hypnolibertarian

Thus far we have been discussing techniques that, while they leave an indelible effect on the unconscious mind, can easily be recognized consciously by most observers.  Negative campaigning, switching outcomes, frames, everyone will recognize these from debating societies and ready political polemic.  Now, we begin to move to some of the “black ops” stuff — the stuff which is meant to go straight into the unconscious mind.

We have spoken about rhythm in sound; however, there is also such a thing as visual rhythm.  When you watch an advertisement (political or otherwise), it often has no story and no major punch line that is discernible.  Instead, it consists of images which flash on the screen with varying speeds, sometimes long enough for you to see them but sometimes in such profusion and at such a speed as to leave you totally bewildered.

This is no accident.  Fast images, from either TV or commercials, tend to stun the conscious mind and leave the subject open to suggestion to the unconscious mind.  You just stop paying attention to what is there and wait until it is over.  This is an excellent receptive state for suggestion.

Politician ads (and both Obama’s and McCain’s are using this tactic) tend to consist of changing, moving images that stay on the screen maybe two or three seconds and transition to another image.  These don’t completely bypass the conscious mind, but the constant changes are too fast for the conscious mind to truly process, so the mind tends to be led in the direction the ad wants it to go (and you can bet your dirty socks researchers spend a lot of time determining the best speed at which to change images).

Another ad is much faster, and uses an entirely different technique.  The best example of this I can think of is a recent Ethan Allen ad (the furniture company).  Multiple images per second flash to the sound of a driving, repeatable beat.  After the commercial, you don’t really know what they showed, how much sex they used, or anything but the name at the end of the commercial: Ethan Allen.  This is truly hypnotic; it stuns the conscious mind and the images go directly into the unconscious mind.  Think of the “hip” ads that do this: Nike is famous for them, as are sports drinks.