Douglas Rushkoff Questions

What in "The Persuaders" surprised you (or not)? Name one new thing you learned about marketing or politics from watching the film. Name one new thing you learned about yourself from watching the film, or one thing that the film reiterated about yourself.

I knew some things about how market research was conducted, but I never knew that there was one giant company whose only purpose was to give other companies information about me. That is scary to me. Especially in this age of technology where if they cared enough, they could see when you go to the bathroom with a satellite or monitor your activity online. So from that, I learned that the advertising industry needs to take it easy and respect the personal bubble and I also learned that I would really rather not have information gathered about me, even if it means that I have to see a few unwanted commercials.

* "The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?

The amount of advertising that I see does not put me into panic mode about persuaders taking over my life, but there is no doubting the increases over the past years. Manhattan is an extreme example in my opinion. In suburban areas, the closest you get to intrusive advertising is billboards and storefront signs. The place where we see the most advertising is in places where we can choose to see it or not. On television, obviously there are tons of commercials, but with TiVo and the remote control, they are merely a few clicks away from being out of your viewing experience. Online ads on the other hand, you can't fast forward through, but isn't everyone numb to those by now. Subliminal messaging, do your worst. The advertising is all just part of our changing culture. There are more businesses now than ever before, some of which are online businesses and don't even have a storefront for people to see. Advertising is a necessary evil if we all want the entertainment and services provided by people who make their money from advertising.