text:
- Andres Aullet
- Sandpoint, ID
- United States
This conversation is closed.
Should we teach our kids about how advertisement (public relationships, marketing) works?
Let's face it, advertisement works.
But let's also admit it, it is not as simple as a creative ad shown during the superbowl or a picture on a magazine that we find funny and incidentally reminds us of some particular brand of chips, or insurance company.
As far as i know (admittedly a much more thorough research can be done), advertisement works because it exploits a few flaws in the way our subconscious work:
- we remember things best when emotion is evoked while we learn them (fear, anger, excitement). And this is due to the chemical changes that these emotions induce in our brain.
- we decide mostly with emotions, and not with reason. This seems counter intuitive to most people
- we live with the ever present contradiction of trying to be unique and trying to be like others. We like to be singled out if we are wearing nice clothing, but we hate being singled out if our pants happen to rip.
- being rejected by our peers, or not being part of the in-group we admire, actually hurts, pretty much in the same way (neurologically) as a punch in the stomach hurts
- anything repeated frequently makes a stronger memory, easier to recall, and a memory that is easier to recall is trusted more (and feels more familiar) regardless of it's veracity
- novel experiences are considered riskier than familiar experiences, regardless of their real inherent risk
So all these factors are merged with a product and tweaked to make that product appealing and familiar to us, without us fully understanding why it feels appealing and familiar.
Now, recently the target of the advertising industry are increasingly younger kids. And I would venture to say that if many adults don't fully understand why advertisement works, then even less kids would be expected to know
Should we include in a kids education: at schools, in church sermons, at dinner table conversations, an explanation of what advertisement is and why it works? What would be an argument against teaching this?
Oct 19 2012: I would only add... I think a few of these, are learned behaviors, and a symptom of a dysfunctional culture.
"We decide mostly with emotions, and not with reason. This seems counter intuitive to most people" This is something that culture used to work hard to try to train out of us. Men especially, were taught that emotions are a weakness, and that we must learn to control them. In modern American society, we are not taught to ignore our emotions. Much more we are taught to express them, and talk about them. Everyone's a winner, every idea is a good idea, there is no stupid question... I think we are making ourselves, and our children, far more susceptable to manipulation and propaganda.
Should we discuss advertising with our children? It's like asking, when should we tell them Santa isn't real. You're about to explain to them that every human being is far from perfect, including yourself, and that we all lie to ourselves, and others, very regularly. The best way to explain it, would be to reference a product you personally feel you got "suckered in" on.
In order to survive, you will need to learn to discern lies from truth. The brain, which you see as your "self", is occasionally, not your friend. If I had kids I'd probably start explaining that when they're 2 or 3, even though their brain is like an etch-a-sketch... but I'm a bit crazy like that. People are manipulating the most primitive parts of a childs brain, and then feeding them lies... It's not going to stop simply because you don't talk to your children about it.
Early and often I say, but realize that the real antidote is learning to accept, and understand the ways in which your own brain, often do to primal instincts, simply fails you. Without that acceptance and understanding, you can't really control it, or properly defend yourself. That's a tough conversation for most people to have with themselves let alone children. Also, boys and girls are manipulated in entirely different ways.
Oct 19 2012: Right on point as usual David... thanks for jumping into the conversation.
You are correct that in the past we were taught to repress emotions, and suddenly the pendulum went to the other extreme where one of the main purposes of educating a child is to make sure he/she gets in touch with his feelings. The reason why that still makes us more susceptible to manipulation and propaganda is because between recognizing a feeling and understanding where it comes from there is still a missing step
Yes it is great to tell the kid who is not picked to play in the soccer team that his feelings are something real and that there is nothing wrong in showing them, but why not go one step further and tell him that these feelings come from a subconscious reaction that evolved when people depended on belonging to the group for their survival. Yes, Bear Grylls (man vs. wild) ancestors were far outnumbered by humans that were somewhat terrified of leaving their group, so it is no surprise that most present day humans have inherited such mechanism
I guess now that i go through this explanation i see why it is difficult... not everyone will share my conviction that the pain of not belonging to a group is an inherited trait that lives in our subconscious...I'll have to think about that one
Yes, once we open the pandora's box of telling a kid that not all he hears on tv is true, we must accept that they will make the inference that not everything they hear ANYWHERE is always true.
Neuroscience has made great advances, but even though your last sentence makes perfect sense to me, i have seen that many people, specially adults, do not accept the fact that our subconscious is not something that can be repressed into oblivion, but on the contrary, a very integral part of who we are as a whole
Oct 19 2012: I agree completely. I just think that our subconcious desires can be honed to create some of the most satisfying experiences of our lives... Or, it can be distorted, and perverted into making us feel constantly unfulfilled. They are neither inherently bad, nor good, you just don't always have as much control over them as you like to think. As you say, they will never be repressed into oblivion.
I think a big part of adulthood, and being a role model is having control over your subconscious mind, but to pretend it doesn't exist, or that your control is perfect... Is something entirely different, and I don't think that's very healthy for anyone involved.
I had a very odd advertising idea during a Super Bowl commercial... http://youtu.be/cpi2IAec9Ho
All I could think was "Rosetta Stone". We could use some of these forces for good.
Oct 19 2012: Man you made me laugh!... worst part is, i do speak enough italian to understand it!
Yes indeed it can be used both ways
cheersOct 19 2012: I think two year olds are too young for this message, but grade school kids are not at all too young to hear that not everything they see, hear, and read is believable. They hear, read, and act out stories themselves that are make-believe.
Some things are make-believe intentionally and some things are mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. And lots of people think make-believe things are real or that real things are make believe.
There are lots of occasions for presenting such information to kids in age appropriate ways with simple examples.Oct 25 2012: Andres, I do agree with you on much of what you have said. Marketing does work best when it triggers emotions and all marketers know this.
That said, we are ALL consumers. Even Marketers are. We still need to buy things and we typically buy what we need or what we want. If we want something we don't need - is that the marketers fault OR is it our issue for being weak?
So the education required here (for adults and children alike) is not just about how marketing really works - it's about due diligence and self control (among a few other fundamental but complex forms of logic)!
We will always need to buy things. That won't ever go away. So of COURSE marketing is going to live on forever. But we (as consumers) do need to assess what we are exposed to better and we need to check in with ourselves about whether its RIGHT for us or not.
We are (as a global community) in a world of debt. Why - because we buy more than we need and we need more than we can afford. AND we have very little education on HOW to change this.
Is that REALLY the fault of marketing?
P.S. I do take issue with some of the comments below. Saying that all marketers are liars, scammers, profiteers etc. is very accusatory. Even if few and far between, there are actually some marketers on the planet that do what they do because they believe in the companies they do it for AND actually care about those who would likely buy their products.
P.P.S. An ethical marketer see's marketing as NOT a way to scam people out of their money for a crappy product but a way to educate consumers better so that they can make informed decisions.
Oct 29 2012: Hello Cijaye,
Thank you for your comment,
I agree with you that we should exert personal responsibility and educate ourselves in order to be less "weak" towards the marketeers message. But I would contend that personal responsibility can only go so far, specially in cases when people do not have the means or the time to get educated regarding everything they are being told by advertisement
Our time is finite. And given the chance, I would rather spend it learning science, or playing music, and not researching whether a particular brand of electronic devices will provide me with that 1% "differentiation" that will make my life "so much better" than the competing products could
So it is an a sense an assault on people's, to force them to spend now a large proportion of their time weeding through oceans of information, which is mostly useless from a survival or personal growth perspective, in order to decide which products to buy or whether to buy a product in the first place. There is a misconception i find frequently, that is that if choice is good, more choices is always better... Time is limited though
I concur with you, and I do not intend this discussion to be an indictment against marketeers. Not all of them are scammers and profiteers. I have tried to turn the discussion from that accusatory stance, to one where we can find the right balance between somebody trying to sell a product, and somebody blatantly lying by concealing relevant information, in order to produce an unnecesary state of dissatisfaction on the "consumers"
By the way, for some reason I do not like the classification of consumers in the economic sense. We were humans long before there was such a thing as economics, and yes we consumed resources from the environment, but there was no need to promote consumption as a way of life, as i think there is today
I agree with your last sentence. Giving relevant information to educate people is definitely an ethical way to promote a product
Oct 29 2012: Great response Andres, and you did make an excellent point that I too should have brought up. The word consumer is an "unfriendly" classification. I use it simply to group those who buy things together - but the reality is - I too very much dislike the term.
Long story short though - your overall concept of educating youth at a SCHOOL level about how this all works and how they can protect ourselves is very smart and in many ways (I believe) quite necessary.
P.S. I understand your points about the time drains involved with due diligence, but because I am often one that helps business recover from seriously bad decisions that resulted from NOT doing due diligence, I see that time as quite important (at least for larger investments)
Rick Ryan
Oct 19 2012: The last paragraph of your narrative asks the question: "Should we include in a kids education: at schools, in church sermons, at dinner table conversations, an explanation of what advertisement is and why it works? What would be an argument against teaching this?"
- +2
I have no argument against teaching it. But it won't work until the adults doing the teaching learn it first. THEY are the ones who need to understand it and believe in it. They are the ones who will be doing the teaching to the children.
If anybody, as an adult here, believes they totally understand it and are NOT a victim of advertising, I would have to ask...
When was the last time you bought something because you were getting somethng "for FREE!" with what you bought?
"Only $19.95! But if you act NOW, we'll send you a SECOND one absolutely FREE!!! (just pay Shipping and Handling)."
My favorite one nowadays is, "Buy this car at 0% Interest!" Then the small...very, very small...print explains, "a fee of $16.37 per $1000 financed will be added to the monthly payment...."
Gotta teach the adults there is no such thing a "free" before the adults can teach the kids.
Oct 20 2012: You make a really good point Rick. I would add we just need to keep ads away from the kids and it's a family responsibility, not an invitation to change the industry. The industry pretty much goes their own way. They are only interested in how many people are getting exposed. The math to sell the ads to industry is just a lot of smoke and mirrors, but it works and it's a write off on business expenses. We are stuck with it and.... It does serve a real purpose. But, for smart people, it's just a big bother that interrupts the story line if you watch TV or, on face book something you can't seem to control in your very pretty area of the Internet. People are absolutely gaga about facebook, even is the stock is falling..... something else is coming soon the a computer screen near you.... I just haven't found out what it is yet. What ever it is that will replace face book has got to be real hot.Oct 29 2012: Indeed Rick, you get astutely to one of the main points of my question... Adults need to educate themselves first, it is easy to deceive ourselves into believing that we "understand" our subconscious decision making process
And I must concur, there is no such a thing as a free lunch within the economic system of exchange we live in.
John Dunbar
Oct 19 2012: Andres, I deeply fear if we do not educate our kids about the chicken hawks who wish to debt trap, coerce, and subliminally turn us into mindless consumers civilization will implode. Marketing campaigns aimed at teaching children that they are only worthy of respect if they own a certain object or sport a certain logo have been around forever. They are important in a society like ours that wishes to create an in group that serves capitalist ideals as their master and punishes those who are either underprivileged or see the indoctrination occurring and do not partake.
- +2
American credit card debt is a brutal problem, but just one example of many to show that corporations are reaping the benefits of well funded marketing campaigns. What would be beneficial to marketing and corporations? well the goal is to keep people stuck on the present moment, to get them to give in to impulse and buy something that has been associated with natural wants and desires about social standings or member of the opposite sex. This is far easier in children, as Freud points out children by nature wish to have their impulses satisfied and quickly as they have not fully formed a superego. Theres another aspect I think that would be beneficial to capitalism, that is of course narcissism. If you even take a quick peak at whats considered a narcissistic feature then you know that, people hopelessly stuck to unrealistic fantasies of power and fame is good for business, not in the long term, but certainly in the short term. Other aspects include exploitation of others, requiring constant positive reinforcement from others, often envious. This is a dream come true for marketing campaigns as well as unbridled capitalism.
Andres, it starts young when in school with external reinforcements, or treats, like one would give a dog are used for reward. So my answer is yes, we need to start teaching our kids even younger about marketing strategies and it's harmful and mind warping effects.
Oct 29 2012: Hi Brian, thank you for your comment
Yes, from the way i posed the question you probably can tell that i am no big fan of the way advertisement is imposed on kids.
Now, even though they share much of their methods across the board, I don't think that all advertisement is equal.
For example, i take no issue with ads by non profit groups asking you to support poor children in latin america. True, I do not believe everything they say, nor do i think that is the most efficient way to make resources available to poor children. I still feel empathy and rage when i see those images (which is one of the intentions of the ad, i am sure), I just don't follow through by calling the 800 number with my credit card. But when i hear political campaign advertisement, or when i see some of the ads used to sell toys or clothes for kids, i cannot help but wonder if there was any other objective than to leave the audience with a deep (and mostly false) dissatisfaction of the current state of affairs
It is true indeed that a more educated population is usually at odds with any -ism that relies on sheeplike obedience, or on partial feeling of freedom and choice. I do not mean to teach my kids how advertisement works as a way to topple capitalism. But it would be naive to think that there would be no effect if teaching it is successful. Hopefully people in the coming generation will learn how to refrain from spending so much, that necessarily will mean a slow down in economic growth. And i see nothing wrong with that.
cheersNov 11 2012: I learned all your points about advertisement in a public school in 8th grade. I'm pretty sure learning it made me smarter.
Comment deletedNov 2 2012: it works on kids which is why advertisers shamelessly aim at them.
these days, we are fairly media savvy and I think a lot of advertising fails to work on adults.
as a teacher, i always make a point of questioning advertising messages with my kids (7 & 8 year olds). it's easy to do because most advertising is a thin veneer over the reality and once you start delving and thinking about what they are saying and promising, it starts to fall apart.
you wouldn't teach this if you want to perpetuate rampant consumerism.
if your brain is engaged and skeptical of advertising motives then advertising fails.
Nov 2 2012: Hi Scott,
I agree with the point you make... somehow we adults can cope with it (or we should be able to), but kids do not yet have the tools to assimilate the advertising message in a critical way.
So we must 1) limit the input while kids are still not able to process it and 2) teach and remind them how to process the message
Definitely, an engaged and skeptical brain is one of the goals of this teaching
cheersNov 2 2012: Hi Andres, Here's an interesting white paper study on TV and mobile device studies on how the industry is looking for zinger, catchy way of putting ads in the faces of viewers: http://www.yume.com/content/whitepapers
In another post I told you about the difference in the way the adverstiment industry was handling the falloff in consumer spending by pointing to a tv show called "Revolution". Well, things have changed a lot.
In the preview series, the ads were scaled way down to about a min of ad for each 7 min of storyline.
Now with the second series because the show scored a 4:1 rating, the ads were increased to an average of 3 min of ads to each 6 min of storyline.
I've followed many sci-Fi tv shows and most of the follow this ratio of 7:1 in the preview series and then progress to the 6:3 ratio.
As a result, I have quit watching it bcause I can't stand TV ads and I'm back to Netfilx. I will know more about how they respond when and if the third series comes along.
What I'm seeing overall is a restlessness in the industry to deal with the issue of Internet TV moving into the market and how they can best offer their customers product coverage. Most of the numbers are indicating a trend towards less TV watching by people who desire uninterrupted storyline. Of course this cannot be allowed because the Ad industry is dependent on the consumers to view their ads in order to sell time to their customers. Another method the industry uses is to host DIY and selling homes on TV. My wife is a big fan of such shows and is one of their most prized customers. :)
In the big picture I see the industry is using tracking data garnished from the internet to deduce how they can best keep our eyes on their customers products. It is becoming a war of sorts. The old ways are dying off and no one really has the knowledge to judge how the consumers will react to new ideas about advertisement. The internet is both causing the problem and a projected source of impoverishment.
Nov 2 2012: Hi John,
You bring up a great point related to this conversation, our privacy.
You are right, the advertisement industry relies on "impressions" (any instance when they can put an image or keyword into somebody's brain)
I don't think that there is much consideration given to the right of people not to have their brains inundated with these "impressions". I understand that if i don't want to watch tv ads i probably need to pay a fee, same if i want a book readers with no ads.
But if i want a walk in the street with no ads, i am out of luck. There is no way to pay (nor i think we should have to pay) for a street free of advertisements
The other side of the coin, as you have highlighted, is the tracking of people's behavior, and the subsequent commercialization of this tracking information. I think that individuals should be empowered to decide when to see or hear an ad, and when to share or not information about their behavior.
Thanks as usual for your contribution, John!
Jane Smith
Nov 2 2012: Yeah,we have to, for there are too much ads passing "bad" information to the younger generation if you do not expain to the children how the ad words. For example, in recently years, Abercrombie & Fitch ads http://www.abercrombiedeutschlandde.de.com/ always apply half-naked men, so we must tell our children something about that
- +1
Nov 2 2012: Hi Jane,
Thanks for your comment. Yes I was discussing this with some friends recently when taking about a topic that is in the political discourse lately (at least here in the USA), which is rape and abortion.
We agreed that we cannot expect a decline in the prevalence of rape if our culture makes a business out of portraying women in a denigrating way.
It is not too hard to understand why humans react to sexual images, in particular why is it that males are more prone to react than females, as it has its roots in our evolution, even before there were humans
But I think that we can use this knowledge to arm our kids with tools to be able to better deal with these reactions when they come
cheersOct 26 2012: Andres, If we accept that parents are teachers also, then the right thing to do would be to practice what we wish our children to learn.
If we seperate the WANTS away from the NEEDS and so label them, then the message would be taught to the children.
Example being the strongest lesson to give them.
All the best. Bob.
Oct 29 2012: Excellent points Bob,
We do teach by example, not by our words.
And how important it is to teach the difference between wants and needs!
cheersOct 25 2012: As Seth Godin says "All marketeers tell stories (are liars)". I knew about two hundred of them in my life and that's a fact.
In my opinion kids should know that asap in order to not become a compulsive consumer puppet.Oct 23 2012: marketing strategy has always been a part of the community the corporate advertising representative wants to not think about. just blindly smile wen the commercial is on , then drop everything and go buy there product.
i think we need to go 1 step further than just telling them, we need to prevent these profiteerst from praying on our youth. the things my kid eats is not subject of some mass marketing campaign. or at least it should not be! and we really dont need our kids eating pollinuclear nonactritive cereal varnish so the flakes don't get soggy. do we get the ability to take over the commercial time with household announcements " this Friday grand return of WASH DAY !! yes kids bring all your clothing to mom on WASH DAY and like magic there it is on your bed later that day all folded and clean... terms and conditions pending school reports and personal acts of manerious conduct may apply see dad for any discrepancies or complaints."
and other tidbits of things we want our kids to think about wen they need them. the ability to control the marketing pumping on to our kids is staggering. but wen i was a kid ok new bike i wanted was $100 and i got like 1 um every 2 or so years. my son wants a 2nd nintendo DS3 something but it has more bells and whistles all i know is its $200 and the games are $50 - $80 a pop. going to the movies use to be well for me under $10 2 movies and soda and candy. whats that now $120 if your lucky. and all the marketing research analysis's projecting just how much to charge to keep people buying it and replacing it as soon as soon as they want them to. and now they are trying to make it illegal for people to sell things used ?? what trying to make it so i cant sell something in a free open market America? if i cant have a tag sale were gunna have a problem here.
yes we need to teach the kids but we need to stop the people doing it so we will not have to. i say no marketing target audiences under age 18, talk to mom n dad!!
Oct 29 2012: Hello Todd,
I agree with you here. We should go one step further. Sometimes i would venture to say (my libertarian friends will gasp here) that governments should regulate the advertising industry in ways that protect both children and uneducated consumers.
As I have stated before, I am a big fan of personal responsibility, and more than once I have heard people say that it is the "consumer"'s responsibility to get educated about how advertisement works,
I beg to differ. I know of many cases where perfectly decent people do not have the access to the information, or the time to educate themselves, or both, and in those cases i think that there should be other ways (yes, even government sponsored) to make this information available
cheersOct 20 2012: Is our duty as parents to teach our kids about advertising. But to teach our kids about it we must also know how and why it works. Advertising is a business, and its job is to deliver a message to the possible consumers, so they buy that product, and the maker of that product can make money. Even if the product does not fulfill our expectations after a while. This emotion of having this brand new "acquisition" vanishes very soon. In my country there is a "smartphone fever" among teens. I have nothing against smartphones. Some of this kids do whatever they have to just to be in the "smartphone orbit". When i ask one of them, what you do with your smartphone? Answers are:
2. make phone callas,
3. listen to music,
4. play games.
There are many non-elite phones that can perform the same tasks. But if you dont have "the one" you are not "in". When you market a product you must give the consumers a reason to have this product. And with kids is easier. Just tell them that if they dont have this they are not even with the rest of his friends.
I have nothing against smartphones or other types of gadgets in fact i use some of them. I am using this just as an example. It also happens with clothes shoes etc.
If we teach our kids about advertising we are helping them to be smart consumers in the future.
chen xin
Oct 20 2012: why not . everything which is true.we should all teach our children .
- +1
children should know everything that they may face in theirlife .and learn eveything ,regardless of vironlen.the more information they control ,the smarter they will be .if you dont want to make your kids a dull like a monkey or apes.it is your duty to teach,Oct 20 2012: My grand kids don't get to see much advertisement. I filter everything with scripts, etc on the computer and they only watch kids movies and cartoons. I spend a lot of time with them creating paper stuff and making toys out of boxes. They are learning to read and write (type) at an early age, (two 1/2, going on 16, girl) and (four 1/2 going on 25, boy).
I hope it lasts and the only advertizement they get exposed to is on their paths to here and there. They are busy hands on kids. I don't think anyone in our family, other than my wife, really watches too much TV on the networks these days. We usually do the Netflix and Library.
I have noticed some changes in the ad industry with the new TV series coming out. My wife turned me on to "Revolution" and they have very short, ads, less than two min. each, in between the story. I'm starting to notice that he ads are becoming shorter. I think there is some serious competition with the Internet TV going on here. The big problem for the industry is how to put ads in people's face with a growing population seeking privacy on the internet. On my forum "The village people" ti's the number one idea..... Privacy from Google spiders and other search engines. Here on TED, your posts are feed To Google with all you personal information and put on the internet for anyone to Google.
The simplest way to stop tracking and having ads constantly put in your face is: Turn off cookies on your browser.
Oct 29 2012: Hi John!
It is refreshing to read that you take precautions to keep your grand kids away from advertisement. I commend your effort. I try to do the same with mine, blocking ads and disabling bunches of unneeded web "features"
Sad part is, the advertisement industry has had a lead of several decades in terms of research on psychology, cognition, behaviorism, and more generally neurosciences. We could all use that information without getting from it only the few applications they decide to pick and chose
I want to assume that we all here on TED are aware of the open audience of all our posts. It is always good to reiterate it John, as not many might keep that in mind when expressing their opinions here
Thanks for the web-savy pointers. I would add the suggestion of using browser extensions like adblock, better privacy, no-script, and https-everywhere; as well as programs like privoxy and tor and the tweaking of your hosts file if you want to remain somewhat in control of the information that your web browser gives away for free
Oct 29 2012: Turning off cookies does away with just about all the ad problems.
That's the big secret behind most ad blockers.
How do you know the ads exist in the first place if you don't request the page they are located on?
With some pages, they "Post" a cookie to your browser and request affermation. If they are not a secure server where validation is necessary or a website that really wants to track your whereabouts, then turning off cookies could be a problem if you need information on the website.
However, If you know before hand how important the site is for you, cookies can be made exceptions for and cookies exchanged.
With the tracker programs, they get the cookie and note every time a site makes a request for your cookie. If you are accepting cookies, the exchange is made and the tracker site is updated about where you are. They can't just follow your IP address around the net. That would require a lot of pings and inferences about where you might be, based on existing information. They can only tag you with a cookie and hope you respond. If yo don't respond, they haven't a clue where you are, unless a reporting site send them a cookie alerting them to the fact you are on their site. If they don't do this because it would require overhead on their computer, The tracker doesn't know where you are or can only know it interminably.
It's easy to figure out. Load one of the tracker add ons and look at who's tracking you, then turn cookies off and look again, after clearing your cookie folder. You appear to have disappeared and no one is tracking you.
It's all about the cookies and site reporting.
Oct 29 2012: Ah John,
Turning off cookies goes a long way... but many websites are completely crippled when you don't allow cookies... and once you allow even session cookies, they can be stored along with your ip address for later reference.
The reason why i add other tools like adblock and changing my hosts files, is that in that way you don't even get to fetch ad images from the internet, so not only they are never displayed, but there is never any record on the image servers that your browser requested such images.
cheers!Oct 19 2012: I interpret your question to mean, "Should we teach kids how we are unconsciously manipulated by advertising into buying things?" I would do this by creating a game out of watching television ads and trying to figure out how the marketer is trying to manipulate the viewer, there by reducing the power of these ads to work on our unconscious. Another game would be to make up your own ads to try to manipulate people. My local elementary school did an art project to teach this.
If we did this, would kids no longer want the unhealthy cereal with their favorite cartoon character on the box, and maybe rather eat the healthy cereal with the boring rain forest picture on it? I rather doubt it - we adults are happy to be manipulated into buying a beer simply because there's a picture of a pretty girl next to the beer in an ad. Logically we know the pretty girl doesn't come with the beer (usually!), but ads do not target logical thinking.
You say recently the ad industry targeted kids, but the ad industry has been targeting kids throughout history. Joe Camel is probably one of the biggest examples - back when the tobacco industry was literally worried about recruiting enough children to replace the dying adults. There is evidence for this that was brought in the court case against RJ Reynolds for targeting children. If you want to teach kids about advertising, I would start with the lesson of Joe Camel, and talk about how many thousands of children it is estimated would still be alive today without that ad campaign that targeted kids.
In the advertising world, we use a term called "brand lift" to measure the financial impact an advertising campaign has on *brand value* - we compete as ad agencies based on which agency will give you the biggest brand lift for your ad dollar. An understanding of advertising should include the concept of brand value.
Oct 29 2012: Hi Danger,
Yes i think that in a general sense that is another way to pose my question.
Sadly it is true, many adults will still buy the beer thanks to the ad with the pretty girl, or the peaceful beach. It is harder to educate adults, that is why I am mostly worried about kids. And in fairness, it is not always the fault of the adults, as they never had available any information, throughout their education, that would better prepare them to resist the subconscious reactions that the simple image of a pretty girl can trigger.
I know that the kids still look more favorably to the cereal that has the cartoon character on them, rather than the plain box, but I take every chance i can (when i go grocery shopping with my kids), to explain them how their reaction is triggered by the fact that they like cartoons, not by the fact that one brand of cereal is better than the other. And they now find it funny that there seems to be a rule: when the cereal, or any other product, comes with a carton character image, almost invariably it costs a bit more.
You are correct, the amount of ads in general has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. Independently of the age target. But I think that nowadays, kids 1 throuhg 13 end up watching much more tv (and playing online games, or online videos) than adults. So i still contend that they are more exposed than adults when comparing with the past
I think I understand brand value as you are using it here, seems to me that it refers to the subjective "value" assigned to a brand by individuals. Wouldn't it be useful too to pair that concept up with a parallel "brand value" defined as the real value a product brings into an individuals life?
Oct 29 2012: I found this question of yours quite interesting: " Wouldn't it be useful too to pair that concept up with a parallel "brand value" defined as the real value a product brings into an individuals life?"
The fascinating thing, is that advertising by itself will make you experience more pleasure from that product. This has been shown in fMRI brain scans of test subjects. For example, simply by telling you that a wine is five times the price that it actually is, your brain will literally experience more pleasure from that wine. Same wine, but your brain literally experiences it as more pleasurable.
So I think the concept of brand value as I've used it, and the concept of brand value as you propose, are intertwined in ways we can't separate.
The way I use brand value is the way the marketing/advertising industry uses it: It's a hard dollar value you assign to your brand. The definition is: "The value premium that a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name as compared to its generic equivalent."
The #1 global brand in the world in 2012, last I checked, was CocaCola, worth $77 Billion dollars. That is the value of just the brand, not the company! Drinking CocaCola makes people actually enjoy their beverage more than drinking someone else's identical brown fizzy sugar water, such is the power of that brand.Oct 29 2012: You are correct Danger, advertisement can improve the pleasure you derive from consuming a product, but it is also a fact that consuming cocaine can activate pleasure centers in our brains, perhaps more strongly than consuming these products. And i am even less of a fan of cocaine than i am of advertisement
Let me rephrase my question then, as my intended sense was a bit different: wouldn't it be useful to teach kids the distinction between needs and wants, and within that framework assign a "brand value" based on the real value that a brand brings in satisfying a person needs?
I know i am going down a different path here, I just wanted to clarify the sense of my question...
Thanks for responding!Oct 29 2012: I love the ad-game idea!
I tell my kid that nothing that is advertised is worth buying.
If it had value, then word of mouth would spread the news.
My kid now comes to me to point out kick-backs in operation in the video-game review press. That's the new game he's invented - spot the exploiter.
I am a bit spoiled. i manufacture a quality product. I've had to close my order book - the word-of-mouth dynamic is almost impossible to avoid and I've had to go into virtual hiding - less advertising for me!
I larf my head off when companies spam me with offers of how to raise my google-profile - which I've studiously gotten into the last page.
Sometimes I reply to them to tease them with their own superflous meaningless existences. But that only invotes more spam ;)
I was once in the retail biz - Coca Cola(Amatil) represent the 3 most sold items in the world - 750ml, 1litre and 350ml. It is generally sold as a loss leader - because if you don't have it in stock, people won't come in the store - Coke and bananas - you need bananas for a credible produce dept.
Coke is full of caffein these days. I was told it once had cocain as well - it was sold as a tonic.
Smoking is bad for you .. right?
Barry Palmer
Oct 18 2012: Yes.
- +1
My father taught us very early that advertising is almost always misleading, and never tells the whole truth. Today marketing people will say anything. Children must learn that they are almost constantly barraged with manipulative messages. Their best defense is awareness.Oct 18 2012: There is a radio show on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) that I listen to regularly called "The Age of Persuasion". This is a weekly broadcast about the art of advertising
Taken from the about...
The Age of Persuasion explores the countless ways marketers permeate your life, from media, art, and language, to politics, religion, and fashion
The defense against this would be critical thinking skills. This is of course, the study of what is true, partially true, and sometimes true or bull. It is currently only formally included in graduate courses that I know of.
It really should be taught in kindergarten and every grade above that.
The danger in that is from unexpected side effects like a smarter electorate, smarter investors unwilling to believe current financial "theory" and the general decline and eventual elimination of opinion polls during elections.
On the other hand, the quality and sophistication of advertisements would be expected to increase.
I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Oct 18 2012: Hello Gordon, thank you for your response and for the pointer to The Age of Persuasion. I will be checking it soon!
I cannot agree more. A critical thinking is key to the survival of future generations
In a sense i do not mind with the quality and sophistication of advertisement increasing, what i don't agree with is when some facts are deliberately concealed in order to achieve an end, particularly when the objective is to induce a state of dissatisfaction with a kid's current status
I know that the human brain and the human genome is not likely to change at the same rate, so our brains will probably still work (at a physiological level) pretty much the same in the near future. What we are definitely capable of changing is the way we use our brain (i.e. our education and culture)
cheersOct 17 2012: This was part of the eighth grade English curriculum in public schools in California in the 60s. (I have an absurd memory for things like this. The teacher was named Ms. Argerio).
There is nothing complicated or controversial, I think, in teaching and learning about modern culture or forms of persuasive writing and imagery which we encounter in our daily lives.
Oct 17 2012: Thanks for your answer Fritzie,
Your memory is indeed impressive. Do you think you learned something from that? Did it change the way you saw, say, tv, or PR-speak later in your life?
Oct 17 2012: I am very good at sniffing out advertising gimmicks and thinly veiled efforts to convince people of neglected needs that they ought to buy goods or services to satisfy. Plugs from all manner of "coaches" are an incessant, ubiquitous example.
(Note: I do know some excellent coaches but also some who don't know as much as your random neighbor would offer for free)
Here is a NYTimes article about the FTC's advertsing literacy curriculum for grades 3-6, I think: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/media/27adco.html?_r=1
Oct 17 2012: Wonderful, thank you for that link!Nov 16 2012: @Andres
Shame replies stop at a certain thread depth... anyway sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say, I don't think it came across clearly.
Nov 16 2012: Indeed the format sometimes does not help Bob... No worries, I do not take offense with any of your comments, I have learned from the postings you have shared and i concur with many of these opinions... I have perhaps a less pessimistic view of people than that of Chris Hedges, but that could be because i have never been in a war zone. I do however, admire his work and his courage in talking about topics that most either consciously ignore or have never heard of.
I guess my question is framed in that, a bit more optimistic view that people can still learn and change their lives and that of their kids... Education, to me is the key to a brighter future, regardless of what happens to my own generation.
I will always be glad to post at length trying to clarify my views, so you can ask away, and as you can see, i also sometimes misunderstand other people's words, but you will always see me coming back with clarifying questions
thanks for the points that you have added to the discussion so far. They have added value and have expanded my knowledge in new directions!
Nov 16 2012: The problem I see with having faith in people, is that people usually only care about certain pet issues and issues related to survival. Not only that, the enlightenment was wrong about how the human brain works. Human reasoning doesn't work on rationality. So although 'life will go on' there's no guarantee human beings will effectively challenge power. (i.e. reach a critical mass) because of the biological requirements of intelligence + time+ energy, etc. Demographics is destiny, if intelligent people have fewer children and dumber ones have more that means change becomes difficult due to numbers.
Consider: There is truly no technical reason to have homeless people even existing in a modern developed country, it's socially tolerated/enforced problem akin to slavery (a cultural/value artifact).
(somewhat related)
Just thought I'd pass him along, one of my favs for 'cutting the bs'.
David Wolff (short)
Full video
He makes a lot of excellent points IMHO probably one of the few people who speaks in plain language and demystifies 'complex' problems.
And when I say we have to move away from money/capitalism, it's not that I have a solution in hand it's just something that is going to have to be done over the long term since we can't afford to continue to go on as it is right now in the 21st century.
I'm not a big believer in ideology without understanding, you have to understand how the universe works first, then you can start to ask questions about the sustainability and stability of a given behavior given the energy/resource/biological requirements.
Then you can talk about bringing 'values' back into discussion, morality, values, principles can only be understood if you understand how the universe works first and whats realizable given those limitations.Nov 15 2012: Andres, are you asking if we as parents should be teaching our children about marketing, advertising and PR, -OR- if we as a society should be teaching these topics to children in the public education system? I would say both are important. In my opinion, it should be a part of our children's Social Studies program in school, much like how we teach basic concepts of history early in grade school and repeat those topics in a deeper manner as they advance through high school. In our modern society, our children are constantly bombarded and influenced by marketing messages imbedded into their children's television, dvd and now internet programming, that it behooves us to make them aware of the nature of marketing. As a computer software technologist I see marketing as plugging directly into the API's of the brain to 'make us do things' (such as purchase, vote, believe and behave a certain way).
My children are 11 and 10 now, and since they were 5 and 4, I started to explain marketing to them. I was prompted to have this discussion with them because every time they saw a commercial for the 'Kia Sedona minivan' on 'Nick Jr.', they would run to my wife and I ask to buy it due to all of the safety and kid friendly attributes of the car. I was shocked at their retention of the product features and ability to relay them back to us. This was beyond toys and I was worried about how they were being influenced.
I explained marketing/advertising to them not in as an insidious evil or in a cynical manner, but in a more factual way of how marketers have to sell a product and they have various 'tricks' (methods or "API's") at their disposal to influence potential buyers. I was amazed at how at a young age they started evaluating and discussing each commercial they watched and how discerning they could be in picking apart the messaging and influence tactics.
It would be tough to add this topic to a school curriculum, but it can definitely be taught by parents.
Nov 15 2012: Hi Asif,
I thank you for your comments and for sharing your experience with your kids.
It is not surprising that you clearly got the gist of my question, being that i too work with computers and sometimes think in those terms.
Indeed my question was intentionally twofold. It sounds like an either or, but it is not, it is more of a challenge to adults.
I wouldn't have any issue with this being in the curriculum of public elementary school, but i know that some people are more skeptic about school than i am.
So for the people who would prefer to keep it out of the classroom, the question is: "do you know enough about advertisement and why it works in our brains to be able to share it with your kids?" similarly, because i also realize that many people learn from others in their religious congregations, i would ask, do religious leaders know enough to explain this? would they be wiling to share such information to their audiences? Here i would expect some push back, but so far i have not heard about anyone picking up that part of the question
Regarding adding this to school curriculum, just for perspective... if a school board in Dover was able to add information on intelligent design, at least for a brief period of time, and if it took a full trial to remove it, I would think that it would not be as complicated to add the workings of advertisement to the curriculum, and i wonder if someone would put it on trial to be removed
Asif Ahmed
Nov 16 2012: Andres, to your comment in the last paragraph "... it would not be as complicated to add the workings of advertisement to the curriculum...", I agree. If there was a thoughtfully created curriculum that was balanced, fair, realistic, scientific and interesting to the students, I think it could be inserted into a good social studies (grade school) or business/consumer ed (high school) curriculum. From one of your other commentators below, it seems like it already has in some school districts.Nov 14 2012: On the power of PR... I'll comment here: Take the videogame industry, I've watched the videogame industry over the last ten years use PR techniques to steal videogame ownership from gamers. See this mans website here: http://store.steampowered.com/
- +1
This man (gabe newell of valve/steam) and many in the industry have successfully taken computer programs hostage on the other side of the internet and made them "check in" with their servers (which would have been impossible in a pre internet era, you would GET the software and wouldn't need permission to use it).
If you look at a site like reddit, you see gamers CELEBRATING having their games sabotaged by a gaming corporation that uses it's "digital rights management" (hostage software) to data mine kids and adults who play videogames for "business purposes" (how better to spin PR and exploit them for money).
The videogame industry has redefined broken "get permission" hostage software (games) as a benefit and have young kids and adults alike celebrate being exploited, that's a PR miracle.
Diablo 3 (a game that cuts a chunk out of the software and has it run on servers on the other side of the internet) sold 10 million copies, thats how dumb most people really are they just don't give a crap that they are exploited because their emotions are involved - they've been taught to love their exploitation.
Same thing happens with "MMO's" which is just code for DRM'd role playing games (which used to be single player and you owned them). Corporations have successfully spun them as a "Service" (which technologically from a software standpoint they don't have to be). Paying monthly to play one single videogame (15/month) after you just bought the game for $60 up front, is another PR miracle.
Not only did you PAY for the game, you PAY for the corporation to exploit you and you like it because you are so addicted (it has 8-10 million players still after almost 10 years)
Nov 14 2012: Thank you for taking the time to provide a more in-depth explanation Bob,
While I may not agree with all of it, i do see its value and I will do some reading based on the references you have provided.
My point i guess tries to jump one level down... The actual mechanism that makes people fall prey to manipulation is within our brains, and most of it is not learned, but relies on innate abilities (or disabilities) of our brains to be aware (or not) when we are manipulated.
Awareness goes a long way to reduce the impact, but we cannot change our brain physiology, so we are stuck with having to train every future generation on how to deal with those inefficiencies
I will be back with more comments once i have done some more reading. Thanks again for the pointers
Nov 15 2012: The problem Andres is without the internet they would be forced to sell you the software stand alone, i.e. the only reason they can get away with this is because of technology.
(you should read this by Thomas Babbington Macaulay)
Of course you'd 'disagree' since you are a capitalist, you'd accept anything that exploits others for profit because you have no understanding of copyright law and how it has been infinitely expanded to take away the public domain. Older games should fall into the public domain (source code, etc) but they never do, they are locked up under monopolist copyright law.
Unless the developer has enough power in the relationship and is kind enough to release the source code.
Things like this are impossible for most games:
So you have tonnes of old games that can't be fixed or updated and are confiscated by capitalists. There is no software repair industry because of copyright (monopoly rights) which you blindly protect. You come off as just another ignorant american IMHO. Which you couch in 'reasonable' sounding language because you are just so alarmingly uninformed and unconsciously pro capitalist underneath it all.
Diablo 1 + 2 did not have to get permission from the nanny corporation to be used, they could be modified and used without the internet because people you know PAID FOR IT. Diablo 3 introduced SINGLE PLAYER LAG (latency) that is *breaking* the game on purpose, making it inferior because game corporations desire total authoritarian control and don't give a shit about the right of gamers to own their software.
Corporations now use contract and law to do an end run around individual and civil rights (your rights to own the products you buy).
Gaming culture and the ability of fans to update and fix their old game is stolen from them and the fact you'd "disagree", is just wrong.Nov 15 2012: Google: "Diablo 3 real money auction house" for a nice surprise.
Nov 15 2012: Hello Bob,
I did not disagree because i am a capitalist or because i would accept anything that exploit others for profit. I hope you meant that as a generalization, but if you meant that as a description of my own worldview you can go back and read some my opinions and that might drive a different conclusion
I am very aware of the problem with patent and copyright law, and like you, i am always weary when businesses change their model in order to add more strings attached to their products. Diablo 3 is just one example of an increasing trend
Now, regarding online games, I can share with you the experience i have with my kids. They do own console games and some pc games, and from time to time we do the experiment of turning the internet modem off and trying to use both computers and console games as usual.
It is eye opening for them to see how many programs (even simple programs in the computer) are crippled when they are not allowed to "call back home" behind our backs.
And their response is usually one of disgust with the program/game makers: "why do they need us to be connected?" is they immediate question. I usually leave the question lingering in, for them to ponder later
cheersNov 14 2012: Most people want to be told what to do, what to think, and how to live. That is one of the big reasons religion, propaganda and advertising is so successful.
Most people are stupid, and it takes energy, courage and the ability to withstand pain to live genuinely in accordance with ones principles. Most people are weak, fickle, easily manipulated and greedy.
There is no solution here because human beings are just monkeys with slightly more intelligence then those in zoo's.
One doesn't even have to look far on TED, most TEDsters worldview revolves around money, buying and selling and the ideology of capitalism. You think within that narrow point of view and push off anything that you deem is 'not realistic'. That is group think and propaganda, if it's not against the laws of nature then it's achievable. Imagine if slaves said "there's nothing we can do, we'll always be slaves" or that disabled people never fought for disability rights, or that blacks never fought for equality.
Nov 14 2012: Hi Bob, thanks for your answer.
I am not sure how to interpret your comment. Sounds pessimistic, which can be interpreted to mean that you think teaching kids how advertisement works is a lost cause. But i might have been confused, so please feel free to correct me if i did misinterpret your words.
I disagree with your assessment. I think that stupidity can be relative, it can be partial, and it can also be temporary. I don't think there is such thing as absolute stupidity. And while I share with you the opinion that most people are easily manipulated, i fail to see it as a consequence of weakness. A bit of ignorance can be cured with a bit of education.
Now, i am not sure if you are referring to my world view, or to the worldview of the average person who posts and votes on reddit (which by the way is a pretty lousy sampling if you are trying to imply it is representative of the public in general). But i can assure you that my whole world view does not revolve around money.
At the end of your comment you seem to give some encouragement, "if it's not against the laws of nature then it's achievable", should I interpret those words as encouragement to teach kids how advertisement works?
I guess i ended up a bit confused. Do you care to clarify/elaborate?
Nov 14 2012: The problem is the way we value things is wrong, for instance we ALL KNOW that capitalism has serious problems with pollution and environment. We all know that most all of us will not pay 'the true cost' of environmental damage we are doing. We all know this in the back of our minds despite our naive belief in the 'magic' of technology, technology is not going to cure a civilizational sickness.
The truth is the money/capitalist paradigm is something that has to be rethought and moved away from but most people think anything that is not free market capitalism is 'socialism' its just more proof that people are so afraid of critical thinking and what those around them think, they are not interested in the truth. We'd rather stick our heads in the sand, go on watching tv/ted talks and have people TALK about doing something then rather rolling up our sleeves and divesting ourselves from the way of life we've now built which most intelligent people agree is "not sustainable". It's not that we need "green capitalism" it's that what our "civilization" values is just INCORRECT at a fundamental level. We don't put things like solving problems at the top of the agenda because everyones 'looking out for himself' we are deeply idiotic and immature at a fundamental level as a species.
Think about some advanced civilization looking back on this period of human history: "You humans can send people to the moon, but not find homes for people, and it isn't for a lack of homes".
We have empty buildings who's water/sewer maintenance is being paid for by billionaires which could be used (in a sane society) to alleviate suffering, if I was a billionaire and I had huge mansions and 2nd and 3rd homes just not being used I could never live with myself. But that is not how 99% of mankind thinks lets be honest, even Bill and Buffet "hero capitalists" do as little as possible... (character limit reached)Nov 14 2012: Socrates figured out what we were doing wrong 2000 years ago (and I'm sure many smart humans before that).
Knowledge (from wikipedia)
One of the best known sayings of Socrates is "I only know that I know nothing". The conventional interpretation of this remark is that Socrates' wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates believed wrongdoing was a consequence of ignorance and those who did wrong knew no better. The one thing Socrates consistently claimed to have knowledge of was "the art of love", which he connected with the concept of "the love of wisdom", i.e., philosophy. He never actually claimed to be wise, only to understand the path a lover of wisdom must take in pursuing it. It is debatable whether Socrates believed humans (as opposed to gods like Apollo) could actually become wise. On the one hand, he drew a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the other, Plato's Symposium (Diotima's Speech) and Republic (Allegory of the Cave) describe a method for ascending to wisdom.
On virtue
Socrates believed the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth. He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates felt this was the best way for people to grow together as a populace. His actions lived up to this: in the end, Socrates accepted his death sentence when most thought he would simply leave Athens, as he felt he could not run away from or go against the will of his community; as mentioned above, his reputation for valor on the battlefield was without reproach.
The idea that there are certain virtues formed a common thread in Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most important qualities for a person to have, foremost of which were the philosophical or intellectual virtues. Socrates stressed that "virtue was (character limit reached)Nov 14 2012: continued ,,,
"virtue was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was spent in search of the Good. Truth lies beneath the shadows of existence, and it is the job of the philosopher to show the rest how little they really know."
The problem is the human brain doesn't work properly, most people think their mind produces 'reality' the problem is there are people who's minds who appear healthy but who's minds don't work correctly and this applies to HUGE segments of the population.
See here for the bit about human reasoning:
Right now pretty much ALL americans have false beliefs and false politics and values and both 'sides' are demonizing the other, the reality is they are both under illusions of political advertising and the fact that their brains don't actually perceive reality as it really is
The american elections 2012 were a giant joke to anyone of serious intellect, real change isn't going to come from elections.
Chris hedges
Our immaturity as a species goes way beyond ideology.
The fundamental problem is most peoples top value is money, their minds and culture is so invested in this institution and in their daily functioning they don't want to believe that the institution itself is largely responsible for our irrationality. Instead of solving a problem if it's going to have some significant dollar value then we shove it under the rug (like what the PM of canada is doing right now with the oil sands development and firing scientists/staff).
Money is a tool human beings use to divorce themselves from actually having to relate and look after one another and be responsible at a fundamental level.
It's not that we will run out of 'resources' to solve these problems it's that peoples are playing the money game and won't work towards a problem unless they are getting richer.Nov 14 2012: Yes! I remember taking a closer look at this in college and it's so interesting! I notice a lot more about commercials on TV and the radio. By introducing this idea to students and showing them how advertising works they will learn 1) A lot about psychology 2) How to persuade almost anyone and 3) How to look at stats and data in a more critical light so they don't believe everything they see.
I'm a huge stats nerd and think that advertising is all about the numbers.
Nov 14 2012: Very interesting points Akta
Yes, i guess i could open the topic to include persuasion in general, not just in advertising, as persuasion and communications are fascinating subjects
I learned one interesting thing regarding statistics while reading Daniel Kahneman, and that is the fact that our brains are terrible statisticians. For example, if we can recall an event easily (whatever drove us to remember it), we subconsciously assign to it a higher probability of occurring again, regardless of the real probability
Many people consider the probability of dying in a flight accident is very high, and few stop to check the statistics, that tell you that it is a lot more likely to die from peanut allergy than in a flight accident. But the ease with which we can recall flight accidents as opposed to death by peanut make the former "feel" more likely
in that sense, though, i would think that advertising is more about feeling than about real numbers, right?
cheersNov 10 2012: No, as it's a wast of time. If to young will not understand and if older will ignore you. You must lead by your actions to the advertisements. If you are any kind of good parent your children will pick up on your actions and incorporate them in their own way into their own.
Nov 14 2012: Hi Walter,
I would be curious to know why do you consider it a waste of time. There are plenty of things that kids learn at school (from geometry to basic chemistry, to geography) and i would argue that they don't throw all that knowledge away
Absolutely true that parents teach with example more than anything, but there are parents who cannot spend a lot of time time teaching, or simply lack the knowledge or skills required to teach something like how the brain works
I remember things i learned both from my parents and from school as i was growing up, I am not sure i would consider that a waste of time, but i would like to understand your point of view
cheersNov 10 2012: I do agree that marketing uses psychological strategies. I don't even think that's debatable. However, if we didn't have useless things to sell we wouldn't have much to sell at all. I don't think the problem is market manipulation...because I think that's a byproduct of whatever market you facilitate. I see hope with creations like digital book readers and things of that nature. Innovation in this direction could definitely use a market push. This may require us to use those same strategies. Great post...I think you have it right. I just think it's part of the system. Our system is ok...we just need to tweak some gears inside.
Nov 10 2012: Hi Henry, thank you for your comment,
Interesting perspective, "if we didn't have useless things to sell we wouldn't have much to sell at all". You got it quite right. I guess that is another way of looking at the wants vs. the needs.
As it is usual in me, i am not for an all or nothing. I don't see it realistic or desirable to advocate for selling only needs and banning sale of wants.
Not so sure that my assessment is as optimistic as yours regarding the system though. I think that it is a working system and it may not need to be replaced completely, but i think that the tweaks are much more than superficial.
I think that the conversion from wants to needs should be done by the individual, and of course it will depend on influences, but the individual should be left to decide (and be aware) of the influences chosen
cheers!Nov 7 2012: What did you learn about marketing, and from where? How did it affect you? Can we learn something about the question by sharing these stories?
The only reason I can think of not to share information with children is if it is false information.
Nov 10 2012: Hi Lorelei,
Thanks for your comment, i'll be glad to share
I grew up without watching much tv, whic was fortunate i would say. There was not a lot to watch on tv back when i was young, and my time outside of school was spent mostly playing in the streets. The only advertisement we kids used to see all the time was that of the brands of chips or the brands of soda that the little store had on their walls and refrigerators. I don't recall more than 10 of these "brands" from back then, but i can tell you that people bought them religiously.
One of my first experiences was to watch advertisement for disposable mops. They made them sound so much better than regular mops, with phrases like "scientifically proven", "guaranteed", etc etc.
During those days, at least where i lived, most people used to wash clothes by hand, and squeeze their mops by hand too. I remember very clearly even today how hands that wash clothes and squeeze mops look like. And I remember very clearly (i was probably 8 yrs old or so) thinking to myself that the lady squeezing the mop in the commercial did not have such hands. So it struck me as odd that they would be faking it. Why not use a real person squeezing a real mop? i wondered.
And the result is that i concluded that they were just faking it. I don't think i ever let go of the feeling from that realization. Why would someone making a commercial need to fake something as simple as like that?
Well, i guess that is what got me started.
Eventually i discovered that communication is an interesting subject, and that the way you say something can influence the way it is perceived and processed by other people. That they kind of visual images you see when you hear some words indeed changes the way you perceive those words. That sometimes we are not fully aware of the way we process words in, but we later use that information regularly
I became critical at a young age, i guess.
Dan F
Nov 3 2012: I would be against any required public education designed to help children understand how advertisement works, or for that matter on how religion works.
- 0
Advertisers should be regulated as tightly as the law and reason permits. Obviously advertisers are trying to sell stuff and will go to incredible creative lengths and legal limits which are smart financially.
Being a good parent is demanding at best and there are no guarantees on outcome. I think serving as a role model you wish to promote is essential. Kids especially as they get a little older need more guidance as they become more and more exposed to other influences such as advertisers. I do think its smart to help your kids see through some of the advertising baloney, but remember as adults we are on display too. This can become tricky landscape -- "com' on dad look at you," is what your child may be thinking even if they're not saying so.
Best way to help your growing kids IMO is to encourage and recognize their achievements as students. Online learning it seems to me could also help out parents in certain topics such as the one at hand, but parents should be the ones offering videos, etc., selections which could be discussed and serve to help them see things more objectively and truthfully.
Nov 6 2012: Hi Dan,
Thanks for your comment... I understood that you are against requiring this as mandatory in schools, but i was a bit confused as to whether you completely oppose teaching it in schools. would you care to clarify if you have a chance? By the way, i am not sure I would consider religion and advertisement in the same category (interesting side topic, for sure),
But just like I am ok with kids being taught arithmetic or chemistry, i would be ok with kids being taught what we know about psychology
Now, you bring up a very important topic, and I entirely concur with you: teaching kids that there is baloney in advertisement can open the door for them to question more than just advertisement. Some parents will not find this prospect appealing. In my case, though, I think that it is essential. Maybe because I value critical thinking much more highly than i value blind obedience, I decided to accept the risk of opening that door, so my kids to challenge my ideas as well (which does not mean that they will be right in their challenge, and most of the times i can convince them with deeper explanations, but at least they do not feel guilty of challenging authority, and they learn to accept when their challenges do not stand scrutiny)
Online learning, as you mention is gaining a serious place in formal education, and it has tremendous potential. One can only imagine what schools will look like 50 years from now. And yes, us parents should do our homework and sort through the sea of information in order to show our kids what we think will give them tools for their personal growth


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Today, when GM is finished with a show car, it's locked away, never to see the light of day; or worse, crushed and hauled away for liability reasons. But, says Werner Meier, in the heyday of '60's car styling when GM "could do no wrong, the people at the top seemed to be able to do whatever they damn well pleased."
Werner, the hobby's heir-apparent spokesman and restorer par excellence, would know, as he has several of these rare styling machines in his stable of fine Corvettes. While some of the cars might have just had special paint and the signature metal grilles in the floorboards, many were built specifically for friends and family. Bunkie Knudsen's wife and Harley Earl's wife both had pink Corvettes with unique show-car features.
The coupe pictured here was built for display at the 1964 New York World's Fair. When that international shindig ended, GM stored the special car in a warehouse in the city. Allegedly, the car was vandalized and the unique instrument cluster was removed. After the incident, GM brought the car back to Detroit and installed the modified '63 production cluster the car currently contains.
Alex Maier, an executive VP for GM, thought the '64 would make a great birthday present for his 16-year-old son, Steve. The exterior pipes on the car were made of plastic, and no real exhaust system existed. Alex had the people in the engineering garage install a production exhaust. The exhaust exited under the car rather than through the side-pipe arrangement.
While most 16-year-olds would have hot-rodded and killed a '64 Corvette, Steve Maier, according to Werner, "would not wear his shoes in the car. He kept the car in great condition." Steve kept this '64, resisting offers to buy, until the late '80s when it had historic value.
Initially, four businessmen purchased the car, looking to market it to a collector-car audience. The car ultimately wound up in Texas, and Werner flew there to try to purchase it.
"I had buyers lined up for five of my cars so I could buy that car. Five Corvettes were going to bite the dust to buy that car at the time," Werner says. "Trying to purchase the a car was fraught with cat-and-mouse games. The price, once set, went up. So, I walked."
The car eventually went to Corvette Mike in California and later to the famous Blackhawk Collection. In 2001, Mike Yager bought the '64 at the Monterey sports car auction held during the weekend of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Werner took the initiative to e-mail Mike, offering his special talents to try to restore the car to its World's Fair glory days. Mike agreed.
The car arrived in excellent original condition, having been babied its entire life. However, Werner explained, "Somebody had mismatched a set of knock-off wheels. The flashers weren't working in the doors and the radiator was oozing green. The brakes weren't working, the rubber was falling out of the control-arm bushings, and things like that." Werner suggested to Mike that he make the original exhaust system work using metal side-pipe systems.
This '64 is a complete show car rather than a "modified production" show car, as were many of the Corvettes that went out the door to friends and family of the corporate brass. After Alex's son took ownership, his father had the engineering garage at the Tech Center fix things on the car, so a few of the parts got swapped out. Thus, the clock is '65 vintage and the brake master cylinder is '67.
Werner walked around the car and pointed out the many unique features. The showiest are the side pipes, which he says are "a dead ringer to the plastic, fiberglass mock-up parts." The drivetrain is a "basically stock" 375-horse, 327ci fuelie.


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Dec 9, 2008
MINDSTORMS' most famous quote
If you're not familiar with this quote, it was apparently posted in numerous places at LEGO during the development of the MINDSTORMS NXT. It's a grand statement, so my question to you is this - has LEGO done it?
I'd like to point out that many students have now entered college/university (or will be shortly) who have had access to these kits. Whether they're choosing robotics as a career or not, it could be argued that having access to MINDSTORMS may have sparked an interest in math and science that will follow these students into their chosen careers.
The iPod has definitely shaken up the music world. I own one and have converted every CD I own so I can listen to them on my iPod. I continue to buy music from iTunes at 99-cents each. Yes, there are other products out there that play MP3 and other formats, but... I'll be honest here... the look of the iPod, combined with how easy it is to use, is what sold me. Can the same thing be said for the NXT?
Has the NXT (and RCX) done for robotics what the iPod has done for music? I think we can all agree that MINDSTORMS has definitely sold well and has achieved media attention (magazines, TV, newspapers) and contests such as FLL and FTC continue to introduce robotics to students, parents, and teachers around the world. Other kits exist - VEX comes to mind - but has any other robotics kit done more to increase interest and awareness of the field than MINDSTORMS?
5 comments:
- Dave Parker said...
Interesting analogy, but you could say that what the iPod did for music was to put a huge dent in the existing firm standard on how you buy and listen to music (CDs), enough to start a permanent change in direction away from that standard. What was the existing standard for robotics before MINDSTORMS? There was none, just a hodge-podge of totally different hobby kits. Thus, an alternative analogy might be that MINDSTORMS did for robotics what the Apple II and did for computers (standardized it, at a low cost, and brought the same thing to homes and schools).
So if LEGO is Apple in this analogy (maintains total control over both hardware and software on their system), is there going to be a "PC" product in the future to battle with? Something like a robotics software OS standard (DOS) with an initial strong hardware vendor (IBM), that then opens up to multiple hardware vendors? Hmm, who will it be?
- Dec 9, 2008, 2:48:00 AM
- Max Vrany said...
I would say that this hasn't happened yet. If you ask most, if not all, people what an iPod is they probably will know what an iPod is. As far as I'm concerned that hasn't happened with NXT yet.
Mr. Parker is right with his Apple II anology. His prediction of a battle with another company or two (MegaBlocks maybe?) probably won't happen. LEGO is just too well known. If someone does try to challenge them, they'll just get mutilated.
The only reason (I think) that NXT isn't that well known is that LEGO doesn't want it to be. If LEGO ran an advertisement during a moderatly to very popular network program, they would be overwhelmed.
- Dec 9, 2008, 8:04:00 AM
- Dave D. said...
I guess I'm one of those people who were at the right age when the RIS was released... For me, Mindstorms have definitely had an effect on my course choices, though not in an obvious way. I originally wanted to go into a robotics career, but as I noticed that I liked to build really simple robots and then program more complex programs, I realized that I really liked the software aspect of robotics more. I think the Mindstorms kit (and the Ti-83+ calculator) really steered me into a software emphasis. (Though I still love robotics, and I hope to get an NXT soon...)
- Dec 9, 2008, 9:44:00 AM
- Matthias Paul Scholz said...
we _still_ are in the phase of "totally different hobby kits", I guess. We like to think of MINDSTORMS as a standard from our point of view, maybe (being NXT builders), but it isn't it - for most people (including users of other robotics sets), it's just another robotics hobby kit on the market.
- Dec 9, 2008, 11:37:00 PM
- Jim Kelly said...
To add to Matthias' comment (but not assuming he'll agree with me), it might be interesting to discuss what LEGO could do to DEFINE a standard.
There's already one big problem in that Technic bricks are proprietary, so no 3rd party companies will ever be able to create sensors or parts without a LEGO license. This is the first strike against LEGO MINDSTORMS ever becoming the de facto robot kit.
Same with the software; NXT-G is a bright, colorful, and non-scary programming environment that welcomes kids (and adults) to tinker... but again, I don't think it can ever become a standard (even thought it's built on LabView).
I think the best that LEGO can do is to become the "robotics introductory standard" if such a thing can ever truly exist. Parts are durable, don't require hand tools (drilling, cutting, etc), and, let's face it, everybody has played with LEGO and understand the concept.
Like Apple did (does?) in the USA by placing an Apple computer in every school, maybe LEGO could do the same by providing a robot kit to every school, after-school program, and non-profit that works with kids. Expensive, but definitely a way to introduce the kit to those who are unfamiliar with it.
- Dec 9, 2008, 11:47:00 PM


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Help People,
Is there an episode of How I met your mother where Ted buys a black Crown Vic? Or is this it I've turned 40 and I've just lost my marbles.
I remember an episode where Ted buys a black Crown Vic (No not the car he refuses to move or let people eat in) and goes around NY with people assuming he is a cop.
Or am I confusing it with a different show?
I know this is a weird forum to ask this on but It's almost the only forum I have an account for.
Any help even if its recommendation for shrinks will be appreciated.


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Gazprom Neft has signed an agreement with France-based Total to form a joint venture to produce and sell modified bitumen. Both companies will have a 50% stake in the venture, which plans to build a special bitumen production facility at Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery.
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the note is not clear on the properties of modified bitumen, but I can say that it is a difficult task to achieve and by-products must be treated with care because they are highly polluting.
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It might still be warm outside but the cool, crisp days of autumn are just a few weeks away. As the weather gets cooler, many of us start to think about putting our favorite garden fairies, gnomes, and other resin garden statues back into storage. However, at the same time, we also need to start thinking about how we are gong to decorate the backyard for one of the most entertaining holidays of the year. Halloween is going to be here in the blink of an eye and a big part of that fun holiday is turning the backyard into a temporary display of haunting, frighteningly good decor.
This Halloween, instead of sticking to the same old cut-outs of ghosts, glow in the dark skeletons, and pumpkin-themed decor, reward yourself and friends with the gift of gargoyle figurines and get serious with your spooky display. Shock and impress guests with detailed and realistic gargoyles such as Draga the Gargoyle Vampire Statue. Not only does this finely carved fiend watch over your Halloween party guests, but it also wants to bite their necks and shows it with a sinister look and sharp fangs.
While Draga watches guests from a corner of the yard, greet them at the door with fantastic sentinel gargoyles such as Argos and Boden. The sharp, regal details, toothy maws, and impressive appearance of these gargoyle statues will tell guests that they have just walked into the best Halloween party in town.
Find magnificent gargoyle sculptures and the best in garden statuary at Design Toscano today.


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These are five reasons I feel the WWE is going in the same direction that WCW did in its dieing days and it could cause trouble down the road.
5: Celebrities getting involved in shows
It is getting better but the way that WCW used Leno, Rodman, and Malone is way that WWE is using some of their guest hosts.
4: Booking
The way that WCW had their questionable
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Drama, Comedy
Over the course of one raucous night at a seaside wedding eight close friends, all members of a tight, eclectic college clique, reconvene to watch two of their own tie the knot. Laura is maid of honor to Lila, her golden girl best friend. The two have long rivaled over the groom, Tom. Friendships and alliances are tested and the love triangle comes to a head the night before the wedding, when the drunken friends frolic in the nearby surf and return to shore... without the groom.
Rated PG-13 fopr sexual content, partial nudity, language and some drug material.
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Cast: Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Malin Akerman, Jeremy Strong
Produced by: Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Michael Benaroya, Taylor Kephart
Directed by: Galt Niederhoffer
Written by: Galt Niederhoffer
Running time: 1hr 35min
Opens: Sep 10, 2010 NY/LA


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Good evening EWNCW! EWNCW anchorman AND number one commentator Dick Thompson here haha!! Yeah, I showed that Josh King who's boss!! That's the last tiem they'll think about overlooking Dick Thompson!!
What?..... Oh.... yeah..... ahem!!
EWNCW management are said to be very happy with the way In Violence We Trust went down. They feel that the event as a whole including the first ever EWNCW Axxess event was as a whole a big success.
The talk is that they will hold another Axxess event ahead of EWNCW's biggest ppv of the year: Destiny's Calling.
They also feel that the ppv event went over well with the fans and that pretty much all matches were of great quality. Although the matches were brutal, it's been reported that there weren't any major injuries, although pretty much everyone who participated in stipulation matches are feeling the effects.
We are now looking down the road towards the next EWNCW ppv, which will be the interactive Threat of the Net, and here is the poster:
Just like last year's event, EWNCW fans will get the chance to vote on various aspects of the ppv, making it a very exciting and interactive event for all involved!
We can also bring you an update on the future of tag team wrestling in EWNCW.
We can report that EWNCW management have been in discussions and have decided on which tag teams will go to which brand. We already reported that following the closure of the Brutality brand that the tag teams of EWNCW would be divided between the remaining 2 brands. We can also confirm that going forward, there will be 2 tag team belts defended in EWNCW; one on each brand. We expect to be able to get confirmation on which tag teams are on which brands soon.
In other news, we can confirm that EWNCW have come to terms on the release of the following superstars:
The Prophecy, Raden Blain, Rain and Avidico.
The Prophecy hadn't been seen on EWNCW programming for several weeks after seemingly starting a program with Holy Jose on Rage. But the program seemingly ended abruptly as no mention was made of the feud in recent weeks. We hear that lack of commitment and time-keeping issues led to his release.
Both Raden Blain and Rain had barely gotten their feet under the table and neither man was given anything worthwhile to work with after being brought to the main roster after a period in EWNCW developmental. The decision was then made to but both men from the roster.
Avidico was widely regarded as a high flying Mexican luchador star that management had big plans for in the Ignition division. However after seeing him working various house shows and dark matches, the decision was made that he was neither ready to perform on the main roster, and his mic skill was also deemed under par. It's reported that EWNCW asked Avidico to spend time in TWE before being called up to the main roster later, but the Mexican star wasn't keen on this idea and the decision was taken to cut ties with him.
EWNCW management would like to wish all the best in all future endeavor.
We can also report that The Devil's Advocate has parted ways with EWNCW. The EWNCW original was only expected to be in EWNCW for a short stint, and so was only signed to a short term contract, despite rumors that he had resigned on a permanent basis. We're hearing that TDA wanted one last run in the company where he started as he looks to move into retirement. He still competes for various independent promotions, but based on what the veteran has been saying as of late, the general consensus is that he is set to move into full retirement at some point this year. EWNCw have however left the door widely open for him to return to the promotion in any sort of capacity should he wish to do so.
Finally, we are also hearing that former EWNCW Champion Krystian Krysys will be taking some time off following In Violence We Trust. It's been reported that he is feeling burnt out and is nursing a few niggling injuries and has asked and been granted some time off. It is unknown at this point when he will be returning to EWNCW programming.
And THAT, EWNCW, is a wrap!! We'll bring you more as we get it!!
You stay classy EWNCW!