JessFilmAnnotation9

Film Annotation #9 // The Persuaders // word count: 773

1. //The Persuaders// was directed by Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin in 2003.

2. The film investigated the techniques and methods that today’s advertising industry is using to try to convince consumers to need their product.

3. The film makes this argument by presenting a lot of examples of advertising techniques and by interviewing experts in the field. Expert information is provided and the film even shows its effectiveness. They show how particular phrases can elicit specific and predetermined emotional responses. These techniques are finding their way into politics. ‘Climate change’ sounds less scary than ‘global warming’, just as people were outraged that there was a ‘death tax’ but overlooked an ‘estate tax’. The film definitely has emotional appeal because the audience feels themselves reacting to these terms and the techniques in the expected manner and then realizes the levels of manipulation that goes into the advertising industry.

4. The film shows many different sustainability problems. It shows the issues when media manipulation enters the political arena. It also shows how economics is what has turned industries to seek these methods to convince consumers that they need their products. It displays the issues with our culture when we are constantly and consistently bombarded with media and information in our daily lives and the effect that this has on our society.

5. I found the specific examples to be the most compelling part of the film. It is fascinating to see the difference a few words can make on the entire impact of a speech or an ad. Our emotions have, unknowingly, given a lot of power to the media industry who are now beginning to investigate how best to play with those emotions. It is also very interesting to see the techniques being used in a number of different industries. A commercial airline attempted to use the same sort of methods as a product design company, but then their audience got confused as to what their product actually was. This is interesting, because it shows that you can convince a consumer that they want a specific emotion but that you still have to manage to sell a product in the process, and only by the sale are you successful.

6. I was not compelled by the fact that the film did not strongly say, this is bad, or this is good. The impression was supposed to be that the entire situation was bad, but through the interviews with the experts, I felt that this argument got undermined because they showed how effective their techniques are, which simply muddled the idea into showing that the effects are scary, but have great potential.

7. The film best addresses the American consumer audience, so anyone who wants to see the effect that our media-centric lives has on our overall culture and the impact of this effect.

8. I think overall the film had a very good educational value. Something that could have enhanced it would have been to show the history of the media on our lives. It also felt a little dated in the examples it showed.

9. The film states that a method of intervention is that if the practices of the persuasion business are exposed, it puts the choice back in the consumers’ hands. Consumers need to stay skeptical of ads and need to look at a product for what it is, not what it is trying to be or what it is trying to sell. The most effective intervention is reminding the consumer that the choice is in their hands. From personal experience I found that I switched shampoos and didn’t like the new one and then realized that three of my tv shows were advertising for the same shampoo that I had just bought. I have now switched to an organic one. The choice is ours.

10. The film also compelled me to look into subliminal advertising. There are regulations on how many images per second a film can show to prevent the addition of subliminal messages. The most common image is one of death. Sexual images are also extremely common and in Disney movies. Pepsi had a can of soda that when stacked in the proper way spelt SEX and CocaCola has had sexual images in the ice cubes of vending machines before. Sex sells and some advertising agencies take full advantage of this. “11 Hidden Messages in Food Ads and Logos.” 2010. []

This is a youtube video on the scary effect images in our daily lives shape the way we think. “Derren Brown – Mind Control.” 2008. []