There’s a Shopper Born Every Minute
Title: “Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy”
Author: Martin Lindstrom
Rank: 98
Blurb: “Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years. Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars.”
Review: “I love Whole Foods, but after this read, I’m not going to look at them in quite the same way! I found out how they use little tricks like putting veggies in rustic looking boxes to seem as if they are straight from the farm, putting prices on ‘chalkboards’ which actually are preprinted, putting food on ice when it doesn’t need to be, to make it look more appealing — even little things like putting their main door to the right, because people that walk counterclockwise through a store spend more — weird! Even the fact that I always like the music they have playing is a result of marketing — they know what their customers like, and play that.”
Customers Also Bought: “We Are All Weird”, by Seth Godin
Footnote: If you’re Shocked! by Whole Foods, god help the rest of your life.
Brandwashed [Amazon]
Reminds me of a conversation I had once with a conservative fellow about the movie “Super Size Me.”
He said that the documentary was bullshit and that companies would NEVER EVER sell product or manipulate us in any way unlike liebruls with an agenda.
Hee.
I have known about this sort of thing since I was 6 or so – Toys ‘R Us funneled you through lots of small toys, mostly action figures, before you got to the serious stuff. I never fell for it.
Somewhat related: a well-framed reminder that many nominally “Christian” churches in the US have actually converted to worshipping Mammon instead.
Preachers waffle on condemning greed from the pulpit
I guess I missed the part in the Gospels where Jeebus said, “Thou shalt not make rich people uncomfortable.” I was under the impression that he intended quite the opposite…
@al2o3cr: CNN gets through the whole story without mentioning the Prosperity Gospel?
Me, I always go back to the Greeks: We create our gods in our own image, and our gods have proven very adaptable.
@nojo: And has the name Creflo Dollar ever had more meaning?
@nojo:
Bringing THAT up would probably have irritated the teahadis CNN seems desperate to attract. Also, too, that crowd definitely wouldn’t fit under the headline; they’ve already gone 100% Gordon Gekko…
Oh, and a good one from Montana; apparently teabaggers love electing people who’ll vote against moneez for their district, but not actually losing it. Nice to see the governor calling them on their bullshit for once.
@al2o3cr:
The Teabaggers of Madison County?
ALL advertising:
Beware the Naked Man Offering you his Shirt.
/crawls back into lurking
NOJO • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @ManchuCandidate: So, can you guys annex us now?
MANCHUCANDIDATE • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! PP is done. 51st state, my ass.
NOJO • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @FlyingChainSaw: No, but my government was.
FLYINGCHAINSAW • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @nojo: Were you kidnapped?
NOJO • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @FlyingChainSaw: I’ve spent the past five weeks looking like Astronaut Dave going through the…
FLYINGCHAINSAW • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! NOJO - HOW COME WE'RE NOT COVERING KRASNOV?
NOJO • The Reckoning Four years later: Uhhh, how’d that work out?
JNOV • Hanging by a Thread @nojo: yeah. I had a feeling you’d say that.
NOJO • Hanging by a Thread @JNOV: Haven’t touched a thing — checked it the other day, worked from here. But that’s my…
JNOV • Hanging by a Thread Oh! My edits worked! Praise nojo!