Unfortunately, this is how most modern media -- be it advertising... news... fiction... politics -- catches the attention of viewers in an over-saturated media market: FEAR.
Fear is the element that trumps all other concerns. When people have to do attentional triage just to get through the day, then anything that's quiet, reassuring or non-immediate can realistically be ignored.
But not fear.
Ignoring fear literally could get you or someone you love killed or screw up their lives forever.
Perniciously, when evoking fear becomes the only sure-fire way to get noticed, then everything must be re-cast in terms of fear to make the cut: Fear of lacking Product X, fear of ignorance of Danger Y, even just the minor fear of missing Entertainment Z.
It's like being locked in an over-loud party room where everyone could hear who they're talking to if only the loudmouth next to them would quiet down. But the loudmouth won't ever quiet down unless forced to, so everyone else has to shout to the person next to them just to be heard above the general din. Unless there's a lot of free booze, parties like this tend not to be very enjoyable.
There was a seminal book on effective advertising back in the '50s? '60s? which basically was the first to authoritatively say, in essence, that bad breath itself didn't sell mouthwash, fear of bad breath sold mouthwash. After that, products became oriented to addressing peoples' perceptions of their problems, not their actual problems.
The next logical step was for professional attention-seekers to realize that the population's perceptions of trivial or non-existent problems could be inflated and then exploited to create a sustainable non-productive lifestyle pandering non-solutions to non-problems.
While disdainful, the real problem with this practice is that the individual people in the population do have real problems, sometimes quite serious real problems, that they need to be dealing with effectively, and being swindled out of their time & money blocks them from being able to do so.
Here's a now-classic example:
BOGUS PROBLEM: fear that your life does not embody the rugged, individualistic masculine ideal.
BOGUS SOLUTION: smoke cigarettes, like that rugged, individualistic masculine ideal cowboy in the ads.
REAL-WORLD OUTCOME: product does not transform you into a rugged, individualistic masculine ideal; product is habit-forming, becomes expensive with prolonged use; habitual use degrades respiratory health, sometimes causing illness and death.
There was a seminal book on effective advertising back in the '50s? '60s? which basically was the first to authoritatively say, in essence, that bad breath itself didn't sell mouthwash, fear of bad breath sold mouthwash. After that, products became oriented to addressing peoples' perceptions of their problems, not their actual problems.
I read that book in high school for a paper I was writing. It was like reading the modern version of Machiavelli (which I had read a couple of years prior). Everything was directed towards getting the intended result, no matter what the ethics of the actions you had to take.
Fear is the element that trumps all other concerns. When people have to do attentional triage just to get through the day, then anything that's quiet, reassuring or non-immediate can realistically be ignored.
But not fear.
Ignoring fear literally could get you or someone you love killed or screw up their lives forever.
Perniciously, when evoking fear becomes the only sure-fire way to get noticed, then everything must be re-cast in terms of fear to make the cut: Fear of lacking Product X, fear of ignorance of Danger Y, even just the minor fear of missing Entertainment Z.
It's like being locked in an over-loud party room where everyone could hear who they're talking to if only the loudmouth next to them would quiet down. But the loudmouth won't ever quiet down unless forced to, so everyone else has to shout to the person next to them just to be heard above the general din. Unless there's a lot of free booze, parties like this tend not to be very enjoyable.
There was a seminal book on effective advertising back in the '50s? '60s? which basically was the first to authoritatively say, in essence, that bad breath itself didn't sell mouthwash, fear of bad breath sold mouthwash. After that, products became oriented to addressing peoples' perceptions of their problems, not their actual problems.
The next logical step was for professional attention-seekers to realize that the population's perceptions of trivial or non-existent problems could be inflated and then exploited to create a sustainable non-productive lifestyle pandering non-solutions to non-problems.
While disdainful, the real problem with this practice is that the individual people in the population do have real problems, sometimes quite serious real problems, that they need to be dealing with effectively, and being swindled out of their time & money blocks them from being able to do so.
Here's a now-classic example:
BOGUS PROBLEM: fear that your life does not embody the rugged, individualistic masculine ideal.
BOGUS SOLUTION: smoke cigarettes, like that rugged, individualistic masculine ideal cowboy in the ads.
REAL-WORLD OUTCOME: product does not transform you into a rugged, individualistic masculine ideal; product is habit-forming, becomes expensive with prolonged use; habitual use degrades respiratory health, sometimes causing illness and death.
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I read that book in high school for a paper I was writing. It was like reading the modern version of Machiavelli (which I had read a couple of years prior). Everything was directed towards getting the intended result, no matter what the ethics of the actions you had to take.
Reply
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