Can marketing firms read your mind?
Reality in Truth's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Realityintruth
The Century of Self Pt 1: https://vimeo.com/75776128
My blog: http://www.staresattheworld.com/
My Twitter: http://twitter.com/Aurini
Download in MP3 Format: http://www.clipconverter.cc/
Want to request a video? http://www.staresattheworld.com/aurinis-insight/
Just want to help out with a couple bucks? http://www.staresattheworld.com/donate/
Credits:
I Feel You by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Music by the talented Matt Baldoni: http://www.facebook.com/baldoniguitar
This isn't the first time I've spoken about marketing.
How I consider it a terrifying social technology that is far more powerful than most people realize.
There's an excellent documentary on it, The Century of Self, which I've recommended to you in the past.
And there's a YouTube user which was recommended to me by Angus MacGyver called Reality and Truth.
Link to his channel down below.
And see, the question with all of this is, are we being conspiracy theorists with marketing?
Just how powerful is it?
How effective can it be?
And so Reality and Truth's videos definitely take a very hard line on it, talking about how they employ sexual and satanic imagery throughout different commercials to put fear into us and to make us want to solve our problems by buying the product.
Is this accurate?
Are subliminal messages real things to worry about?
Maybe, maybe not.
He might be going a little bit too far, but it's only a little bit, if that's the case.
And see, there's a recent example that I've discovered in my own life where something is just perfectly marketed towards me that serves as an object lesson of how effective this stuff is.
Now, I need to give you a bit of background about what brand of cigarettes I smoke and why I smoke them.
You see, my favorite cigarettes on the planet are the Canadian brand of Dunhills.
Not Dunhill International, it's actually unique to Canada and you can only buy them there, sadly.
So when I moved to the United States, I needed to figure out a new brand of cigarettes.
And I went through various brands.
I tried Camel, Mavericks.
They had a patriotic eagle, so why not?
But I eventually settled on Marlborough Edge.
And now I typically prefer the longer cigarettes, the hundreds.
But despite that, despite the fact that these don't come in hundreds, I really like the flavor.
They're dark, they're smooth, and I kind of like the black packaging.
But ultimately, the flavor is why I started smoking these cigarettes.
Well, what do you know about two months after I started smoking them?
They introduced a new marketing campaign on their packaging, which you'll see it right here.
And can you think of something that, like, it's like they custom designed it for me.
So let me examine this picture with you.
First off, you know, writing in a journal at a bar, yeah, I'm one of those idiots that does that.
Okay, you've seen my notebook in the past.
You know, this is how I do my thinking, is I sit there, I'll have maybe a beer or something, and I'll jot down notes.
It's how I get all my creative juices out.
See, I'm one of those assholes that brings a leather journal to the bar with him.
Next, underneath that, it almost looks like one of those Kohl's notes for Shakespeare.
And so, again, this is a guy writing in a journal who's very literary, and I'm a bit of a literary guy.
Next, he's wearing casual clothing, but also a suit jacket.
So, he's dressed nicely.
When it's not 42 degrees out centigrade, I tend to wear a jacket most of the time.
He's got a fancy pen, and I really have to discipline myself into buying Bic pens, because I like fancy pens way too much.
I like the whole aura, the mystique of writing.
Look, he's got a silver Zippo, which is indistinguishable from my own, and he's drinking whiskey out of the exact same whiskey glasses that I use.
This is me.
This is me on the pack of cigarettes.
They did not have this when I started smoking them, and I wound up sticking with them because I really like the flavor.
And yet, the marketing demographics, when they break people down into lifestyles, they are so amazingly accurate at doing this that they nailed me.
They nailed me down to a T.
So, how powerful is marketing?
Again, it's kind of hard to say.
The people that are actually doing it don't talk about it.
But that right there, that, well, gives you an idea.
You know, or maybe it's just a giant conspiracy theory, and, you know, enjoy your Coca-Cola and Levi's.
