febreze habit to form, marketers started looking for more regular cues on which they could capitalize.

The perfect cue, they eventually realized, was the act of cleaning a room, something studies showed their target audience did almost daily. P.& G. produced commercials showing women spraying Febreze on a perfectly made bed and spritzing freshly laundered clothing. The product’s imagery was revamped to incorporate open windows and gusts of fresh wind — an airing that is part of the physical and emotional cleaning ritual.

“We learned from consumer interviews that there was an opportunity to cue the clean smell of Febreze to a clean room,” Dr. Berning said. “We positioned it as the finishing touch to a mundane chore. It’s the icing that shows you did a good job.”

In a sense, a product originally intended for use on piles of smelly, dirty clothes was eclipsed by its exact opposite — a product used when women confronted a clean and tidy living room. And the more women sprayed, the more automatic the behavior became.

Today, Febreze is one of P.& G.’s greatest successes. Customers habitually spray tidied living rooms, clean kitchens, loads of fresh laundry and, according to one of the most recent commercials, spotless minivans. In the most recent fiscal year, consumers in North America alone spent $650 million buying Febreze, according to the company.

Dozens of other companies have also redesigned advertising campaigns around habitual cues. Beer commercials, once filled with busty women in ill-fitting tops, are now more likely to feature groups of buddies, because research shows that groups of friends are one of the strongest habit cues. Candy bar companies, through commercials, have tied their products to low-energy cues, transforming what was once a dessert into a pick-me-up for cubicle dwellers.

FOR Dr. Curtis and the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing With Soap, such tactics offered enormous promise in a country like Ghana.

That nation offered a conundrum: Almost half of its people were accustomed to washing their hands with water after using the restroom or before eating. And local markets were filled with cheap, colorful soap bars. But only about 4 percent of Ghanaians used soap as part of their post-restroom hand-washing regime, studies showed.

“We could talk about germs until we were blue in the face, and it didn’t change behaviors,” Dr. Curtis said. So she and her colleagues asked Unilever for advice in designing survey techniques that ultimately studied hundreds of mothers and their children.

They discovered that previous health campaigns had failed because mothers often didn’t see symptoms like diarrhea as abnormal, but instead viewed them as a normal aspect of childhood.

However, the studies also revealed an interesting paradox: Ghanaians used soap when they felt that their hands were dirty — after cooking with grease, for example, or after traveling into the city. This hand-washing habit, studies showed, was prompted by feelings of disgust. And surveys also showed that parents felt deep concerns about exposing their children to anything disgusting.

SO the trick, Dr. Curtis and her colleagues realized, was to create a habit wherein people felt a sense of disgust that was cued by the toilet. That queasiness, in turn, could become a cue for soap.

A sense of bathroom disgust may seem natural, but in many places toilets are a symbol of cleanliness because they replaced pit latrines. So Dr. Curtis’s group had to create commercials that taught viewers to feel a habitual sense of unseemliness surrounding toilet use.

Their solution was ads showing mothers and children walking out of bathrooms with a glowing purple pigment on their hands that contaminated everything they touched.

The commercials, which began running in 2003, didn’t really sell soap use. Rather, they sold disgust. Soap was almost an afterthought — in one 55-second television commercial, actual soapy hand washing was shown only for 4 seconds. But the message was clear: The toilet cues worries of contamination, and that disgust, in turn, cues soap.

“This was radically different from most public health campaigns,” said Beth Scott, an infectious-disease specialist who worked with Dr. Curtis on the Ghana campaign. “There was no mention of sickness. It just mentions the yuck factor. We learned how to do that from the marketing companies.”

The ads had their intended effect. By last year, Ghanaians surveyed by members of Dr. Curtis’s team reported a 13 percent increase in the use of soap after the toilet. Another measure showed even greater impact: reported soap use before eating went up 41 percent.

And while those statistics haven’t silenced critics who say habit-forming advertisements are worrisome, they have convinced people who run other public health initiatives that the Ghana experiment is on the right track.

Today, public health campaigns elsewhere for condom use and to fight drug abuse and obesity are being revamped to employ habit-formation characteristics, according to people involved in those efforts. One of the largest American antismoking campaigns, in fact, is explicitly focused on habits, with commercials and Web sites intended to teach smokers how to identify what cues them to reach for a cigarette.

“For a long time, the public health community was distrustful of industry, because many felt these companies were trying to sell products that made people’s lives less healthy, by encouraging them to smoke, or to eat unhealthy foods, or by selling expensive products people didn’t really need,” Dr. Curtis said. “But those tactics also allow us to save lives. If we want to really help the world, we need every tool we can get.”

Interesting that connection of manufactured habits...

Jozen-Bo · 07-14-2008, 03:32 PM

tv = I dislike TV and barely ever watch...the brain control device
radio = I only hear it in the morning a a few minutes when the alarm goes off
exposure to billboards and product advertising = I look away if I can
movies = once or twice a year
magazines/newspapers = hahahaha, how rare indeed
commercial Internet = I am quick to outmaneuver
talking about media subjects = yes this can happen from time to time

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

the stats are no mystery.
add to or subtract from the above. arrive at your own numbers.

thousands of hours each year immersed in media.
living in it. not in the world.
when not attending directly to it, we replay it in our heads.
rehearsing movie roles, tv characters.
thinking about them.
fantasizing. fixated on them.
pop stars. celebrities. rock and roll idols.
supermodels. news anchors. people in ads.

Theres more to this then one might think. Here are the straight facts...

ViaCom wants to monoplize media, they own 90% of all media outlets through America and 40% throughout Europe (most of the channels you might watch are all part of the same pyramid). They would buy more, except Europe banned that and the last 10% won't sell...thank god!

Vaicom sucks rotten dead donkey dick! They funnel up to an ultra conservative right wing family of extremists (obviously...buying that much media says it all) who want to control how we think. They don't like exposure, so here is a little more for them!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

trying to look like them.
trying to act like them.
repeating their words to ourselves.
thinking their thoughts.
we like to believe we can resist their hold on us.

I see the circles we wander and walk away from them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

we'll explore the subliminal issues later.
for now just look at the surface.
look at what's obvious.

You want to explore the subliminal???

That is my specialty!!! I am a subconscious pioneer!!! As a result, I can quickly identify the intentions behind almost nearly every sign and symbol you can think of, which renders me immune to their affects.

I live in symbols, breath them, ponder them day and night and now I can read the signs like never before!

There are others...more subtle...more revealing...to watch out for. These ones lead to another world, but they are so hard to spot and so easy to lose. ARTelevision, this thread of yours is very interesting to myself, I will return to see where this is going!

Thank You!

ARTelevision · 07-14-2008, 08:58 PM

You're very welcome, Jozen-Bo.

As you can see, it's a big thread.

There have been many offshoots, directions, and tributaries through which the discussion has flowed. And there are many great contributors to it as well. I hope you'll be one of them.

"Critical thinking" is the reason it's here.

Cynthetiq · 07-14-2008, 09:00 PM

I don't know about viacom owning 90% of all media in the US.

I worked for them for 11 years, during their growth and acquistion years, CBS merger and CBS seperation.

but critical thinking is important.

mixedmedia · 07-14-2008, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I don't know about viacom owning 90% of all media in the US.

I worked for them for 11 years, during their growth and acquistion years, CBS merger and CBS seperation.

but critical thinking is important.

Hey...I worked for them, too.

Jozen-Bo · 07-15-2008, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I don't know about viacom owning 90% of all media in the US.

I worked for them for 11 years, during their growth and acquistion years, CBS merger and CBS seperation.

but critical thinking is important.

I could be wrong at this point in time, I learned all about it when I was younger (around 7-8 years ago) and watching 60 minutes one evening. Things do change...even people, owners, and monopoly take overs. As it appears now, I don't think they have so much control over the media.

One question...who owns the internet...I think the answer is no one...thank god for that!!!

I types ViaCom Monopoly in under Google to see what sort of hits I'd get. Check it out:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=...G=Search&meta=

At this point, I am uncertain what to think about them, but I do know that monopolizing media sucks dead rotten donkey dick hard...no no...it chokes on it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

You're very welcome, Jozen-Bo.

As you can see, it's a big thread.

There have been many offshoots, directions, and tributaries through which the discussion has flowed. And there are many great contributors to it as well. I hope you'll be one of them.

"Critical thinking" is the reason it's here.

After my first posting here I looked back and saw how big it was...

WoW!!!

I will have to dig through it, and I hope as well to be able to contribute!

When the times are critical...so must the think be!

Iliftrocks · 09-05-2008, 12:20 PM

I want to stop and thank you all for your intelligence, especially about the "media". I've recently have had a lull in tasks at work and have read some of the rants and raves section on craigslist, here in Raleigh, NC, and I am sure that those poor people have definitely had a major media overload.

It is a shame that not only is there media brainwashing going on, but that we are complicit in that brainwashing and, it seems, seek it out. Can't get enough of that good old fashioned stupidity. People run to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to see what they need to be thinking today.

I'm a fan of Bill Hicks (rest his soul) and I think he had a true understanding of the problem... Bill Hicks is dead, George Carlin is dead, and we have Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia, who will probably live forever....

Hmm, sounds like I have been in the media pool a bit too much too.

Cynthetiq · 10-11-2008, 06:55 AM

Quote:

View: Overfeeding on Information
Source: Nytimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

Overfeeding on Information
October 12, 2008
Overfeeding on Information
By ALEX WILLIAMS
YANA COLLINS LEHMAN, a film production accountant who lives in Brooklyn, knew something was amiss when her 5-year-old son, Beckett, started to announce to no one in particular, “I’m John McCain, and I approved this statement.”

Ms. Collins Lehman, 36, thought:

07-07-2008, 08:36 PM	#603 (permalink)
ARTelevision I am we Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: USA	Cynthetiq, Your efforts lately to keep us informed here regarding these important issues is invaluable. Thanks for putting things we need to hear within range of our critical awareness. Appreciated, Art __________________ www.ARTelevision.com

07-14-2008, 08:58 PM	#609 (permalink)
ARTelevision I am we Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: USA	You're very welcome, Jozen-Bo. As you can see, it's a big thread. There have been many offshoots, directions, and tributaries through which the discussion has flowed. And there are many great contributors to it as well. I hope you'll be one of them. "Critical thinking" is the reason it's here. __________________ www.ARTelevision.com

07-14-2008, 09:00 PM	#610 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Manhattan, NY	I don't know about viacom owning 90% of all media in the US. I worked for them for 11 years, during their growth and acquistion years, CBS merger and CBS seperation. but critical thinking is important. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Independent, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

09-05-2008, 12:20 PM	#613 (permalink)
Iliftrocks Junkie Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Near Raleigh, NC	I want to stop and thank you all for your intelligence, especially about the "media". I've recently have had a lull in tasks at work and have read some of the rants and raves section on craigslist, here in Raleigh, NC, and I am sure that those poor people have definitely had a major media overload. It is a shame that not only is there media brainwashing going on, but that we are complicit in that brainwashing and, it seems, seek it out. Can't get enough of that good old fashioned stupidity. People run to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to see what they need to be thinking today. I'm a fan of Bill Hicks (rest his soul) and I think he had a true understanding of the problem... Bill Hicks is dead, George Carlin is dead, and we have Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia, who will probably live forever.... Hmm, sounds like I have been in the media pool a bit too much too. __________________ huh

07-08-2008, 03:12 PM	#604 (permalink)
blackop7 Upright Join Date: Jul 2008	I think I have an idea what ARTelevision is talking about. Most people in the world live on default and compare themselves to other people and mostly to Media icons. All people have to do is start living and doing the things that they want to do, and that would be thinking for yourself. Just continualy ask yourself, and be brutally honest, "Am I enjoying this?" "Do I feel good about this?" "Would I do that if I felt no fear?"