Slashdot Mirror
Using Neuromarketing to Sell Products
Cyan Peppa writes "Marketplace on CBC, that's a Canadian station for you Americans, had an interesting story on neuromarketing tonight. '...Neuromarketing uses traditional neuroscientific methods to determine the drivers behind consumer choices. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers map brain patterns of participants, to reveal how they respond to a particular advertisement or product. This information can be used as the basis for new advertising campaigns and branding techniques...'
Now, I'm no genius, but isn't something like this wrong? Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think?"
as being that big a difference from just showing the ads and asking people.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
...something about Canadians, no news here =P
Voice over: Lightspeed fits today's active lifestyle. Whether you're on the job [Fry is shown at a company meeting wearing just Lightspeeds.], or having fun [Fry is shown with a woman in her underwear.] Lightspeed briefs. Style and comfort for the discriminating crotch.
[The dream ends. Fry wakes up.]
Fry: Oh what a weird dream! I'll never get back to sleep!
[He falls asleep.]
[Scene: Planet Express: Lounge. The crew are sat around a table.]
Fry: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?
Leela: Of course.
Fry: But, how is that possible?
Farnsworth: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. [He holds up an egg and injects it with liquid. The egg explodes.] Although in reality it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.
Fry: That's awful. It's like brainwashing.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No sirree!
all you have to do is think about b00bies...
then they will start showing you ads with b00bies on them...
yes, i know, im a genius !
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
... this is really disgusting!
to make better products!
Surrender YR pattent!
Advertisers are just doing what they have always done. They are just using new tools to see how they affect consumers.
There isn't necessarily anything sinister about it.
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
Geez, how'd they make me say that?
What's a sig?
I smell the distinct scent of subliminals around this. Which is to say, it's a sexy, seductive idea, sure to garner oodles of funding from idiots in various marketing departments, but its relevance is limited... and kudos to the researchers for thinking of such a silly but powerful way to run their gravy train!
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
No way!
Whereas today there are lots of commercials that annoy the SHIT out of a lot of people, but which happen to work all right at keeping the brand in people's minds, in the future commercials will be designed NOT to annoy people -- more specifically, me.
Aw, who am I kidding?
I heard this story before on NPR - that's radio to you Canadians.
I personally don't think this is any worse than ad agencies doing market research to determine which ads work and which ones won't. This is just taking it to the next level.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike advertisements as much as the next guy, but what differentiates me (and most of hte geek community) from the next guy is that fact that I know how to look at an ad and know when I should and should not listen to what's being said. When someone watching an ad is aware of the techniques used to create the ad, it's not very likely to work.
Example: The annoying beer commercials designed to associate their beer with having fun. I know that's what they are doing, so I know to ignore the commercial.
I seriously doubt any ad developed using this technique will be so effective as to hinder my ability to logically conclude whether or not the product being advertised is actually worth spending money on.
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think
If they're able to build advertising to get you to buy the product from this "technology" you really don't have free will do you? They're just abusing you of the idea that you have free will.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
...from black ice high-jacking your nervous system and causing brain death.
eeg reading flat man...
this sig steers like a cow. and i can prove it
People worry too much that this thing is gonna turn into some mind control. We are all faced everyday with things we want/want to do, and we spend all day denying ourselves most of these things. I mean, just seeing a hot girl fills my head with all sorts of thoughts and feelings, but it doesn't make me act any different then i would normally.
Programming is simply the application of logic to creativity
Marketing doesn't work anyway. I wear Nikes because they're fast, not because they look good on TV. The most famous marketing ploy in recent history has got to be Apple's "1984" Super Bowl ad, and a whole lot of good that did them. They teetered on the verge of bankruptcy for two decades before they finally (gasp, horror) figured out that they should just forget about marketing and introduce a good product (the iMac) to an underserved market (teenage girls).
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...
You still believe in free will.
Its like that hot GAP girl a year or two back.. Remember her now? . Well even though I may have had stimulated brain activity... doesn't mean I would buy GAP, unless there was a chance to see the clothing on the floor...
Increased brain activity != purchase product... But I wonder if "lesbians still = ratings".
And for your viewing pleasure, all the above links are work safe.
Tournament Management Online &
Advertisers have done this forever, they just didn't use MRIs. Consumer product testing isn't anything new, and essentially all their doing is consumer product testing with a new tool. The advertising is still the same, they're just have better debugging tools.
The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
Ah, this must be what they call 'progress'...
=Smidge=
hmm. im not an american, but strangely, i havent heard of cbc either. :P
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
that's a weird thing. ...
The other way would be more scary: to place the commercial directly into the brain O_o
--
Stefan
DevCounter ( http://devcounter.berlios.de/ )
An open, free & independent developer pool.
If this turns out to be a scientific tool that determins what poeple like, not only will it drive advertising campaigns, but ultimately they will apply the same techniques to determine product design. So, what we will get is products designed for maximum retail revenue. This means that products for a niche market, or innovative and new products could lose their place on the shelves for more 'Neuroligically proven winners'.
that's right. if you want to be successful peddling your wares, see that your product/service quality warrants marketing, then build a website (for a song), followed by mozilla gorilla search thingy submissions.
or, you could spend imaginary/borrowed billyuns, discovering the contents of paragraph 1.
Um...while this is certainly an interesting story, and an indication of the ridiculous amount of money going into advertising research, I fail to see what's wrong with it.
It appears to me that all this company is doing using an MRI and a neuroscientist to analyse focus group results rather than a sociologist or a psychologist. Which is fine with me, if ad companies want to scientifically proove that the libido sections of men's brains have a stronger responce to the model with the cell phone, then the logic sections do to the cell phone and it's list of features, then that's their own business. Granted, this will increase the price of the product on which they're doing market neuro-research; but the market will ultimately determine the value of the research.
Either way it's not you're brain being explored. (Believe me if Madison Ave. were using an MRI on you you'd know) And too, this research could add more value to neuroscience in general than it does to marketing so it's a Good Thing in some ways...
credo quia absurdum
With DRM looming, TIVO like products skipping commercials... how else is McDonalds going to brag about their Big McNugget Deluxe Mac? With paper media slowing down (magazines, etc) and TV commercials maybe disappearing in 10 years, something will have to happen. This might be it.
2 things I can't stand now... The goddamn leadin's on some DVD's. I mean atleast let me hit the MENU button during this shit so I can get straight to my DVD menu that *I BOUGHT* There's no need for me to see commercials for other movies...or worse yet, a preview to the movie on the DVD!? (Why do they do that? I always have to hum and close my eyes when they show spoilers of the movie I'm about to watch)
The other thing I hate is how the commercials at movie theaters are getting longer and longer. Sure, I think the Mt. Dew boys were tedious, but it was almost tradition to just see that kid butt heads with the RAM before the movie started. What the hell. But now, we've got 10 minutes of commercials. Pretty soon they'll stop the movie in the middle with a commercial!
This reminds me of bli-bli-blipverts! The side effect was that they made peoples' heads explode occasionally.
You want a product that sells?? Give it a flashy package and get some famous people to say it's "cool". Look at the mini-rc cars "whoa shaq plays with them, they must be cool", or look at a Buick ... okay wait, step back let's leave the buick's ...
My point is still clear though, it's not our brain waves, not how we were raised, what we really enjoy, ask yourselves, when was the last time you used EVERYTHING you buy??
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think?
I think you need a nice refreshing Coke.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
...that this service is 99% pseudo-scientific bullshit that this company in Atlanta is trying to sell to naive execs who want to fatten the bottom line.
We don't understand the human mind well enough for this to become the nightmare scenario we think it could be.
The most they can get is "look, when we show him a hot chick, the pleasure center is stimulated --- I think you should use hot chicks in your commercials!!! That'll be 1.2 jillion dollars, please."
Of course, everything is a 'slippery slope' in the canadian media. Why, if it's okay to do market research - what'll happen in 400 years when we have holographic-brain-jetpacks!!
Gosh I miss the CBC.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Now, I'm no genius, but isn't something like this wrong? Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will......
It's only free will if someone lets you have free will.
This space for rent.
Advertisers have been tricking our brains for a long time in order to sell products.
Why not juxtapose desirable women and famous athletes with...carbonated sugar water? Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Except our brains are wired to associate things that appear together....
I recently bought a Butterfinger Bar. 10% more free, it said, with a bright green stripe on the end of the bar suggesting just how much more you were getting! Wow, that was another good bite, yum! Except when I measured the stripe, it was 20% of the length of the bar....
I bought a banana too. There was a sticker advertising low-calorie sweeteners on it. That was just weird.
Anyway, point is, advertisers implicitly lie, mislead, deceive all over the place--just not explicitly, because explicit lies are illegal. If they want to spend a bunch of money on fMRI studies so they can be a bit more successful, I say, great! It won't make a huge difference to advertising (and if it does, we might outlaw misleading implications).
But if they dump enough money into fMRI research, they might bring the cost of the machines down, and that would really help with *useful* research into the functioning of the brain. That would be a nice fringe benefit.
Oops, mark that Redundant.
Wouldn't this be a cool add-on for Tivo, though? Include a headset that functions as a mind-operated remote control, and grabs all the marketroid data in the background. Oh, and look for telltales of anti-social behavior while you're at it. If the subject appears to be too anti-social, just send a command from TivoJusticeCentral to send a high-voltage current across the temples. Bang! A better society is just a programming choice away.
"...researchers map brain patterns of participants, to reveal how they respond to a particular advertisement or product..." ;).
If I respond favorably to the product I will buy it regardless of the advertising. Bottom line for this marketing scheme, Sex sells. But using sex for marketing purposes is a wholly new concept
can see it now, "Gee Bob, look at the patterns we get when we show scantily clad women on the beach."
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
If I can get JUST the ads that I might be interested in, that's a good thing. I would love to give out all kinds of marketing info if I would only get stuff that interests me. (assuming the total amount of advertising I receive would go down)
I don't need to know about womens clothing (not into that), or vinly siding (I rent).
CBC is an institution in Canada, celebrating its 50th anniversary. For those lucky Americans who live close to the border, CBC has offered excellent hockey coverage, as well as superior Olympic Games coverage.
Too many Blipverts* overloaded the viewers brain, causing his head to explode. (eeyyuuuwww...)
I think that marketers who use SubVerts (Sub-psyche Advertisements) based on research derived from "...traditional neuroscientific methods to determine the drivers behind consumer choices" are an especially weasely breed. On the other hand, if SubVerts make me spend myself into bankruptcy, can I sue? I'll be using the MacDonalds fat-food suit as a precedent, of course.
*If memory serves, Blipverts, from the Max Headroom series, were compressed TV ads that could be run incredibly quickly right into the viewer's brain.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
Unfortunately, marketing is turning into a field where it's used to force/convince people to buy something - whether they need it or not. It sickens me! It's the same with salespeople. They get so aggressive trying to "convince" you that you need their product - even leaving out some details that you really need to know - just to make a sale.
If your product is so good, you won't need to sell it, it'll sell itself. I just wish firms woudl get this through their head!
There is no spoon or sig.
Well, except in Microsoft's case.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
MrMRI : Hey Mr advertising guy, we've got this great Idea.
MRAdd: What?
MrMRI: Just lie down here, keep still and I'll tell you...
half an hour later.
MrMRI wispers
MRMRI: Well, you get people to lie down in an MRI machine and user ther brain waves to sell.......
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
although we're no billyunerr backed stock markup FraUDs, we've still managed to appear as one of the "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm) , on several search engines. good gnus for US, you say? wrong, that's how IT works, for almost anybuddy, now, right? MOD me up robbIE, the email's ringing off the h00k.
I'll sabotage the whole project by thinking about piercing my eyes with dull scissors when they show their ads. And get paid too. Yay!
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Perhaps the problem is that you think you have free will... ;-)
...the subliminal advertising that some theatre owners tried back in, what, the 50's or 60's. By flashing a single frame of a heaping bucket of buttery popcorn every once in a while during the movie they were able to convince the viewers that they should buy some popcorn during the intermission (remember those?). This practice was ruled illegal. I'm hoping that this ``neurological marketing'' is seen as the same thing as subliminal advertising. In fact, I'd bet that the marketing folks are really just trying to bring that idea back but are wrapping it up in a new name to fool people into believing that it's not so as to avoid the backlash they encountered in the past.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...
You have no free will. Get over it!
It's roughly equivalent to PBS, only it receives government funding and has ads. They aren't allowed to use US shows in primetime, either (you won't see much US programming on CBC at other times of the day either).
Another knee-jerk reaction to a benevelont technology. Standard Slashdot criticism rules apply.
If they used this technology to see what Operating System people tend to like subconsciously, I'll bet the story would change to "Look, the (m)asses really do prefer (insert favorite OS flavor of the month here)! Science has proven it!"
the one that says "Adbusters". I closed the page just before I could see if that was another article or an ad itself.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Stuff like this amazes me as there is no real science behind what these companies are doing. They manage to foist technological prowess on ignorant marketing types or they don't know enough about neuroscience to be dangerous to science education in the public.
Wow, this is right up there with folks that tell you they can analyze alpha waves and tell you something about depression or your overall psychological health. (alpha waves are real and result from thalamo-cortical relays induced by relaxed eyes-closed wakefullness, but there is no evidence in the scientific record that indicates people can determine psychological health from their analysis).
The problem with work like this is that cortical patterns of activation are an emergent phenomenon that differs widely among different people which may reveal why DARPA is interested in "fingerprinting" brainwave patterns. But seriosly folks, lets have some studies that indicate emotive components can be accurately predicted from functional magnetic resonance imaging before we start foisting this crap on the unsuspecting public. (I presume they are using fMRI as plain old MRI simply looks at structure based on reconstruction of atomic "spins". Perhaps they are also using MRS or magnetic resonance spectroscopy as well, but I doubt it.)
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Or maybe it just wasn't hard. This is an industry that believed that sketching naked women and skulls into ice cubes would get people to buy more whisky. These people will buy anything, even if it is the completely premature application of brain imaging techniques to marketing.
Well this thing reminds me of Matrix's brief and relatively incomprehensible episode, when Neo gets up from his eternal bathtube... You live in some sort of jellish liquid that emulates your environment, a tube feeds you with all your desired nutrients and several wires catch up your needs and reactions. A big cable connects you into the virtual world so that you think you're living...
Right now they catch up desires and wishes. Why not to think they soon they glue your mounth with a tube and pomp you with dogfood? And drill your skull to hammer your brain with the idea that you're eating the best dish on Earth?
they've been doing this already for years looking at people's eye dilation and other measurements, now they can check your brain response. big deal. kill your television.
This is merely a logical extension of current advertising design trends.
I hope the folks giving up their brain chemistry and reaction information to advertiser researchers are getting paid handsomely. If not they're fools.
fuddle's giaNT MiSleading advertismenNTs here on robbIE's blogger. know how IT works?
that's right, afturd IT's all sad & dumb, fuddle's is PAYing robbIE, to "borrow" yOUR eyeballs, hoping to raise momeNTdumb, for his crimewave. you gotta laf.
Well, at least we know the brain-scanning ads will be able to talk to us in our own language.
When I went to school I was told that capitalism is based on free markets and competition. No need for central planning, simply let market forces select the best product.... but now we have adds that can effectively hipnotize you into buying some shit... "must buy beer, swedish bikini good" style adds....
This seems to have more in common with communist propaganda than with core values of capitalism...
2c worth.
The article is careless; they must be talking about fMRI, not MRI. The latter is the more familiar technology that provides images of brain morphology, usually by tweaking water protons. While the researchers are doubtless imaging to provide reference localization -- that is, a map of the brain -- the fMRI is entirely different because it measures brain metabolism, which is higher in parts of the brain that are more active, and so buring more sugar. So the first is a picture that looks like sliced brain, the latter is a map of hot spots that looks like an IR sensor image. They can integrate this with EEG (electroencephalogram), also, something we also couldn't do with old MRI. Cool.
Check here -- the first image you see is an overlay of functional hot spots (color) over a regular MRI (B&W). While on the topic of medical acronyms, there is not "CAT scan" anymore, it's CT for computed tomography. The earliest machines could only do axial cuts, hence "A" in CAT. But the public and TV shows like saying CAT. I used to work around CT, too, almost 20 years ago.
I'm jealous because I did research on psychiatric patients with MRI ten years ago, which was limited to detected tumors, atrophy, and other gross physical changes. That's very useful -- people with mental illnes have in some cases revealed what appears to be long-term degeneration marked by atrophy (shrinkage) of relevant lobes --but does not have the amazing possibilities of instantly detecting changes in brain activity. This is quite a bit short of reading your mind! Just 10 years ago the imaging MRI was a stunning achievement, now we're spoiled and moving into the next phase.
Is this research for marketing purposes invasive? Nah. It's just an (expensive) attempt to further quantify reaction to marketing, as has been done up to now with questionnaries and the like. It's not sneaky like subliminal advertising, which didn't work anyway despite being a compelling idea and making for a great episode of Columbo (conspiracy theorists disagree; scientists generally don't; but advertisers and maybe Republicans still try it anyway).
Anyway, advertisers have long had a general idea (sex) of (sex) what (sex) moves (sex) product (send me money). The marketers looking upon consumers as a horde of cattle, that's kind of patronizing, but it's nothing new.
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
- free will and privacy -
its the future
get over it.
they are gone.
Haha! They won't scan my brain, not with this aluminum foil hat I'm wearing!
The psychology of buying decisions has been researched from a million different angles for as long as things have been bought and sold. Sure this is a little more invasive look into our noggins to see what makes us buy stuff, but how is it any different than say stuffing a room filled with prototype toys with a couple dozen young kids to see which ones are going to be holiday hits? Don't tell me a bunch of psychologists and marketing dweebs with clipboards behind a one way mirror is any more cold and clinical than sticking someone's head in a machine for an MRI.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
.. they found men were thinking mostly about sex and women about shoes.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
I mean there are already about 5 ads trying to sell stuff by showing us a womans naked breasts in every ad break, I'm waiting for them to take it further.
Marketers are professionals at trying to manipulate you into beliving them. This is just the next step.
LUKE
You will bring Captain Solo and the Wookiee
to me.
JABBA (in Huttese subtitled)
Your mind powers will not work on me, boy.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
This isn't tap dancing on your free will...it's tap dancing on the unlightened monkey's free will. If you recognize you have free will and you recognize they are advertising then it's your choice to buy or not to buy. It's only shady if they intentionally hide the fact that they are advertising behind some form of fraud.
I think it's not a crime to scan the brain of persons on a lab when they want. (they probably are being paid to be guinea pigs). But i don't like to have to see "better" comercials that make me want to buy things i don't want, just because they now know how human brain could be fooled.
Also known as Reverse Neuromarketing?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I think that the practice described will not be any more effective than existing marketing efforts. I suspect that the study will show that people like honest-sounding, attractive models/actors, and the association of the product with healthy, happy people (with attractive tits, asses, and faces). I don't think that a secret neuroreceptor will be discovered which will turn the desire to buy cat litter into a compulsion on the order of heroin addiction.
In some respects, I think that the existence of an effort, serious or not, likely to fail or not, trying to pick the locks of the brain in order to sell us more useless shit is of itself worthy of talking about. There is no level too low for people to stoop in order to push their useless crap on you.
You are simply the yokel at the county fair, waiting to be hustled, as far as advertisers are concerned. Commercial/corporate advertisers are not alone in their efforts, however.
Give every message you see from the media, your friends, your family, your church, etc., scrutiny and subject it to healthy skepticism, because everyone is trying to hustle you at some level. Everyone.
Don't forget that we won the war of 1812 against you yanks (in less than 24 hours at that). MuuuuHAHAHAHAHA
Shades of Network 23!
where are the Blipverts!
The concern here is well overblown. There little reason to believe that true brainwashing by ads is possible. Yes, they will be more effective if this technique works. But really, is this any different than marketeers hiring a psychologist to research the response of target audiences on candidate ads using test persons. The only difference is that they're using a neuroscientist instead of a psychologist!
The potential benefits are good though. Neuroscience is getting more funding, so there's a real possibility that scientists will find out a bit more about the way the brain reacts to certain stimuli.
More understanding of the human brain == Good Thing in my book.
This reminds me of an old analog sci/fi story, (cant remember how long ago) where ad firms devised a "perfect jingle" formula for songs that would stick in your head, which resulted in car crashes and other disasters as people became obsessed with the songs and ignored the outside world.
Reality is getting a little to close for sci-fi I think
The difference is that they are trying to monitor the stimulus response mechanism of the people involved.
I do not know of any scientific study or body of knowledge that directly studies the pathology of the stimulus response mechanism as a mechanism by itself. You have to go outside the mainstream sciences to see anything looking at the area. Psychoanlysis, for example, does not study this, and addresses it indirectly if ever. Psychiatry, with it's love affair for medication, is more of the same.
In fact this is the first such study that I have even heard of, and the use of it is not theraputic at all. Unless the therapy is that of weight reduction of an obese wallet.
A therapy would be interested in looking at stimulus response mechanisms, and learning to help people whose mechanisms are out of whack. {example: I knew a gal whose boy friends, each in turn, all that the same first name. creepy)
This is no such thing. It is research for better mind control of the consumer today.
You would thing that this would be a fruitful area for research if you actually wanted to help folks. But the money seems to be focused elsewhere. I wonder why?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Marketing monkeys have money to throw around using MRIs for product targeting while HMO members have to fight tooth and nail to get HMOs to cough up money to use MRIs for life-and-death situations.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
The machine they put me in was so stinking slow (took 45 minutes to take a few pictures of my brain) I find a study like this worthless. Not to mention, I had to wear hearing protection the thing was so loud. Any stimulation in my brain from an advertisement would be long gone by the time they scanned it.
Of course, it's possibly they used a really "old" MRI machine on me.
until such time as even some of the fraudulent activity associated with our fairytail "economy" aka "markets" is concerned, you may as well plan/research your funeral. you can do EVERYTHING right, only to discover that gov't. supported, evile greed/fear mongers, will appear to asphixiate you, should you threaten to tread on/prosper from, interaction with "their" market, which is J. Public.
don't come crying to US when there's only 2 channels/websites. hiNT: neither of them will be robbIE. MOD me up robbIE, you gno i'm not kidding, right?
http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~kaminssl/TheOnion/perky canada.html
Nothing wrong with it.
Popular science reporting seems the art of taking fairly mundane research and making it sound much more exciting, wonderful, dangerous than it really is. Such as this article for instance.
They are purporting that with MRI scans of people's brains they can "read your unconscious thoughts", like some Orwellian nightmare and then pull these subconscious strings to get you to empty your wallet at the nearest GAP outlet.
Well, being myself a student of the cognitive sciences, I'd like to set a few things clear. The ability to "read thoughts" as purported by this article, while not technically false, is much more primitive than you could imagine.
An MRI of the brain can give you a picutre of what cells are most active at any given point, so you can see relatively what brain centres dominate and try to make inferences from that as to what the person is thinking. Given that our knowledge of brain function is at a very primitive level, the most useful data you can get from this type of scan is "he likes it" or "he doesn't like it". It will not tell you what images, feelings, sounds, associations are passing through the subjects head at any point, only whether they are generally positive or not. Its really no different from putting a bunch of boxes on a chart and asking the person to rate from one to ten how well they like certain things - except you get that rating directly from the brain rather than from asking the person. So in theory this ranking is more "honest" and less clouded by other factors such as social obligations, etc. which might interfere with what a person would say when asked.
The idea that this technology can be used in some Orwellian fashion to understand that secretly you are afraid of rats, or are a pedophile or like the look of women eating juicy mangoes is not going to happen anytime soon. It is unlikely that that level of analysis is ever going to be possible. Ok, end of rant.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
You're kidding, right? We all know Nikes are fast. You can tell because there is this cool "Swoosh" thing on the side. That looks fast.
Through a friend I used to get to do a lot of focus groups. At one for a clothing chain we were asked how important we though it was that the clothes were manufactured in Canada (where I live). Everyone on the panel said that it was ultimately important, except me. I argued that when it came down to it few people actually buy domestically produced goods and that obviously it doesn't matter. I got into quite an arguement with the others until I pointed out that they were all wearing clothes that were not only not made here but were not even Canadian brand names (DKNY, Gap, Tommy Hillfiger, Nike, etc). They wouldn't let us leave until I conceded that buying Canadian was important to me.
This got me thinking about the nature of the focus groups, don't the companies know the opinions they are getting what people say not necessarily what they do? I suspect that the scans will allow for more accurate polling. You could ask a group of women if they like a half naked ad, they may say "no" but their brains might tell a different story.
All your neural pathways are belong to us...
HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
I do think this is treading just over that thin grey line. It's one thing to trick people into buying your product, it's another to actually exploit the inner mechanics of the brain. The parts we all have in common. Kind of a mass invasion of privacy of all humanity. This isn't a slippery-slope argument, I'm saying they've already slipped.
If I understand Bell's Theorem correctly, doesn't it boil down to the fact that we don't really have free will anyway?
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
CUSTOMER THOUGHT (forced or not): ."
."
"I love gas mileage and green planets . .
MARKET RESULT:
"Ford plans to release the electric-hybrid Escape in 2003 . .
You see, mind control rocks.
Now go brush with extra flouride.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
Yet another case of Sam I Am figuring out how to get us to eat those disgusting Green Eggs and Ham:
From Soupyet.com:
Green Eggs and Ham is not what your parents told you. It is not a story about trying something you think is gross and discovering that you might like it. It is a dark tale of the evil implications of the age of information in which we live.
Sam I am is the archetypical villian of modern society. He is the ever-present, ever-persistent marketing puppet of the information age. He peddles his wares incessantly via any and all means, until we give up in desperation and eat those disgusting green eggs and ham. Not only do we eat them, but the parable has us shouting for glee that we love the green eggs and ham that have been forced down our collective, societal throat.
Sam I am is, poet, priest, and politician. But he may also be: boss, parent, spouse, news anchor, movie star, CEO, etc.
Green eggs and ham are the collective physical, emotional, metaphysical and other wares being thrown at us faster and faster in this so-called information age.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think?
If you are in total control of your, as you say, "free will", what do you care if someone attempts to appeal to your interests? Perhaps you are concerned that they are able to make some low-level appeal to your senses below what you can consciously understand but effective enough to influence your behavior? At that point, how would you even know it was happening?
If you don't make yourself available to be targeted by the "tapdancers", then perhaps you won't have to worry about whether or not you are consuming something because you want to or because someone made you think you want to.
Why does everyone bitch about advertising? You don't have to observe it if you don't want to.
Speak truth to power.
Wake up and smell the coffee guys. Marketing people will do anything they can get away with in order to sell YOU more product. Nothing else matters, not ethics, not the environment, not even the law if they can find a way around it. The said part is, we THE PEOPLE let them get away with it. In fact, we lap it up like mother's milk!
Sailguy
Your don't own your free will, you license it. And the subscription fee is due.
Money for nothing, pix for free
How is this different than marketing studies where they have people push buttons based on their like or dislike of a product? It's maybe a little more accurate, but really it's not some radical jump that gives them the ability to brainwash people. If they were actively scanning all people as they passed by a store, that would be one thing, but this is using focus groups of volunteers.
The fact of the matter is that all people walk through this world trying to impress images on others. We're the clever entrepeneur, the sports hero, or the trusted religious leader. In the end no matter the images that are pushed onto people, it doesn't hide the truth of what's underneath for long. The entrepeneur turns out to be a swindler, the sports hero's a thug, and the trusted religious leader is a child molester. So even with all the technology in the world, nobody's going to convince us that we should buy crap that is in fact crap.
Now, if they were pumping people with drugs, or something like that, that'd be a different story. Ultimately this will just refine their abilities a little bit more, and probably sell a few more things. They aren't telling us what to do, and we still possess free will, so I don't see the harm.
Frankly I'd rather that they had fewer more influential ads than slathering their advertising feces over any flat surface on planet earth. Maybe studies like this will help them realize that it's all becoming white noise and that we're just learning to ignore them.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
And as for the Italians.... sheesh
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Personally, I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think?"
Is this saying that broadcast media is the injector? That it's creators are intentionally modifying our dreams for their own ends and that they don't care about the side effects?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Communist system has one hypnotizer...
Free Market system put hypnotizers in direct competition with each other!
I take your 2c, now you senseless!!! HA! HA! HA! Old Hong Kong Joke!
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I seriously doubt any ad developed using this technique will be so effective as to hinder my ability to logically conclude whether or not the product being advertised is actually worth spending money on [entrager]
They are looking for the methafors created while in contact with a product. From this to the total departure from the classical commercial explicitly reminding of a product there are only few steps. How can you defend against a screen-play that is not consciously giving you any hint on the thing they advertise but is creating instead the mental grounds for liking it?
would be that as several people have already mentioned we are mostly capable of recognising marketing manipulation when we see it. What about those that dont, ie kids. Now instead of just petulantly thinking they need the latest and greatest, they will be psychotically convinced their lives have no meaning and are over if they dont get it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
All reguards to Pohl and Kornbluth
I just type my sig in the reply form...
Canada overglorified socialized health care scheme has made MRIs almost unavailable, unless you skip the border with your wallet and get it done in any US hospital. Sounds like this study used the 3 MRI locations in all of Canada to get this ad study done, somebody probably died waiting for that MRI.
Subliminal adverts are below concious perception because the mind typically does not want to see what's there. Typical images that can be seen in ads are of death, rejection and failure and other things that cause emotional distress. Just visit Budwiser, download their images and LOOK at them with higher zoom levels for a while. It's frightening, it's real and it works.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't think they want to decipher what I'm thinking when I'm watching those stupid Old Navy commercials that always come on around Christmas.
Marketplace on CBC, that's a Canadian station for you Americans...
It's not just Americans who haven't heard of CBC.
No one outside Canada cares about the call letters of your pissant stations.
But she doesn't have a problem with neuromarketing -- or any other subconscious probing.
"I think if they can find a way to help us find a way into that magic little feeling that shopping can give you -- if you do it right and you get the right thing and you don't spend too much money, hats off to them. Thank you. I think it's a service."
Since she doesn't have a problem with neuromarketing -- or any other subconscious probing, one could guess that she is quite an easy lay. Go for it /.ers! Most likely she'll overlook your pizza stained sweatpants, as long as you keep repeating, "Geek is Chic...Geek is Chic..."
It's sheepeople like these that are making world domination easy. Make sure you wear a condom when you handily take her womanhood.
for the economy, though. And if that is true, and if the government desires a good economy...then why not use state-mandated Pavlovian instruction techniques starting throughout K-12 public schooling?
Focus groups might even be more effective for the marketer. Want to know if the respondant prefers marketing strategy A or B? Well, for which does he literally drool?
News flash: people who volunteer for medical research aren't always in much of a position to buy consumer products. Maybe the people who might actually buy your sports sedan will think about the car instead of the girl, you know?
It's amazing the things people will willingly do for a study like this. Advertizing psychology does stuff like put little cameras in your living room, to track your eye movement when you watch commercials. Who would volunteer for that to be in her home? Chee-sus! (And who are the people who start fooling around on camera? Supposedly happens, or according to a psych teacher I had anyway.)
Advertizers have no scruples, but are we this willing to participate in the process?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I don't like advertisements tapdancing on the chest of my own free will...What do you think
then it's not free will. how about that?
--
It had to be said...
All I know is that the newest ad on the top banner for Slashdot that keeps flashing FREE in Red hurts my eyes and is about to put me into a seizure...or at least close the site for a couple days.
Now, I'm no genius, but isn't something like this wrong?
Go read a Sociology textbook. There are decades of tales about cult leaders, population control, con artists, etc. Tales about power over other people.
Now go read a Management or Marketing textbook...same thing, but different jargon.
Except now, their tatics will be even more potent, as they manipulate our core humanity against us. Don't be suprised when the hopeless flocks grow even greater than before.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Rhis is disgusting.
...better go for my medication now ;)
All the 'it's no worse than...' posters are already suckers. From the article:
""...getting customers to behave the way they want them to behave," company executive Adam Koval told Marketplace."
wtf?!?! behave how THEY (advertisers) want them to behave... and I know it's not some mind control thing, just WRONG. Why should you behave in any way except for "i like this product/this is good value/etc, I will buy it again" based on experience rather than messages contrived to abuse the physical makeup of anyone who just happens to be exposed to it.
I hope the whores taking the money in the name of research find out too late that there's a serious flaw in the equipment and good ol' Adam Koval (who wants to give advertisers the tools to make 'customers' (i thought a customer is someone who had ALREADY made a purchase... if not then I am a customer for every product that is available?! wtf?!) behave how the vendors want... well, he can just straight die. painfully.
I wont buy anything based on advertisements anyway. And if I find someone has conceived a marketing campaign based on such crap techniques, I'll avoid the advertised product by all means.
Check those facts, please.
These guys are simply trying to find the combinations of images and text that generate the highest positive response in the greatest number of viewers. To the extent that it is useful, it is fair, to the extent that it is bunk, bully for these scientists out-marketing the marketers!
The way around this (greatly oversimplified) is to tune your own filters. From studying neuroscience, one learns that, even more important than the brain's processing functions are the brain's FILTERING functions; these determine what info actually arrives to be processed. For example, outside of the visual cortex, there is an entire center that controls WHERE the eyes look, the pattern in which they move. This selects the information that the cortex sees, since there is actually a very small portion of the visual field that has good focus.
By subtly and not-so-subtly directing your attention, your patterns of info absorption can be improved. We had to learn to read by moving our eyes left to right, and now it seems natural. Similarly, we can learn to look around print and banner ads, to turn our attention elsewhere when TV ads display (or hit the ReplayTV pause/skip buttons), look away from flashing text, etc. Eventually, you will barely see the ads; this is the marketer's worst fate -- to be ignored.
We live in a world different from our ancestors -- the main threat is no longer the saber-tooth tiger lurking in the bush, it is the other human trying to subvert our thoughts to make his living. If you want to thrive, learn to adapt your filtering and response patterns to the world you live in. Or, you can do nothing but gripe and be lunchmeat.
Well, as a Communication Strategist and Designer, (aka, layman's tongue Marketer) I have to say, "Yep, this'd be the next step." What is sorely missing from most all of the comments thus far is the declaration of what marketing is. Everything produced "nowadays" (as in for the past 30 years) considers marketing, everyone makes their "informed decisions" about products that, generally, were created to fulfill a market segment. *GASP* IMPOSSIBLE!? Yes, utility has a lot to do with marketing, hence versions and price ranges and upgrades and add-ons. Sure, the color of a plastic strip sewn into the side of a Nike shoe, the positioning of products on shelves (companies purchase shelf space and position, it's not just up to the major food chains to throw the product wherever they want), the graphic design is focus tested for years... and none of this considers the marketshare strategies (when to saturate, when to disappear, when to recampaign)... but this is just the skin of marketing. What is at the heart of marketing? Basically: finding out what people want, and giving it to them. Do not confuse the more sensationalist tactics of marketing (superbowl commercials, sex, et al) with marketing itself... besides, if you claim you can ignore commercials well, fine, show me how you ignore forming an image of a pink elephant when I mention a pink elephant. That's now in there, at least for a little while, in that real estate known as your brain. What would I have to do to get to to remember pink elephants for longer (don't answer that)? This handy MRI would tell me what YOU want, essentially, without worrying about the noise. Y'know, simplifying the signal chain as much as possible? I just finished reading about a campaign with a sporting good company that got the permission of a store to place cameras into the store to monitor how certain point of purchase displays were being used. Using this information, a new (and improved) point of purchase display was produced and sales of product X increase. People in the store know they're being "watched" and enter an agreement to the surveillance by default inside the store. I wonder if there's a petition I can join to battle surveillance cameras in commercial spaces! Basically: since when is telling me what you want such a bad thing? Especially since I'm asking you? Are you scared because I might tap in on the "purchase mindlessly instinct" and present a commercial not unlike the cat food commercials that were designed to get cats all in a tizzy? That I can fire a sort of Valis beam from the TV that 'forces' you into a neurological, and ultimately consumer, response? I guess the fear is that this could lead into forcing people to do what they don't want, like making you smile when electrocuted. But as user testing stands right now, there's nothing inherently (or even remotely) evil about polling 50,000 people, getting the information, and producing a product that, for that segment, would appear to be successful. And, uh, yeah, if I presented data to a client that stated "in 50,000 MRIs which told us that certain regions of the brain in these people exhibited pleasure" that's a hell of a lot more impressive and realistic than saying "I asked 50,000 people and they told me." Bottomline: don't sign up for the MRI focus groups, that way the products won't necessarily be made for you and you can complain that things aren't the way you'd like them... that's fair. But this whole "marketing is automatically evil" spiel is ill-informed. I'm sure the Psychic Friends told you that, though.
-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
It's the eventual political application of this. Politicians appealing directly to the subconcious and potentially overriding the concious/rational choices (we hope) the public would make.
You Are Being Lied To.
Everyone seems to be assuming that this is an exact science. I doubt we understand the brain that well yet.
"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't"
SQUID: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gc i816722,00.html
This has more to do with quantum computing and indicates quantum level information storage in the brain. No controls can circumvent false results in these cases. It wouldn't be scientifically valid and its a confidence game, probably to illicit funds from dumb companies.
I'm generally appalled by people claiming something is impeding their free will, when everythings obviously a predetermined (fatal) equation iterating.
Like, when you eat some food and it tastes bad is that tapdancing on your free will because now you most likely won't eat it anymore?
"There is a motive for every movement"
-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
On second thought, it probably wouldn't take off. How would you market it?
2+2 IS 5
Well, here are my answers -- this is pretty easy?:
Adhesive gauze strip?.....Store brand.
Acetametaphine?...........Store brand.
Chlorine Bleach?..........Store brand.
Pressed Chicken Strips?...Breast meat, not "pressed." (yuck)
Facial Tissue?............Store brand.
Battery?..................Cheapest. Alkaline.
Any questions?
Yeah, I'm jaded. Advertisers barely bother with me, so my favorite shows keep getting cancelled.
you want to know how to influence people to buy your product? make a quality product at a reasonable price....
want an example? SAAB minivan verses a GM minivan... they are BOTH identical.. I really dont give a rats ass about manufacturers claims and nobody really truely cares that SAAB is supposedly safer... yet GM minivans outsell SAAB minivans almost 5 to 1. Why?? because SAAB is horribly overpriced for what it is. People in general, when they dont have tons of money that they dont know what to do with care most about quality+price..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Break out yer tinfoil hats, boys!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
just on aside, anyone try to print the article using mozilla 1.2.1? have crashed several times.
If they were to analize my brain, and advertise accordingly to me, I would be in bliss.
24 hours of a naked Natalie Portman dancing around and singing the virtues of hot grits.
I hate it when TV viewers explode in my living room.
They want to make sure the ad works.
An ad works if it sells the product.
So, you have to correlate running the ad with your revenues while the ad was running.
If you can find an fMRI signal that correlates with successful ads, then you can skip the statistics, and just run the ads that have a good chance of generating sales.
All they are doing is saving the expense of running ads that don't work.
Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
Didja even look at it at all? /. crowd would (mostly) love it.
Adbusters is a magazine that runs anti-ads (like boycotting Black Friday) and has some pretty great articles as well. You should grab one next time you hit a (larger) bookstore. It's actually really interesting stuff. The
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
What I want to know is, where are they getting the people to lie still and take a brain scan while looking at ads? Are there really people out there who like ads sufficiently to do that? Are they paying a really, really rowrbazzle lot of money?!
Are the experimental subject people crazy?! I mean, what's the angle here? I mean, what do they say to putative volunteers, "Oh, we're going to bombard you with commercials and take pictures of your thoughts while we do it, so we can make more and more irresistable ads"? I don't get it.
I mean, the research is one thing. You have to admit that, since the crawling slime are running out of venues in which to place their scrofulous offerings, they must want to make them work better (although I doubt that will lessen the saturation level!). However, where (and how) are they finding their research subjects?
This isn't precisely the kind of research they can do on rhesus monkeys or something (although with the way ads are now, you'd think they were written by planaria for rhesus monkeys, or something), but who's giving that famous "informed consent"?
Eeek! An entirely new meaning of the ad-copy phrase "Not tested on animals"!
--shudder-- Ok, I'm scaring myself. I'd better stop now.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Learn to think critically and at the same time don't take yourself so seriously that you become overly critical.
A good mind is a terrible thing to waste.
... but nobody's forcing you to watch TV. Though I suppose that's not the only medium to which this technology might be applied.
...is how people desperate enough to partake in Advertising Focus Groups respond to stimuli.
It just so happens that I am reading a book called Digitopia by Richard DeGrandpre. In it he says that the collection of images that we view, whether it's on TV, in the movies, or online, fundamentally alters our brain chemistry in a way that causes us to behave differently than if we had not been exposed to such a stimulus. A typical person has watched thousands of commercials on TV, or seen thousands of banner ads if you have done any surfing of the Web. His implications are that we are moving toward a virtual world-- with virtual selves. He cites The Matrix as being an example of an alternative future for mankind-- a kind of "homework lesson" for what might be the shape of things to come.
So, the notion of "neuromarketing" doesn't seem so fantastic to me-- it just shows how brazen some corporations are that they would contemplate using it. As for the images that we have been exposed to in our media viewing, it rots away our humanity-- real life becomes not good enough, not fast enough, for the "jacked in" user. Digitopia has me questioning all of the things I am doing, or want to do, with IT. DeGrandpre paints a picture of a human world that is moving toward virtuality, to the exclusion of any kind of social sphere. His view is that we have rotted away the social sphere we had before visual media came along, too. "Neuromarketing" is just part of the package, even though it seems to be more pernicious than regular marketing or any other media content. Contrast this view with The Cluetrain Manifesto, whose authors believed that the Internet was a liberating vehicle for self-expression.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
...could be regarded as nothing but a soothing illusion.
:-)
Look at it like this: If you really have a free will, what's the problem? Just say no if they want you to buy something. If someone can influence you to do what he/she/they want you to do, your will wasn't free in the first place, right? All of us are manipulated by others a thousand times a day and we do manipulate others just as often, without even noticing it.
Nevertheless, advertisements somehow really ARE evil.
They make people want to have more stuff than they can afford. So there is always something that you want but cannot have. Also, you have to choose between several more or less similar products, and whatever you choose, you'll still think you're missing something because you didn't take the other one.
This, indeed, makes people depressive; mostly they will not even know the reason for their dissatisfaction.
Example: The annoying beer commercials designed to associate their beer with having fun. I know that's what they are doing, so I know to ignore the commercial.
You must not understand the concept of the subconscious mind. Sure, you can consciously resist these beer commercials but it sounds like these companies are trying to tap into our subconscious minds - which is difficult or impossible to resist.
There's alot going on in our heads beyond the stuff that we're aware of. Advertisers already play to this, but the more they know about the physiology of how our brains work, the more influence they'll have over our purchasing decisions -- whether we realize it or not.
In that, each layer is independant. What happens at the hardware layer is independent of the data flow.
While there is a great deal of intergration, I suspect that using this model would be useful.
In this regard, monitoring the blood flow would not be useful in assessing the problem of the girl I mentioned above.
Just like monitoring the flow of electrons in a computer would not help you address and correct a problem in a data base. You could eventually sort out which bits are located where, etc but it is really the long, slow, and wrong way to go about it. You do do not address a database via mechanical or basic electronic fixes.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Areas of the brain can be lit up that the subject is unaware of.
You need to have some amount of free will to understand when it's being impinged on. If you don't feel even a little twinge whenever you think about others controlling your life, it means you are devoid of free will and have no ambition of possesing it.
Getting a person who has free will to do something aginst his will requires breaking of that will in some manner. Breaking of free will is the science of marketing. This is the science television viewers subject themselves to for extended periods of time.
You are not invincible, you will not live forever, you are vulnerable to suggestion, you can be broken. Control the information that goes into your head.
I doubt that the approach is much more than a way for the agency to claim that its approach is more reliable than traditional focus groups.
it's kind of cool from a neuroscience perspective, though.
Amazing magic tricks
Canada has -broadcasting-?
If you haven't done so already, I'd recommend reading The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl with C. M. Kornbluth. It's a wonderful book, and it highlights where stuff like this can go in the not-too-distant future.
I mean really... if you don't want them scanning your brain, don't let them! It's not like they can carry around a portable brain scanner and scan random people on the street. The equipment used is large and oftentimes requires the scanee to soak their head in electrolyte (basically salt water). Yes, I've had something similar done to me before.
If they say, "Well, we really want to scan your brain...", tell them it'll cost them. Charge them as much as you personally feel your brainwaves/intrests are worth.
Wow... I think I just camed up with a great new business model...
1. Think
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
;-)
These are not the Cokes we're looking for.
Just another reason to use proxmitron and an ad-blocking firewall to me, and to take my TV apart and use it for spare parts...
Now, what I'm really interested in is the effect it would have on wierd people like me, as well as other people. For all they know, they could make a mistake and control people to buy the compeditors product or, when you start layering these commercials ontop of eachother, you may start making homicidal maniacs.
There is only so much garbage the human mind can handle before it begins to either learn to filter it out or the individual stops functioning normally. The subliminal mind isn't something these advertising agencies should be using to control consumers.
In the end, the idea of advertising is to get an entry into the consumers brain about your product and if they are interested, they buy it. It is not to control the consumer. especailly if they don't want what you are trying to sell them.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
... in "Venus, Inc.", by Fred Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. The second story has a character who is bombarded by an advertisement that induces an addition to the product (Mokie-Coke). He becomes an instant "Mokehead".
Where do you live? You can't sell blood where I come from -- there are specifically rules against it, which is probably due to a bunch of heads rolling in the '80s when they found out a bunch of people were transfused with tainted blood -- HIV and Hep. C. At least where I come from (if not where you are) there is a perception that anybody who'd be wanting to sell blood is probably a bad risk as a donor...
Do people hate needles more than being exposed to ads for long periods of time? For me that's a tough call, and you'd think with all the comments about anti-spam this and anti-popup that around here...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
What would be cool would be to hook up a bunch of /.ers to
such a device and note which brain areas light up, which
become dim, which go totally dark, etc.,
based on which posts are being read.
This sort of thing might eventually become the basis for
a new kind of moderation system.
----------
Manifesto for the Peoples of the Third Millennium
I was talking about America, where AFAIK it is not illegal anywhere to sell blood plasma. Look up "Sera-Tec" or "Plasma Center" on google. You'll find at least one plasma center in any college town and in the poorer sections of any city. In fact the American Red Cross has been having a hard time finding blood donors for the past few years due to the success of these centers. I did it myself a few times as a teenager - if you can't find a job, you can always sell your plasma twice a week and make up to $40. That's more than a week of groceries - a big difference to someone who really needs the money. And these places are modern, high-tech commercial operations. They screen potential sellers thoroughly before they'll let them near the needle - or at least they claim to, and the places I went to certainly did.
What this has to do with advertising, I can't remember. Oh yeah, there are worse ways to make a few bucks than sitting still for ads. It might even be comparatively interesting to some people.
I think that if you buy into the belief that advertisers can actually control what you buy, with this or any other technique, then you have no free will anyway and what the advertisers do is moot.
The problem is (and others have touched on this) is that people don't THINK about what they buy anymore. They let other people do the thinking for them, because it's easier. The fashion industry is the perfect example. Every year they come out and tell people what they should wear this year. People aren't being controlled... they've abdicated control over their lives to others. There's a difference.
And you know what? It's all those mindless droids out there who create opportunity for those people who can and do use their heads. It's up to each individual to decide which type of person they want to be...
You! Yes, YOU! Out of the gene pool!
Who gives a shit what tactic they take?
If you don't look at ALL advertising as inherently biased, untrustworthy and disingenuous, you deserve what you buy. Advertising, the more effect, the more it should turn you off. What advertising actually presents a balanced view of a product or service, pros AND CONS? None, zero, zilch.
If you can't filter the input from your senses and discern advertising from fact, than it is a service to society to separate you from your money.
Where do you live? You can't sell blood where I come from -- there are specifically rules against it, which is probably due to a bunch of heads rolling in the '80s when they found out a bunch of people were transfused with tainted blood -- HIV and Hep. C. At least where I come from (if not where you are) there is a perception that anybody who'd be wanting to sell blood is probably a bad risk as a donor...
Interesting... question, where does your country get the blood for transfusions?
Or even the plasma for leukemia victims? (I believe they use certain parts of the plasma for leukemia patients)
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
If Microsoft had used this they may not have used a butterfly as the MSN mascot.
I guess it didn't occured to the Microsoft management that using a bug for a Microsoft mascot wasn't a good idea.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Not blood, blood PLASMA. Different. They suck out blood, run it thru a centrifuge-like thing that sucks out the clear plasma (white blood cells, mostly, I think), then put the blood back in.
:)
I know because I did it once (for $50, not $10) when I desperately needed some cash as an 18-yr- old kid. I forget what for, but I'm sure it was something critical like booze, drugs, or girls.
BTW, for some off reason there was a sliding scale -- $50 for first donation within 6months or some simlilar time frame, then $40 for the next, lss for the next, with a max/time limit. I think the reason is you have less plasma each time. Which is scary, if you think about it
IANAL, but I think it's legal to sell blood plasma anywhere in the US.
everything in moderation
We get blood for transfusions from unpaid donors. In fact, if I remember correctly, there are actually laws against selling blood (or buying it) here.
Would people in the US really not give blood if they weren't paid for it? That's kind of scary.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Blood comes from blood DONORS. That is, people who give thier blood willingly for free (unless you count a cookie and a glass of OJ as compensation).
everything in moderation
From the article:
"The potential for good and the potential for ill are both huge here. I don't know what we will call brainwashing, but until we come up with a better term, I would suggest it's at least a kissing cousin."
"That's completely unfounded. It has nothing to do with controlling consumer thought...nothing to do with manipulating consumer thought. All we can do is observe and learn," Brighthouse's Koval says.
Yeah, observe and learn how to control their thoughts. Doesn't the potential for abuse outway the societal benefits here?
moto411.com
Ah, but I don't live in "America". Well, I live in North America, but I don't live in the United States of America, which is what I think you mean. Which also explains why I didn't know that the US encourages people to give blood by paying them. An unsurprising development, but nevertheless, something I didn't know.
In retrospect, I'm sure that neuromarketers probably find ample volunteers by paying enough money to recruit them, but as I said in my original post, you'd have to pay a lot to interest me...for two reasons. Number one is that I just hate ads, and number two is that I'd hate to think I was helping the suppurating advertising pustules. One would think that (because of the widespread dislike of ads) they would have a hard time coming up with volunteers, but I guess not.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
These are the three things that get peoples attention. Most sucessful ad campaigns are based on steering the consumers fear, the notion of novelty, or sexual stimulation (libido).
Perhaps the guy talking about the subliminal message hoax is on the right track here. Perhaps this is a novelty ploy on the part of the psychologists to sell their new novel process to advertisment makers.
The advertisers don't sell advertising campaigns to consumers, they sell to advertisment buyers.
Look at the INTEL ads. They are not selling computers to consumers, they are selling ad campaigns to INTEL executives.
Kind of like fishing tackel salesmen don't sell fishing lures to fish... They sell fishing lures to fishermen.
This may be a scheme to sell a new advertisment making tool to advertisment makers.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
Seriously. If they want me to buy more, they should focus on making better quality products rather than focusing on trying to make the ads better.
/. readers) am not most people.
I don't care how awesome they make the parties look, or how much they pump up the fake breasts of their beer girls. I still won't buy Budwizer, because it is a low-quality product I don't need.
Likewise, I won't buy MAXIM hair coloring no matter WHAT they make the girls in the ad do to the guys in the ad.
Sadly, _I_ (or most
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
At what point does marketing become so good that I am no longer responsible for the purchases I make?
What if they can determine that a certain sequence of images and sounds can make a person incredibly hungry for McDonalds? Could people then sue the marketers for making them fat?
This kind of research is scary. Given time, could we push marketing into the realm of mind control?
This just proves that advertising _is_ the root of all evil.
This reminds me of the monkey brain experiments. It's no wonder there are so many porno sites! They've already done these experiments and already found out what sells the best!
;-)
Damn! I wonder if it's too late to buy stock in this!
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
...all you can do is bitch about it. Because if companies want to do the research they can. Monitoring responses in the brain to stimuli is legitiment. Using the results in ads is an exercise of free speech. I'm just glad I don't watch television very often.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
you know what's going on, right?
if i'm not mistaken, the that's that's parsed is as such:
y = 1 / (2 * pi);
since y is an int, and 1 / (2 * pi) is obviously less than 1, y = 0; try putting parens around the 1/2 and see what you get.
The other reason you might not know that is because it's not actually true. Firstly, giving plasma is a little different than giving blood. Secondly, the US isn't doing it - companies within the US are doing it. The only role the US is playing here is that it refrains from making it illegal.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
that's a Canadian station for you Americans
.. and what is it for us in the rest of the world?
get xited
I know people who go to focus groups, try to answer as dishonestly as they can, and manipulate the discussions to get everyone else to agree with them. They take the $50, eat the food, and leave. The marketing types who run the focus groups somehow are so gullible they accept everything at face value, or they don't care, or they are trained to accept bullshit. Perhaps the last option sounds like the most likely... since that's what they're trying to do to the rest of the population, feed us crap and they expect us to eat it up. Could you do some neurohacking, so that with feedback training, you could light up the section of your brain that means LIKE when you're feeling DISLIKE and vice versa? Or maybe you could reverse your digestive system, eat through your butthole, and crap out your mouth. Oh, yah, that describes someone who works in marketing/advertising...
The belief that one is not affected by advertising is one of the single most effective bits of mind control currently in play.
Society and culture have been largely defined by media and advertisers, perhaps unwittingly, though in some of the darker ways, I tend to think it is entirely intentional.
Example. .
The Shaving Razor. Razor blade companies were selling to Men who shaved the hair from their faces. They sold many razors and all was good. Until one day some bright spark realized, "You know. . . Our market share appears to be limited to exactly half the population. But if we could somehow get women to shave as well, then we might effectively double our income! Now how can we go about doing this. . ?"
It started with leg hair, and then over the years it progressed to hair under the arms. --When I was small, I remember that my mother and her friends had hairy under-arms and nobody batted an eyelid. It was normal. This, of course, is no longer the case. The psychology used was that of body hair being, "Dirty". This message was directed at both men and women.
The move was very, very effective, and it took less than 100 years to fully implement. (Shaving genital hair is now becoming normal.) The linking of sexual desirability to hairlessness was not an essential, natural & biological foregone conclusion. (Please forgive me for quoting Desmond "the Conceited Hack Blo-Hard" Morris), but in some cultures, female facial hair is actually a turn-on. While certain aspects of physicality are universally appealing; symmetry, healthy skin, etc., the desirability of how hairy one is, is very much a manipulable one, and the top ad people know this.
Partly through this progressive altering of culture and the resulting sales of thousands of stupid grooming products, certain generalities were discovered. .
It was learned that reinforcing negative self-image in the public was both easy to do and highly effective in turning people into good consumers. By association, it was learned that creating rifts between the sexes and between friends, by nurturing impossible 'ideals' which we all have been told to want in our friends and lovers, and by reinforcing our belief that Consumer Products will not fail us when our friends and loved ones do. . . our entire society, the way we think, the way we teach our kids, the way we address all kinds of critical issues, has been invisibly altered in enormous, fundamental ways.
They are now selling anti-depressants in women's magazines! --Prozac, among others, is now available in a variety of forms, even mixed with birth control pills. "Nobody wants a grouchy girl friend!"
Don't think Anti-depressants are so bad? (They're just pills, after all; everybody is taking them.) Well, where do you think that idea came from?
It's unacceptable for kids to 'misbehave', (act like kids). --That is, when you try to make kids sit in rows for hours on end, they naturally go loopy. And this is now also controlled with drugs, and considered normal! How? Why, you popularize 'diseases' like 'Attention Deficit Disorder'. Different kids are going to have shorter or longer attention spans, and some are going to be downright hard to deal with, and some may even have real psychological anomalies, but this represented a very small slice of the population only fifty years ago; why is it that today we are mass-drugging millions of kids? One out of every three people I know today has been on, or is currently addicted to anti-depressants!
Social programming, with the result of million dollar profits for the food and drug companies.
And this is just one of an endless number of examples.
--Another of my current favorite examples of an ad which people don't see the full darkness of is a recent IKEA commercial. --Perhaps you've seen it: "Mom, Dad, I'm pregnant." -To which the father explodes in a rage and accuses the mother of being a bad influence, "I'm not the one who smoked dope in college!" A fucked up, stressed out scene of family strife. Then an IKEA sales appears in the scene and in a warm manner asks the couple if they'll be taking the living room set, to which the couple warmly accept.
I've seen this style used in a number of places. It works like this:
The upsetting emotional scene acts as a psychological opener on the viewer, setting up a variety of conditions in the brain. When this state is at its height, the scene shifts abruptly to one with a warm and genial message, effectively solving and soothing the alarmed state in the viewer.
And this is not merely intellectual in nature. Brain chemistry changes and the way stimulus responses as recorded by evolving synaptic pathways are all understood in exacting detail by science.
The end result? --The brain associates IKEA with something which can instantly remove stress and alarmed states. Further, it plays on the, "You Can't Depend On People," lie with which we are hammered daily.
It extends far beyond advertising. Either by design or by default, it extends to popular programming. Shows like the aptly named, "Friends," displays both impossible standards as 'normal' as well as the 'appropriate' role model reactions we should have when those impossible standards are not met. Look at all television shows. These attitudes, the dispicable people on Seinfeld, were not normal, but they are becoming so! It's all part of the same game.
And I'm sorry, but 'Will Power' alone will not protect you from these sorts of psyche manipulations. --Though the ad industry likes to quietly promote that "Advertising doesn't really affect you," so as to ensure that people don't know that they need to put up their guard in certain ways. --And this in itself, the belief that "Ads don't affect me," is a perfect example of successful advertising.
The only defense is Knowledge. Knowledge Protects. If you know about this stuff, if you can see this stuff, then it becomes much, much, much easier to block it. To keep yourself off mind-numbing drugs, to keep yourself away from toxic foods, to keep yourself out of dangerous, draining work places and to treat your friends and loved ones with the enormous respect and care they deserve.
Don't be fooled. Don't be used. There is a full psy-war being waged out there every day against you and me, and while it is being driven by greed, its effects reach far, far beyond the simple question of whether or not you will buy Brand X beer or Brand N shoes.
Very simply, if you don't learn how the war is fought, you are lunch.
-Fantastic Lad
And I will pay not to have to experience it. But there are no services available that don't require it.
Pay TV has ads. Free TV has ads. The books I buy and the movies I buy and the movies I pay to go see all want to get their hooks in my brain and my families brain. There is no justification for this when I'm paying for the product or service in question.
We need a new rule: ANY service offered with adversizing MUST be also offered in an advert-free version. I'll pay... just get your hooks out of my kids brain.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
In Soviet Russia, two cents take YOU!!!
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Well... here in Australia, we donate blood and blood plasma voluntarily. While there is a bit of a crunch on at the moment ( particularly for some rare types ), supplies have held up reasonably... since we started having such a program.
I was donating blood about a week ago, and the place was packed. Dunno what its like overseas.
Battery?..................Cheapest. Alkaline.
Don't use many batteries, or don't use them long, I take it?
I gave up on the evil Alkalines and went with the Nickle Metal Hydride rechargables. Sure, two will cost you $6 but you'll be using them for years. Plus, in most devices they last as long as regular Alkaline. After three recharges, they've paid for themselves. After about 5 or 6 more, they've paid for the charger.
Oh, wait? What was that? A plug? Oh huh!? OH! Yes, see, if a company makes a GREAT product, people will tell other people ABOUT IT.
Maybe companies should spend less on advertising, and spend more on making their products worth a shit?
hey ins't this ridiculous. this is like knowing our opinion/answer to something without our consent. what if i did like their product but didn't want to tell them about it in the hope of a better deal ?
I think you've got a thing or two mixed up here. Apologies if I wasn't clear.
First, it's not whole blood that you sell, it's blood plasma - white blood cells. You get hooked up to a machine, it extracts a bunch of your blood, filters out the plasma into a bag, and returns your red blood cells into you mixed with a saline solution so you don't get sick. I think selling whole blood is illegal, but that's never what I was talking about.
Second, the US government doesn't pay anybody for blood or blood plasma. These "plasma centers" are owned by private-sector corporations who resell the plasma to larger biomedical organizations.
I doubt there is much demographic overlap between people who are in the market to sell their plasma (or do paid studies) and people who are overly concerned about invasive advertising.
The "Swoosh!" thing is just a logo. Unlike big spoilers on Honda Civics, the "swoosh!" doesn't actually make the shoes any faster.
What makes Nikes fast is that they are the running shoes of choice for the Olympic gods. In particular, the educated ones here will quickly confirm, Nike is the name of the goddess of victory. So not only are they fast enough to get you into the Olympics, they're the shoes of victory herfest.
So pay no attention to the logo. But, if you want to make your Nikes even faster than they are out of the box, write "Type R" on them.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Blood. And Kidneys. And Corneas. And Skin (no, I'm not kidding). And Bone Marrow. And stuff.
And even more vital organs.
And most of it is done legally, via corporations, governmental institutions, companies, go-betweens, doctors, nurses, etc.
From the world over to (usually) upper North America and Europe.But also inside uN.A. and Europe.
Special procedures can be bought "over-the-border". Depending on the country or political aggregate, that means different (and sometimes reciprocal) sites.
Some really wacked stuff used to go on in blissful and boring Switzerland. Most of such stuff would have since moved further into Eastern Europe. Morocco is still going strong, though.
Not to mention volunteering for "Medical" or "University" research. Out of altruism and (sometimes) hundreds of US$. Or reduced sentences.
Everything from sitting for hours in ice water to being pricked again and again, tossed till you puke, to being injected with all sorts of foul gook (antifreeze, mild virii.... etc.).
It sounds like Menghele's Auschwitz, but it's just normal research.
And many students flock to it for those few extra bucks. The unemployed and homeless, for some strange reason, seem to do so even more eagerly.
Personally, I'd consider prostitution before I'd led a marketing guy anywhere near my subconcious mind...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Marketplace on CBC, that's a Canadian station for you Americans...". Is the author guilty of doing to the rest of the world that which he/she is having a shot at the Americans for doing to him/her ?
Open source digital (or quantum, why not?) AI video filters that screen and defuse all subliminal advertising (kinda like video spam filters) are long overdue.
Maybe eyeglasses (contact lenses ?) that do the same for printed ads, too.
It is absolutely inane to have to pay through the nose for stale video entertainment (cable) or nonexistent (open air) and still have to endure commercials. And then pay again for every event they deem "coinable".
Simply said, they're sharks and confolk, the "consumers" are really marks. "Fork it over!".
Umm... No.
Your prime example of "good advertising" is a market and ad campaign that are really excellent evidence that ads aren't about *any* of apparent informational content they offer about the product, but are about stoking fears, creating desires for otherwise useless stuff and associating a particular brand with "happy making" images when the time comes to alleviate the manufactured "need".
Specifically, bleached disposable menstrual products are a dangerous sham based on manufactured shame that prevents women from finding out about better products.
From my understanding, using this technique we can only look at what parts of the brain respond when someone views an adv. Is this really going to tell us whether someone will buy the product. If someone likes the adv and hates the product, what will there response be.
they would find out that I will never buy a Ford because of that sheepfucker cowboy who fails to respect his own limitations and boundaries and refuses to compromise thinks (relatively speaking) highly of his pickup.
They also would conclude that the blonde woman from the Old Navy commercials is a bad mom.
They would also find negative reaction to any commercial featuring Donald Trump and Grimace plotting to take over the world in some high-rise boardroom with one dollar hamburgers.
They would take the hint and stop running these 3 commercials I don't like.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
If you shoot youself in the head so as to not succumb to our neuroads you are stealing!
I don't see what the problem is here either - they are not giving _you_ MRI scans, and they will probably just come up with one answer - Sex sells.
It's not really like they are developing mind control techniques here - I doubt they will get any greater effect than advertisers have already gotten using sex to sell products. Maybe insead of sex it will be something else.
So you have nothing to worry about. I mean, you don't go out and buy every product that is advertised with pictures of chicks in bikinis, do you? Hmmm. Actually I've just thought of all the people who have taken up smoking..because of marketing..
Maybe we should start worrying...
and I don't fuck sheep.
Sincerely yours,
Chevy Truck Owners of America
Plasma is not the same as white blood cells. Plasma is what your white blood cells float in.
I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. I read books. I guess I'm lucky I'm not under arrest yet ;)
yeah, yeah.
We get blood for transfusions from unpaid donors. In fact, if I remember correctly, there are actually laws against selling blood (or buying it) here.
Ahh, okay, I didn't realize there were so many blood donors. I'm going to deduce from that sentence that they spin the blood down and use the plasma.
Would people in the US really not give blood if they weren't paid for it? That's kind of scary.
People give blood in America.. but the choice is there. Actually, the selling part is mostly plasma. I don't see what is scary about it considering the current state of the economy, and the prices charged to patients when a transfusion is done... (or prices of some of the treatments made from the plasmas)
But yes.. the Red Cross accepts blood donations on a daily basis. After September 11th, they had to turn people away because they had too much blood.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
It's not packed, but it's a bit frantic at times, from what I've seen.
Thanks for letting me know. (you know us Americans, always with our heads up our butts.)
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Like plastic springs (in the heel? are you supposed to jump off your heel?
I would assume that the springs are supposed to cushion the foot on landing.
Unless you're into excersize that involves foot travel, $20 should be enough for a pair of generic shoes or sneakers.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
The ability to watch an area of a persons brain light up that contains tens (or hundreds) of thousands of individual neurons in response to some ad visual amounts to nothing other than a high tech parlor trick. As organisims we are infinitely more complex. Advertisers however may latch on to this as a method that they may use to give them an edge in the market place. On the whole, our free will is quite safe.
It should also be pointed out that information of (probably) higher quality can be obtained via methods that have been around for ages: heart rate, blood flow, breathing rate, rate of blinking, pupil dilation, etc. etc. So what's the point of using a horrendously expensive MRI?
With patents being extended to being forever I'm going to guess that Oog the Cave Salesmen is going to sue for his patent.
Sales has been about trying to hyponotise people into buying your product.
Otherwise we'd just have "Windows: It works" "Linux: It works better. so say IBM" "Macintosh: It's easy and powerful" "Solarus: It's better than the rest" "Nintendo: Videogames"
I don't actually exist.
The harder you look for something, the more likely it is that you will find it, whether it exists or not.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey