social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generation

[Larry Pubes]

el mamerro: i don't have alot of time to really explain it, but my point about branding is that it has enormous cultural influence and in the case of large scale brands, has already 'adapted' to a large extent. it's much harder to detect it when it's apart of the fabric of life. obviously successful branding must have successful advertising and marketing initiatives, and i think large brands are already over the 'bump'. on a sidenote i noticed you said branding has been around forever. well, for the sake of this discussion, the theory that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, not products, has arguably only been around since the '80's. generally speaking.

 

as for the discussion above on television and children, there are hard facts and literature that show kids under 2years old should absolutely NOT be put in front of a tv on a regular basis. the brain is still in a critical developmental stage and television imposes fast patterns. when kids get older they have trouble coping since the real world is not that fast, which is one of the reasons why so many kids these days have so much trouble concentrating for periods of time. my own personal concerns is that tv isn't so much about 'missing out on culture' (terrible argument in my opinion since it's surplus culture to begin with), but largely about conformity and conditioning. there are some pluses of course, but i think overall television is harmful to young minds.

[Soup BDC]

Hey Larry, I'd tell you all about this stuff, but i'm lazy

 

Just go watch the video.

 

And as for brainwashing, don't worry about the kids. They'll get served bullshit until they're old enough just like every generation before them. And when they're old enough that's when you tell them the truth and have them decide for themselves what they want to do. Kinda like what I'm trying to do with crossfire now.

 

The onlything that's "bad" with "branding" as you put it, is the irrational behavior of consumers to buy shit because they heard about it on TV. Macaroni and Cheese for example, one of my favorite rackets at the superstore. There was the original "Macaroni in eleven minutes" then Easy Mac, now Cupanoodle style mac. Consumers are lazy, and if you make a product to help them remain lazy they'll buy it, which is great because it makes the rich get richer and poor get poorer.

 

If you really want to help the children, start a trend where kids buy clothing because it's cheap, decent quality, and fits. Make them take cooking classes, work doing chores for athletic equipment, and ban TV from being watched. Don't just ban it either, tell them why it's banned, so they have something to jock they're friends about "Haha you watch tv? You fag0r." Then maybe let them drink at a young age so they're not total tight-wads.

[Larry Pubes]

uhh, you mean the video I originally brought up in my first post that you subsequently went ape shit over? and you're too lazy? well, it sounds like you think you've got alot to tell me, so why don't you give it a shot instead of coming off like you're too expert to bother?

now kids and television and the post i made: it's not about how much bullshit they are being served throughout their lives, or whatever tangent you want to go off on, it's about the formative stages of brain development and hampering the healthy, normal development of it. have you ever seen a 1 or 2 year old zoned out in front of a tv? or have you read anything about children and media? i'm not an expert on it, but i live with one, and she's done her homework. trust.

the rest of your post doesn't make much sense to me in lieu of my original posts directed to what el mamerro was addressing.

[Dawood]

This is kind of topic Relm but there have been some quotes with regard to branding, marketing and advertising. I remember in 1992 I was sitting in McDonalds on the Lynnway and looking at a Truck that was on top of a rood and then the building was "West Lynn Creamery" now Garelick Farms. Anyway I remeber these cats were like "You see the guy in the truck he get's paid to situp there all day in that truck". I later found out that "My boy Dave and J.R. were playing a joke on a Freshman becuase they were seniors at the time. From that point forward I "considered my slogan for graf "Silent but Deadly". Good to see your doing well man!

 

~JJ~

 

 

ooooh, I remember that guy who used to sit in the truck on top of the roof. He used to sit up there and smoke mad weed.

 

 

what up jj? how you doing man? still a big wig strongarm?

 

I'll hit you on the pm.

[jcramair1]

Just taking it easy man down in Orlando. On the rebound with my business expanding my horizon man. I don't want to crash this thread "Home Piss". Those was once the words from a Style Assasin from Sin City. Hit me up on the PM.

[Soup BDC]

Hey lary, my bad. I was drunk writing that. Ape shit? Well yeah, no I dug it a lot. Through the video you can see exactly what american life was without big buisness and what it's like with big buisness, even go so far as to understand exactly how modern america would be different if this capitalistic consumer culture didn't run everything.

 

As for my experience with these things, it only goes as far as the automotive industry: designing cars and products around a specific brand, and attending media days at car shows and listening to company exec's address shareholders about their plans for the future. I still have more questions than anything. So no, hah, I don't really have a lot to say to you, just my unexpert opinion on the matter.

 

Oh, and on the subject of children and tv. I know that much of your brain shuts off while watching tv, as opposed to reading a book. I know that within twenty minutes of tv watching, a person's ability to stop watching is greatly decreased. I know that you burn more calories sleeping than you do watching tv, which definitely has everything to do with brain activity. And as well as having a nine year old brother, that's about the extent of my knowledge.

 

Anyway, here's my q. To me it seems today all americans identify themselves with cultural groups, all of them relying on branding for their own group identities. Therefore, all it takes to be apart of a group (or dissascociate themselves from another group) is buy into those products. My question is how long has this been going on? What would be the effects to society if this stopped?

 

As for myself I drive a bmw, own a cruiser, wear shirts printed by the artist, and for these reasons I seem to be commonly recruited into clicks of kids that do the same shit. Is that branding?

[Smart]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

seriously, teaching your kids not to watch tv is bad... they're missing out on popular culture....cultural ignorance is the worse... I've met so many folks in school who are so much "smarter" than me yet never heard of Law and Order, let alone knew that Jerry Orbach was a famous vaudville performer, song and dance man back in the 40s and 50s...

 

Pop culture is social garbage. Didn't you pay attention to Warhol? Knowing what's hip right now is interesting and fun and all but knowing what's hip historically is really where it's at. Don't get me wrong, I love pop culture AND McDicks fries but neither one is even remotely related to a 'balanced diet'. Further, if there needed to be a single iconographic representation of pop culture the TV would be it. Period, no pictures of radios or computers or fashion shows or fishing lures, just TV.

 

I have owned TVs for all my life but several times I've gone years without watching (exception made for the Simpsons). About 4 years ago I realized that the only informational benefit I was getting from cable was the Weather Channel, and I can see that online. I'm wrestling with the idea of getting cable again but it will strictly be to provide an infrastructure for my internet connection, the TV shows are extra fluff.

[lord_casek]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

that was probably the best summary i've ever read.

the weather channel is about it. everything else can be

downloaded via the internet.

 

there's no reason to have tv.

 

do any of you remember years and years ago when the public

first got a whiff the of the sweet scent of internet (high speed, that is)? back in the very early 90's?

we were promised downloadable content for our tv's, personalized programming,

etc.

 

tivo is a small attempt at that, but tivo cannot bring us to that edge.

the internet can. of course, there are people using their dvr's on the pc's

and macs to grab the footage, edit out commercials (in most cases)

and provide it to their cyberspace buddies and fellow fans.

 

 

right at this very moment, congress is trying to pass laws to make the internet

corporate owned. so that it's no longer 'free'. how can they do this? i don't know.

probably the same way that they do alot of things. they just do.

[Larry Pubes]

Anyway, here's my q. To me it seems today all americans identify themselves with cultural groups, all of them relying on branding for their own group identities. Therefore, all it takes to be apart of a group (or dissascociate themselves from another group) is buy into those products. My question is how long has this been going on? What would be the effects to society if this stopped?

 

As for myself I drive a bmw, own a cruiser, wear shirts printed by the artist, and for these reasons I seem to be commonly recruited into clicks of kids that do the same shit. Is that branding?

 

no worries soup.

if you were addressing me..

first part: honestly i haven't really thought about it much in those terms, and i'm probably not the best to ask since i'm a straight up whiteboy. i don't feel i have a cultural group. the honky has no mythological system.

second part: that is the result of branding. basically branding is corporations selling an image or idea of themselves that people identify with and make their own. so take, for example, apple, one of the most successful brands on the planet. ipod, itunes, imac, ibook...all of it speaks to people in a way that says apple is cool, it's innovative, it's happening, it's individualistic. right now people want to be cutting edge and happening, so they buy apple products like nuts, and now apple is taking over the planet. or take branded humans like martha stewart or oprah. housewives in their 40's love 'em, they identify with them and the brand/image they project so they watch the show religiously, buy the products, the mags, the dishware...and then they get together with other housewives and have martha stewart parties or some shit.

my friendly question to you: what's with the beemer? like...do you like having those fat ass payments? personally i'd rather sock that money away for a pina-colada(sp?) chillfest in tahiti.

[B10N1X]

the internet is the worse polluter of advertisements i mean shyt theres one that pops up in these threads its soooooo weird...................let people think for themselves..i was watching this graff video they were altering billboards to say other shyt i thought that was awsome .......OIL KILLS

[Dawood]

 

 

 

[B10N1X]

yessss. hahaha

 

 

as a kid i watched tons of T.V but i didn't watch trash i was picky my mom said i was a picky kid when it came to the kinda programs i watched growing up i watched educational TV i watched the news regularly ever since i was maybe 4 yrs old i can remember watching the news on a regular basis and PBS i watched national geographic, discovery channel, and i watched mostly documentaries and i like indie films anyways i think parents should have some sort of control on what their kids watch and i think a parent has the right to deprive their children of TV there's no fucken crime in it and as long as you are capable of teaching your child to be spiritually aware versus materialistically aware that makes you far more of a better parent now if you choose to allow your kids to watch then it wouldn't be a surprise if your child is picky as well this is a common trait in many kids of the younger generation......

[Dawood]

I don't even own a TV. MY kids don't watch it at all. My 9 year old mostly reads a lot when he has down time. None of them have much down time . I beleive in keeping kids busy with projects and chores. My kids actually look forward to doing chores and helping out around the house. My 5 yr old (girl) helps my wife with the houswork and my 9 yr old (boy) helps me with my business. I figure by the time he's a teenager he'll have a trade to get him by.

I own a sign business (ironically) and here we are talking about advertisements evil effects.

I have a love hate relationship with my work. Of course coming from a graff background I love the design/layout aspect of it, but I hate the clutter it creates. I try to be responsible with what I do though. I don't help advertise things I don't agree with morally. Sometimes people don't understand , but I don't mind turning away a few dollars to do what I know is right. It's not always easy, though.

On the kids tip, we live in a ultra visual world nowadays so I don't try to shelter them from it. I do teach them what I beleive is wrong and I encourage them to avoid it. Well, to be straight, theres certain things I just don't allow in my house, but as they get older I'll do less forbidding and more encouraging because you can't make their decisions for them once they are adults, but the way I see it..As long as they're under my care , they won't be watching any of that trash the TV networks have to offer in my house.

[B10N1X]

i dont disagree with you at all........

[RumPuncher]

"The young inheritors of the world's supreme military and economic power apparently take it as an insult if anybody invites them to think. Why should they? Thinking is not advertised on television. This is America, where everything good is easy, anything difficult is bad, and the customer is always right."

 

--Lewis H. Lapham, "Blue guitar," Harper's, May 2006.

[RumPuncher]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

I'm wrestling with the idea of getting cable again but it will strictly be to provide an infrastructure for my internet connection' date=' the TV shows are extra fluff.[/quote']

 

I'm thinking about getting cable TV just for GoalTV and FoxSportsNet because they play soccer matches all day long.

[Dawood]

"The young inheritors of the world's supreme military and economic power apparently take it as an insult if anybody invites them to think. Why should they? Thinking is not advertised on television. This is America, where everything good is easy, anything difficult is bad, and the customer is always right."

 

--Lewis H. Lapham, "Blue guitar," Harper's, May 2006.

 

 

good quote

[villain]

Walking People up a Ladder

The Overton Window

[El Mamerro]

A Station with a One-of-a-Kind Campaign: All Snapple, All the Time

 

The New York Times, by Stuart Elliott, May 25, 2006

 

Someradio stations promise listeners ''all hits, all the time.'' Others proclaim to be ''all news, all the time.'' For the next 40 days a station in Boston will be, when it comes to advertising, all Snapple, all the time.

 

Beginning tomorrow, the Snapple line of teas, juice drinks, waters and other beverages sold by Cadbury Schweppes will be the sole sponsor of all programming and promotions on WFNX, a Boston FM station that also broadcasts through affiliates into Maine and New Hampshire. The sponsorship, which is costing Snapple more than $2 million, will enable the three stations that compose the WFNX Radio Network to eliminate all conventional commercials from the Memorial Day weekend through the Fourth of July.

 

In place of traditional spots, D.J.'s will acknowledge Snapple on the air for its sponsorship of what is being called the ''Summer Free for All.'' Among the citations that listeners may hear is a declaration that WFNX is the station ''playing the best stuff on earth,'' a nod to the longtime Snapple slogan. There will be sound effects mixed in with the D.J. patter, like the ''whoosh'' a Snapple cap makes when it is twisted off a bottle.

 

The D.J.'s on WFNX and its affiliates -- WFEX-FM in Manchester, N.H., and WPHX-FM in Portsmouth, N.H. -- will also identify the Snapple brand as the benefactor behind an array of promotions. They are to include free concerts by bands like Dashboard Confessional, giveaways of merchandise and beverages by teams of Snapple employees who will visit area beaches, and events with retailers that sell Snapple products. A ''guitarmeter'' will be placed outside a convenience store at Copley Square in Boston, signaling distribution of free drinks to passers-by on days when the temperature at noon tops 85 degrees.

 

Although the centerpiece of the effort is radio, one of the oldest media, large parts of the campaign will be made available through new media -- the better to reach the intended target audience of consumers aged 18 to 39. The plans, developed with three agencies, call for elements like a special Web site, reachable through a link on the WFNX home page (fnxradio.com); downloadable music, ring tones and voice tones; and text messaging.

 

''Consumers are in control, deciding how, when and where they will receive your messages,'' said Holly Mensch, marketing vice president for the Snapple brand at Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages in Rye Brook, N.Y., a unit of Cadbury Schweppes. ''It's getting harder and harder to reach people through traditional media avenues.''

 

''So if you want to break through,'' Ms. Mensch said, ''you have to connect in a way that fits with their lifestyles, in a way they can't tune you out.''

 

Snapple has long been active in the realm of nontraditional marketing, dating to the days when its employee-cum-spokeswoman, Wendy Kaufman (a k a Wendy the Snapple Lady), became a roving brand ambassador. Recent initiatives include the sponsorship of the Snapple Theater Center in Midtown Manhattan, at 1627 Broadway at 50th Street.

 

Such initiatives offer marketers ''a high level of presence, but also deliver something to the consumer,'' said Jay Coleman, president at EMCI in New York, an agency that works on projects for Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages.

 

''The concept is to weave Snapple through the fabric of WFNX,'' he added, ''in a way that fits the personality of the station and the brand.''

 

The sponsorship was the brainchild of Mr. Coleman, who called it ''brandcasting'' and described it as ''something I've been looking to pull off for a very long time.'' His inspiration, Mr. Coleman said, was a New York radio station, WAPP-FM, which introduced a format change by going commercial-free for the summer of 1982.

 

WFNX, owned by the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, was selected for the sponsorship for several reasons, Mr. Coleman said. Its format of so-called alternative rock music is attractive to the youthful Snapple target market, he said, adding that Boston is an important market for Snapple, which already advertises on WFNX.

 

Then, too, a marketer like Snapple with a reputation for cheeky campaigns could hardly resist an offbeat pitch for teas in the city known for the nation's most revolutionary tea party. In fact, one reason the sponsorship is timed for the start of summer is to help promote a new product line called Snapple White Tea.

 

WFNX was also seeking a big idea for summer, said Andy Kingston, general manager at the WFNX Radio Networks division of Phoenix Media/Communications, to help publicize the doubling of the power of the station's signal after the relocation of its broadcast tower to Boston from Medford, Mass.

 

''One of most powerful things a radio station can do is go commercial-free,'' Mr. Kingston said. ''We were approached by Jay, originally with the idea of going commercial-free for a year. Obviously, that was something we couldn't consider. But we ultimately agreed on this approach, which we found very appealing.''

 

Mr. Kingston acknowledged that limiting the station's air time to a sole marketer was a risk because it could alienate other advertisers. ''But we talked to them about it in January, to give them plenty of lead time,'' he said, ''and told them, 'Afterward, you'll be advertising to a much larger audience.' ''

 

Some other WFNX advertisers will take part in the Snapple sponsorship, Mr. Kingston said, like Live Nation, a concert and event promoter, which ''will give us a lot of tickets that we can give away at Snapple events.''

 

Other media properties owned by Phoenix Media/Communications will help promote the sponsorship, he added, including The Boston Phoenix newspaper.

 

In addition to EMCI, two other outside agencies are working on the sponsorship. One is G8wave, a division of Phoenix Media/Communications that specializes in mobile marketing.

 

''Listeners can text-message from and get content downloads to their phones,'' said Brad Mindich, chairman of G8wave and executive vice president at Phoenix Media/Communications (and son of Stephen Mindich, chief executive.) ''It fits in with the demographic for WFNX and Snapple.''

 

The other agency is Rainmaker Media in Westport, Conn., led by Beau Phillips, a radio programming consultant. Mr. Kingston said that Mr. Phillips would work with Max Tolkoff, the operations manager and program director of WFNX, to make sure that the on-air references to Snapple are ''nonintrusive'' and do not sound like commercials.

[the.crooked]

I haven't had the time to read through this entire thread, but I have tried to pick up the major points.

 

 

I think there is a small medium between the man with the answers and dawood. I watch a shit ton of television. Not particularly because it amuses me, or because I always enjoy it. I do it to learn. I do it to understand what the rest of the people in this world are watching and interpreting. I read a statistic the other day that said one in six children under the age of two have a television in their rooms. That is fucking rediculous, no matter who you are. Dawood and casek are right in so much as there is a cultural and societal dependence upon TV as representative of the ideals we ascribe to. Even if those suggested messages are bad or have a specific agenda behind them (which i believe they do), it still follows that watching with that concept in mind can be good.

 

I think mamerro has a rather inside and particular view of the industry we are all trying to understand and speculate about. At the same time, I see way too much politicization in commercial and programming content to find it as benign as mams sometimes makes it seem. I have spent the last two years watching headlines on google, and also spending a lot of time watching the news outlets on television. I also spend a lot of time watching vh1 and other rather trivial programming. Not to let myself become indoctrinated with the ideological messages it may convey, but to interpret the point of those messages. I suppose its a rather constructivist view of things, but I think it works rather well.

 

I think that if anyone concentrates on such a task and allows their subconcious to sift through all of the stimuli it recieves through things such as television and internet, you can find a common thread among that stimuli. I read an interesting article recently that talked about the subconcious's larger ability to access and interpret large quantities of variables to make a well informed desicion. Much more so than concious thought for we become to focused on our subjective experience to make a correct objective choice. I think the same is true of interpreting what we see daily through television and the internet.

 

As far as accepting the consumerism expressed through those mediums, sure, I buy my nikes, and I buy my fashionable clothing, but of my own personal choice. I am sure to some extent we are all marred with a basic choice of style that was given to us by some continued stimulus.

 

just my thoughts.

[fermentor666]

20 years ago there was no such thing as "the media". The term is a modern invention to give a face to the "news of the day" mechanism. It's stupidifying, if you look at it closely. "Media":

 

1. Something, such as an intermediate course of action, that occupies a position or represents a condition midway between extremes.

2. An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.

3. An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred: The train was the usual medium of transportation in those days.

 

 

 

Using "the media" to refer to journalists and news networks helps to merge the importance of news with the entertainment that surrounds it. It allows us to think less and many people take that choice.

[El Mamerro]

I'm all for the dismantling of media monopolies, but I disagree with a LOT in that article.