The Hidden Persuaders
Vance Packard | 2007-07-01 00:00:00 | Ig Publishing | 200 | Advertising
"One of the best books around for demystifying the deliberately mysterious arts of advertising."-Salon
"Fascinating, entertaining and thought-stimulating."-The New York Times Book Review
"A brisk, authoritative and frightening report on how manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command"--The New Yorker
Originally published in 1957 and now back in print to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, The Hidden Persuaders is Vance Packard's pioneering and prescient work revealing how advertisers use psychological methods to tap into our unconscious desires in order to "persuade" us to buy the products they are selling.
A classic examination of how our thoughts and feelings are manipulated by business, media and politicians, The Hidden Persuaders was the first book to expose the hidden world of "motivation research," the psychological technique that advertisers use to probe our minds in order to control our actions as consumers. Through analysis of products, political campaigns and television programs of the 1950s, Packard shows how the insidious manipulation practices that have come to dominate today's corporate-driven world began.
Featuring an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, The Hidden Persuaders has sold over one million copies, and forever changed the way we look at the world of advertising.
Reviews
We have been programmed by marketing strategies, tv commercials, billboards and anything else that marketing strategists can possibly conceive of! The human mind is weak and malleable, some more than others, but read this book to find out how long this has been going on...you won't believe what you find out!
Reviews
I rarely put a book down, even if I find its not what I expected. I feel a book at least deserves the chance to be heard out -- but not this one.
I heard about Hidden Persuaders on NPR when they talked about consumer buying habits. Thinking it would be an intriguing look into the way things are marketed to us, I bought the book. Vance and his publisher want you to believe that this is a shocking expose of the advertising industry but I doubt even he believes his assertion. Perhaps these were revolutionary techniques in the 50s but they certainly aren't relevant now. Does it require a psychologist to tell us that we all want a convertible and leave with a sedan? That you'd rather have a cake mix that requires eggs and milk instead of just water? That you want to indulge in a guilty pleasure but need to be reassured first? That sex sells? It's armchair psychology and nothing in the book is shocking or surprising.
Even the publisher doesn't take this release seriously -- it clearly skipped the editor's desk and went straight to press typo's and all. The cover teases you in with promises of scandalous marketing tactics, but it fails to deliver any more than wasted print.
Reviews
Most of us realize that we are being influenced all the time. What most of us don't realize is just how much we are controlled and influenced. The Hidden Persuaders will describe to you the early efforts made to understand, control and influence people in the name of consumerism and control. This book should scare you, especially when you stop and think about how much more refined the methods are today.
A key point made by the book is the primary difference between manipulation and persuasion is intent. Even the most cursory look at history will tell you that when the tools exist, someone will use them to dominate and control others. In fact, they are being used right now and everyday to control us. The Matrix is alive and well and real.
Read this book.
Reviews
What's really interesting about this book is how old the information is. The ideas Packard described are being presented to us today as relatively novel, as though our culture is just now waking up to the idea that consumerism is about hidden motivations, hypnosis, rationalization and social striving.
Take the example about how people want big cars but feel ashamed of buying them, and how you can help them justify it to themselves by talking about safety. This kind of information is being presented to us in the present as though it were news, but there it was, in 1959.
As for it being dated, well, in some ways it is. Still, a lot of the psychological information still represents our best information about human nature. It's interesting to see theories devised for healing psychological pathology employed for monetary gain, especially if you don't have a background in advertising and marketing.
If you are already an expert in those areas, it might make a fun history lesson.
Reviews
The classic book which first exposed the psychological tricks used by advertisers to sell everything from soap to ideas. This information is even more important today when so much information is gathered about each of us. This book shows how even the must seemingly unimportant detail about a person can be used as a tool to manipulate that person's opinions and buying habits.
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