The Persuaders

1. When watching The Persuaders in class, I realized a lot more things are involved in marketing than just creating advertisements. I knew somewhere in my mind that market research was necessary, the different things that go into market research (including focus groups and round-table discussions), and the different ways that companies go about marketing (such as the shoe company right at the beginning of the film). As I am not familiar with what goes into the persuasion industry, I feel that I cannot accurately discuss whether or not this is an accurate assesment of the persuasion industries, however, as a buyer in today's society, I can say that the persuasion techniques discussed work. Constantly bombarding viewers with advertisements does create the atmosphere to buy.

2. Social Awareness: Song airlines - Song focuses strictly on women and families, using organic products, low prices, and specifically targeting their marketing to families. Even though social awareness focuses on following a "trend" or a cause, I feel that song airlines fits the social awareness concept because they are focusing on a specific group and organic food. Coolness Marketing: Song airlines - By using coolness marketing, Song aimed to change the way people viewed air travel. Song airlines is catered to women, making it "cool" to fly on Song. Also, Starbucks promoting new artists in their stores is an example of coolness marketing. (Because Starbucks is cool, new artists marketed at Starbucks are cool too). Finally, the iPod discussion featured a man who noticed all of the iPod commercials with the white earbuds, as he put his own earbuds in and began to listen to his own music, he felt as cool as those in the commercial.

3. Commodity Fetishism: The example I have for commodity fetishism deals with emotional branding and dealing with the differences between marketing to a person's head rather than their heart (or vice versa). There are different ways to market to a person's head versus their heart and a marketing team has to decide what to choose when they are creating their advertisements for products or companies.