After viewing The Persuaders, one quotation stood out in my mind above all others: “marketing is the lens in which we view the world.” In today’s increasingly interdependent economy, the media saturation has permeated every facet of our lives, and it is only growing stronger each day. The cultist ideal, the infiltration of our favorite television shows, and the effects marketing and advertising have on Public Relations are brought to light by the documentary, The Persuaders. This film has forever changed my outlook on the effect that subliminal marketing has on my day-to-day activities.
Until viewing this documentary, it has been difficult for me to conceptualize the term Public Relations, and differentiating it from marketing and advertising was equally challenging. The Persuaders, has made the difference abundantly clear. Marketing and Advertising care only about the product, sales, and profit, whereas Public Relations builds relationships with its target market. We do not try to badger and harass our target market in every facet of their lives to get a point across. Marketing and Advertising have committed themselves to being some of the first things you wake up to in the morning and the last things you see at night. They have infiltrated our favorite television shows, and they give us something to read at the bottom of our coffee cups.
From a consumer standpoint, I feel like just another number to them. Just by watching an episode of Sex and the City, I feel I’ve just helped them achieve their goal. Every year for Christmas my family and I go up to New York to visit my extended family, and we always go into the city. The Persuaders has effectively opened my eyes to all the advertisements, including those in Times Square. I’ve always known they were there, but I never really focused on them for what they are, before they just blended in with the aesthetic of the city. Another troublesome thought is that the musical artists I love are using advertisements and commercials to release new songs. There are no longer lines between media and advertisements; the two terms are now synonymous. This worries me most with the profession of Public Relations I plan on diving into upon graduation.
Another unsettling thought is the cultist idea that companies such as Apple and Adidas are trying to generate. This was another perspective that The Persuaders brought to light. We always joke about things like “having an App for that,” or about the people who have Apple everything, or who wear only UnderArmour athletic apparel; but to attribute the word “cult” to these devout consumers puts a whole new severity into what Advertising has become. The simple fact that companies are trying to establish that extreme level of consumer-craze is a frightening thought. The cult idea that corporations are trying to establish is another example of how media saturation has hit its peak.
Now that I understand the difference between Marketing/Advertising and Public Relations, the reality sets in on what I am about to embark on. The commitment a sales team has to getting its product out there is endless. The example they used in The Persuaders was Adidas’ guerrilla marketing tactic of projecting their name and featured product on the side of a building at 3:00 a.m. This poses the question of “what is too much?” I feel all of this extreme advertising will have negative effects on Public Relations, for example, the failure of Song. The marketing team of Song built a character named Carrie as its target client. They invested so much money into everything they wanted Song to be, and it failed. I wonder if they ever stopped to think about the negative ramifications this failure could have on Delta and its client base. How was the PR handled when Delta made the final decision to merge Song with the rest of the Delta fleet? With the way marketing and advertising are spinning out of control, Public Relations is going to become the Janitor of the industry, cleaning up and fixing the failed attempts of the advertisers.
Looking at my personal media use through the diary implemented throughout this assignment, it surprises me how much I use different forms of media. I know that stereotypically my demographic bases their lives around social media, but my own personal usage astounded me. I noticed I hardly use traditional forms of media to stay current with local and global events. Instead of turning on my TV to channel 36 to watch CNN, I pull up my Twitter account to see what they have Tweeted for the day. I read articles my friends put up on their Facebook profiles rather than picking up a newspaper unless I have to for school. Just my media use in this past week has given me a new point of view as to what this world is coming to, and I consider myself a below-average user of social media.
I truly hope the field I am studying to have a career in can hold its ground in this increasingly saturated environment and that the effects of the media infiltration do not tarnish the integrity of the field. The cultist ideal, the saturation of advertising in our daily activities, and the effects on Public Relations are not something that should be overlooked or downplayed in any way. The Persuaders has permanently opened my eyes to the advertisement we are constantly subjected to, and because of it I will do my best to not use marketing as the lens in which I view the world.
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