hypnolibertarian

Some commercials are perfect examples of hypnotic technique.  This morning I saw one that I had to admire for its mixture of techniques.  I have made disparaging remarks about Archer Daniels Midland, and take back none of them, but I must admire the skill of their advertising agency.

The commercial was, of course, for ethanol.  It was officially by some advocacy group; however, I strongly suspect ADM money is the primary part of their budget.

First is the text that moves across the screen during the scenes.  Easily read text emphasized the spoken points; however, over every scene, in text so faint it can barely be seen, is the word, “ethanol.”  The subtle, subliminal connection is made during the entire commercial.

A second item is a wonderful example of a reframe.  A rap against the ethanol industry is that it takes corn that could be used for food.  The commercial says, “We send 40% of the corn we get out for cattle feed.”  This mean, of course, that 60% of their corn — by far the largest producer and purchaser of corn in the country — is removed as a source of food.  This is akin to those drinks that proudly proclaim, “10% fruit juice!” instead of, “90% water and artificial ingredients!” How many would willingly buy the latter?

Combining techniques can be extremely effective.  Look for commercials that do this: combine techniques that we have spoken about to mix a conscious and an unconscious message.  Look to see if the conscious message is framed to make one side or the other to be better or worse.

One commercial that is fascinating me in the way that it combines hypnotic techniques is the new Dove commercial.  It is so damn clever that I’m coming to hate it.  It shows a cute little girl looking at a sexy ad at a bus stop.  All of a sudden we are drawn in to the add and a large number of images flash before us at very high speed.  Then we come back to that little girl, and Dove announces that they are spending lots of money on self-esteem workshops, letting small girls know they are beautiful and attractive despite all those evil examples by the models.

This is insidious.  First the commercial has you connect with the sympathetic young girl, who really is quite cute.  Then, suddenly, the sex assault: dozens of images of scantily dressed beautiful women, all hitting you at once.  Any male, and most females, will be aroused at this kind of rapid image presentation.

It finally ends on the girl, and then Dove goes into its pitch.  However, ending up on the girl creates a subconscious guilt about feeling sexual, aroused, while looking at a small girl.  Dove gives you an out by allowing you to help her, and others, with their “self-esteem.”  All you need to do is buy Dove.

I have no idea what this did to their sales, but I would be very surprised if they didn’t go up a whole lot.  This kind of attack on our unconscious minds is practically irresistible, and is unconscious to most people.

Can you find commercials that do something similar?

McCain on Obama

As a political example, let’s look at McCain’s ad on Obama.  This is an entire campaign, which ad campaigns usually are, and aimed at what the McCain campaign saw as Obama’s greatest strength — the aura of invincibility and inevitability that surrounded him after he defeated Clinton in the primaries.  In particular, when he traveled in Europe, the crowds were gigantic, and he was treated as a rock star or perhaps the Pope.

The McCain campaign relied on a reframe to change this situation, and it was a brilliant reframe.  The presupposition is that Obama is a good candidate, and a good President, because of his charisma.  Whether this is true or false is not our concern here; what interests us is how McCain combated this.

The reframe was a simple one; McCain’s media people did not bother to fight Obama’s celebrity.  Instead, the reframed the situation to say that Obama was *only* a celebrity.  The first commercials flashed images of other celebrities that bring large crowds, but who are famously brainless; Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.  The pundits universally derided these ads as being nonsense, but from an unconscious point of view they are brilliant: they form a connection between the very intelligent Obama and brainlessness.  Paris Hilton’s riposte may have been funny, but the McCain campaign was laughing all the way to the bank; it continued their connection of brainless celebrities attacking McCain, no matter how funny it was.  A good sign is the way Hilton’s film got coverage for a couple of days, then people realized what they were doing, and it disappeared.

Later ads continued the reframe, and continued (and continue) it effectively.  The latest shows Obama surrounded by lights and cheering crowds, then has him drawing back into a very small picture as the crowd and lights are removed.  It is an amazingly effective ad; it says that without his props of lights and adoring crowds, Obama is a small, pathetic man.

Again, none of this has to do with the truth.  It has to do with effective unconscious communication, and so far the McCain campaign is winning.

Let’s pick apart one of the most common commercials: the series of AT&T commercial that seems to run twice an hour (at least) on almost every channel in the world.  I’ll describe one of them, but the rest are similar.  A sweet couple is moving into a new to them, but old and fairly scary looking house.  An old woman, thin, gaunt, tells them they are in a “Dead Zone” where calls disappear — forever!  The dad says, “But we have AT&T.”  And we see the guy with the glasses, with an army of folks behind them.  “You’re good.”  And the woman says to them, a bit spitefully, “Well, you have crabgrass!” and stomps away.  Then the usual text, “Avoid dead zones.  Call AT&T.”

This commercial works well on multiple levels.  The first is the obvious one: humorous, a takeoff on ten million horror movies and TV shows, a little flip at the end, gets the name in and the message so people understand it.  Top marks.

However, there is also a semi-conscious thing going on, which we recognize every time we look for it, but the commercial runs so often we just tune it out — and the companies depend on that, believe me.  The more you “tune it out” consciously, the more the message goes past the conscious mind into the unconscious.  The semi-conscious message is clear: things are incredibly horribly disastrous unless you choose AT&T.  Dead zones: eeeek!

The more unconscious message is unconscious only because it is a series of images that have culturally known responses; it’s not that hard to spot.  The beginning of the horror movie brings the harbinger of evil.  Oh, no!  Next someone has to be killed, of course.  However, the hero comes to save the day (early).  So we feel, unconsciously, not only relaxed from the slight charge but grateful to the guy who makes it all better.

None of this is rocket science; that we’ll take in a future commercial.  But we must not underestimate the three levels working together.  The more the commercial is unnoticed, the more the latter two levels work to create “good feelings” about AT&T.

Let’s compare Sprint commercials.  We have one with the CEO promising lots of good things: big deal.  And we have one that creates bad feelings if you don’t use Sprint (humorously, so as not to leave a bad taste in the mouth) but never resolves it (now that I think of it, that may not even be Sprint).  The worst thing Sprint ever did was to get rid of the Muldar in the black coat.

The message?  Commercials, both company and political, work on multiple levels.  The best ones are small examples of brainwashing: tension, release, savior (see Sargent, “Battle for the Mind” for a more complete description of brainwashing theory specifically.)