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Noise
Jul 30, 2010 22:58:24 GMT 10
Post by concrete on Jul 30, 2010 22:58:24 GMT 10
Ok. I needed to get cat food and beer today. So I went to my closest Tescos (fucking hate my local Sainsburys).
Then it hit me. As soon as you walk in, there is crap music blaring from some display they have that week. Went to the dvd/AV section to see if Solomon Kane had dropped to a price I'd be willing to pay yet. Half the tellys on display were showing crap skyHD adds. The other half were showing music videos. All were out of sync (less than half a second each but noticable enough.).
The AV section is next to the toy section. There were toys making sounds interweaving with the drone from the AV section. One stood out though. Twinkle Twinkle fucking star. It wasn't loud. But, somehow it just stood out from the rest of the drone. Maybe a different frequency or pitch. Who knows.
Anyway. Carried on to do my shopping (SK was still too dear). Went to get the cat food. Then I noticed the lcd screens in the aisle. Advertising everything and anything in the shop. At full fucking volume.
Went to get some brisket coz I'm gunna try making salt/corned beef (thats a different thread if it works). Guess what. Fucking web cams filming you! Incase you steal a shit peice of tesco meat!
I don't know why it got to me today. It just did. When I left. I drove home in complete silence. The bird thinks I'm bonkers because on sundays I sit in the garage reading gardening books and listening to classical music on the radio. It's like solace for me.
Now to the crux of the theory. In my lifetime. I've seen the world get more aggressive. Some would say, 'you're just seeing the world through grown-up eyes', I would say 'fuck you'. I've always know priorities change, as do perceptions. But, how can a constant deluge of noise be good for anyone? It's always there. Even at night. It might be my upbringing. But, I feel that the constant drone of 'progression' is making us crazy. Noise will be the death of us.
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Noise
Jul 31, 2010 0:27:12 GMT 10
Post by brillbilly on Jul 31, 2010 0:27:12 GMT 10
supermarkets have teams of specialists go in when setting up a new store and they have many weapons to brainwash the consumer
Armed with limitless resources, advertisers spend millions of dollars on researching exactly how to make you buy their product. Knowing that you have crave sex and fear death, Merit would want to know how their cigarettes appeal to you. Schlitz Brewing Company spends 10 million dollars annually to research how you drink beer. The consumer really doesn't know what they want to buy in the mass market. Since mass production has taken over, the difference in quality and effectiveness between one product and another of a similar price is nonexistent. Some advertisers still boast the quality of their products, but most have turned to more effective means of advertising-subliminal advertising. In order to do this, they must do some background research. After they find your vulnerabilities, they target specific these areas and fire their shots of subliminal messages.
Motivational Research Advertisers use motivational analysis or research (MR) to find the hidden needs of the consumer. Old techniques such is polls did not provide the depth and accuracy of knowledge advertisers required to create ads. This research method gained momentum in the late 40's and early 50's. Louis Cheskin, director of the Color Research Institute of America, and Ernest Dichter, president of the Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., claim to be the founding fathers of MR. Dichter says that the successful ad agency "manipulates human motivations and desires and develops a need for goods with which the public has at one time been unfamiliar-perhaps even undesirous of purchasing." Psychology not only holds promise for understanding people by "ultimately controlling their behavior." One of the research techniques advertisers used is depth interviews, either in individuals or groups. The researcher would gather a group of people and discuss a topic, like in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The psychologist would lead and direct the discussion so people would reveal their fears and desires. For example, an alcoholic might say something about having nightmares after trying to stop drinking. The researcher would then ask exactly what the alcoholic was dreaming about, and then use his dreams as subliminal images on advertisements. Devious indeed. Another method researchers use is the Rorschach Ink-blot test, developed by Hermann Rorschach. The subjects are asked to stare into formless ink blots and describe what they see. Supposedly, the subjects will reveal their hidden needs by seeing what they want to see. Some more commonly used techniques are Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), hypnosis, cartoon bubble filling, and Szondi test. The TAT is similar to the ink blot test, except real images and potential advertisements are used. Researchers might hypnotize a subject and ask him to tell secrets he would never openly reveal. In the cartoon test, the subject is shown an emotional cartoon with the dialogue bubbles blank, and the subject is asked to fill it in. Finally, the in Szondi test, researchers begin with the assumption that everyone is a little crazy. They show their subjects pictures of people and ask them who they would most likely to sit next to and least likely to sit next to. Each picture, however, shows someone who has a psychiatric disorder: paranoid, depressed, etc. In all of these tests, the subject is asked to project himself. After the advertisers find what appeals most to the consumer, they send the ideas to their graphic design artists to include it subliminal in their ads.
Subliminal Strategies Graphic design artists have a wealth of tools at their hands to expertly embed subliminal messages into their pictures. At the dawn of subliminal advertising, graphic artists painted on photographs. That was very difficult to do without ruining the picture. Later, with bigger budgets and better equipment, graphic artists used airbrushes to craft their design onto billboards and then take a picture of it. Now, everything is done digitally on the computer with perfection. Key has said there are six general subliminal strategies: figure-ground reversals, embedding, double entendre, low-intensity light and low-volume sound, tachistoscopic displays, lighting and background sound. Graphic artists can take advantage of multiple techniques to produce the desired effects.
To protect the brain from sensory overload, our perceptual defense mechanism distinguishes every perception into figure (foreground, subject) and ground (background, environment). We consciously notice the figure, while the ground floats around it unless something there brings it to the foreground. Perceptual psychologist Dr. E. Rubin created his famous Rubin's Profiles that can be found in almost every psychology text book today. His profiles, the faces and vases, old women and young women, duck and rabbit, are syncretistic (two sided) illusions. Noticing one set of features, you see one thing, while noticing another set of features, you see something else. Advertisers take advantage of this to paint subliminal messages into the picture's background. They are usually cultural taboos, making it even harder for the audience to perceive it.
Microsoft uses syncretistic illusions in the Windows 95 startup splash screen. It's the perfect place to put subliminal messages-most of us ignore it. Furthermore, if we ever stared into it, we are constantly distracted by the scrolling bar on the bottom of the screen. The intended audience are network administrators, corporate advisors, and home users in the power of buying this software-middle age men in their late forties. The slogan for Windows 95 is "Where do you want to go today?" It implies freedom, power, and control. Taken all this into account, you will find a hippie rocker (Woodstock), black stallion, and an eagle painted in the sky. The most prominent image is of course sex, displayed as the classic male dominant side profile of him kissing the female below. No wonder Windows 95 is so popular among zombies.
Embedding is the processing of hiding one image in the form of another. This is a difficulty process but if successful, very influential. Key writes, "Embeds enhance perceptual experience of the picture… Emotionalized, repressed information remains in the memory system for long periods, perhaps for a lifetime." Genitalia is one of the most often used images for embedding. The female torso in the Diet Coke can described earlier is an example of embedding. For alcohol or soft drink ads, advertisers like to depict their drink in either the bottle or a glass, half filled ice cubes and half with the drink, with condensation drops oozing down the sides of the glass. Graphic artists has gotten a lot of expertise at embedding objects in these pictures. The advertisers' favorite image to put in here are skulls and screaming contorted faces. Key has analyzed such an ad and found that these are the nightmares alcoholics have in their sleep. Using a similar technique, I also found a dozen or so screaming faces, skulls, and animal faces in a Seagram's Extra Dry Gin ad. If I only found one face in one ad, it could have come from my imagination. The multitude of similar images in several alcohol ads shows that advertisers must have intentionally put it in.
Many images, phrases, and slogans have hidden double meanings behind them. This is called double entendre. Symbolism can also go into this category. Often, their hidden meanings have sexual connotations. For example Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" and American Express' "Do more," when taken out of context, could have sexual implications. Key writes:
Double meanings appear to enrich significance in virtually any symbolic stimuli. Unconsciously perceived information of this taboo nature ensures a deep, meaningful emotional response, and continued memory.
Another example of advertiser's exploitation of double entendre is Crown Royal's holiday whiskey ad. The whiskey bottle is completely wrapped in a purple bag, with a card that says "To: Dad" on it. At the bottom of the page, big bold letters say "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Below this in smaller letters there is the phrase, "Those who appreciate quality enjoy it responsibly." The double meaning behind this ad is the call for Dad to have sex. During the holidays, Dad will open the bag (condom) uncovering his masculinity and consequently enjoys sex even more.
There is a plethora of other symbolic imagery that advertisers take advantage of. Advertisers often use lemon and oranges to portray fertility and women. Ties are a common phallic symbol. Through these symbolic images, can present a seemingly harmless ad while entrenching your subconscious mind with deeper meanings. Moog writes about symbolic imagery:
Symbolic communications bypass the layers of logic and cultural appropriateness and head straight for the unconscious, which is then free to find an equivalence between what is symbolized, in this case sexual arousal…
Another technique advertisers is low-intensity light and its auditory equivalent low-volume sound. Graphic artists paint faint subliminal images below the conscious threshold of perception but above the unconscious perception threshold. By far the most commonly embedded image is the word SEX. Key have said that "advertisers have indiscriminately sexualized virtually everything they publish or broadcast with subliminal SEXes." Often, graphic artists mosaic SEXes onto textured surfaces or in edges, shadows, and highlights. Just pick up any major magazine, relax, and stare into it for a couple of minutes. You will soon find these SEXes popping out at you. Other commonly used words are FUCK, DIE, and KILL, among other emotionally loaded four letter words. Such subliminal instructions are dangerous indeed. Dixon writes, "It may be impossible to resist instructions which are not consciously experienced."
The final two techniques, tachistoscopic display and lighting and background sound, are used in film and video advertisers. As mentioned earlier, tachistoscopic displays flash images onto the screen in fractions of a second not perceivable by the conscious mind. Another method tachistoscopic displays can use is superimposing the image onto existing image just below the conscious perception level, as Dr. Becker has done. Lighting and background sound adjust the mood of the scenery. In most cases, it reinforces the conscious perception.
Using these research and subliminal techniques, advertisers have great control on the consumer. With motivational research, they have found eight hidden needs in the human psyche: emotional security, reassurance of worth, ego-gratification, creative outlets, love objects, sense of power, sense of roots, and immortality. Also, advertisers found ten areas of behavior they can subliminal influence: conscious perception, emotional response, drive-related behaviors, adaptation levels, verbal formulations, memory, perceptual defenses, dreams, psychopathology, and purchasing and consumption behavior. Anyone has the potential to influence all ten behaviors, but advertisers of course are concerned with purchasing and consumption behaviors. With their billion dollar budgets, advertisers can use this knowledge to break down any consumer barriers.
Legal Issues It is obvious that by tapping into the consumer's unconscious mind without their knowledge, the advertisers are engaging in deceptive practices. It is also an invasion of privacy. But, is this legal? The answer is no. There are numerous legislation that prohibit advertisers from using subliminal messages in their ads. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Act Sec 5 - "prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in interstate commerce." They also claim they "have primary responsibility for regulation of advertising in this country." However, Key writes that "there appears to be nothing here that would provoke the FTC into a charge of deceptive advertising." The TV Code of the National Association of Broadcasters (IV, 14) states: "Any technique whereby an attempt is made to convey information to the viewer by transmitting messages below the threshold of normal awareness is not permitted." Unfortunately, these laws are vaguely stated yet greatly limited. The most potentially effective regulation is made by the U.S. Treasury Department, Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). It states:
Subliminals are inherently deceptive because the consumer does not perceive them at a normal level of awareness, and thus is given no choice whether to accept or reject the message, as is the case with normal advertising. ATF holds that this type of advertising technique is false and deceptive, and is prohibited by law.
The problem in this legal fight is not legislation, unfortunately. It is the proof. Because of its nature, subliminal messages are nearly impossible to prove. How do you prove to the judge there is a naked women in the Diet Coke can? How do you prove to the jury there are screaming faces hidden ice cubes? In this legal system, you can't. The evidence would be considered circumstantial. Advertisers would of course deny any such activity and claim that if you stare into anything long enough, you will find it. The most substantial evidence is they spending billions annually on research and subliminal advertising. Therefore, it must work?!? Another crutch against us is that no one, including the advertisers, know how the brain works. They just know that it does. Until we can scientifically prove subliminal perception, this quest may be in vain. Key writes: "The rules prohibiting repressed media content have been ignored. None of the regulations have ever been enforced." It seems like we are on losing grounds in this legal battle.
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Noise
Jul 31, 2010 6:35:51 GMT 10
Post by shatnerswig on Jul 31, 2010 6:35:51 GMT 10
so true good one brill y yes crete it is a constant barrage of sound the more urban the area the worse it gets..... just tune it out or get an ipod and at least you can choose the noise you hear lol
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Noise
Jul 31, 2010 15:17:17 GMT 10
Post by Wes on Jul 31, 2010 15:17:17 GMT 10
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