Undercover Marketing

The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders

"In another experiment, conducted in the early 1990's by a psychology professor at the University of Louisville, two groups of subjects were given nine similarly valued objects and asked to rate the desirability of each. The group that was informed in advance it would get to keep one of the items (one of those insulating tubes that keeps canned drinks cold, as it happens) gave that item a more desirable rating than the other objects. The group that didn't get to keep anything rated them all the same. A follow-up experiment found that this ''mere ownership effect'' was essentially instantaneous. Other studies have shown that we like things more simply by virtue of repeated or prolonged exposure to them." From New York Times Magazine, Rob Walker, December 5, 2004. Link here.

Link here to watch trailer.
Link here to read article from New York Observer.

"Royter is being paid to flirt. She's part of a covert ad campaign for BlackBerry that attempts to drum up interest in smart phones by putting them in the hands of attractive, gregarious young women who push the product without the public's knowledge." Source is New York Daily News. Link here.

Skateboarding

Oreo Cookie

Undercover Marketing Segment,  "60 Minutes".

Watch trailer, Keeping Up With The Joneses (above).

Read article, Review of Keeping Up With The Joneses (above).  Vocab and outline/summary of article.

Watch Undercover Marketing Segment from 60 Minutes (above).

Write a personal response to the topic of undercover marketing.  

In addition to personal opinion, include connections to visual culture.  

Type your response. 

Prompts:

What objects define you?  Discuss why/how such objects define you.  What objects do you desire?  Discuss why.  How does undercover marketing connect with visual culture? Consider the following connections  - TED talks video of Joseph Pine, Handout from Ways of Seeing, PT Barnum, desire and glamour, platforming, magic lanterns, French Revolution.  Feel free to include additional connections that you deem significant.