The Hidden Persuaders - Vance Packard

p11

Evan Evans ‘Remember, two things make good advertising,’ … ‘One, a good simple idea. Two, repetition. And by repetition, by God, I mean until the public is so irritated with it, they’ll buy your brand because they bloody well can’t forget it.’ 

• Link to Naomi Klein’s aggressive advertising statement. 

p21

James Rorty ‘figure out what they want, promise ‘em everything, and blow hard.’

• Empty gestures, shameless lies. Connect to quotes about how consumers are lied to. Maybe connect this directly to H&M advert to explain how they have figured out that women crave acceptance of diversity and they have played on this in a very obvious way. 

p31

…’channel our unthinking habits, our purchasing decisions, and our thought processes by the use of insights gleaned from psychiatry and the social sciences. Typically these efforts take place beneath our level of awareness; so that the appeals which move us are often, in a sense, ‘hidden.’ 

• Connect to Benetton advert and unconscious bias. 

'The result is that many of us are being influenced and manipulated, far more than we realise, in the patterns of our everyday lives.’ 

• This could be used to explain the contextualisation of my product range in chapter 4. Using this theory of manipulation in my own work to get across a message. 

p53 

Dr. Dichter ’contends that any product not only must be good but must appeal to our feelings “deep in the psychological recesses of the mind.”’

• This could link to the unconscious bias explanation or about tapping into the psychology of self confidence etc in the H&M ad. 

‘sell emotional security or go under’

• This could be used in relation to Maslo’s heirachy of needs. 

p57

‘People’s subsurface desires, needs, and drives were probed in order to find their points of vulnerability. 

• Definitely relevant to the H&M advert! Could also link in to Callaghan section and Maslo. 

p65

Research Director, New York Advertising agency - ‘People have a terrific loyalty to their brand of cigarette and yet in tests cannot tell it from other brands. They are smoking an image completely.’

• Selling an image. People believe what they are being fed by these brand images, the concept of brainwashing and powerful advertising. Could be used in chapter 2 if appropriate.