Ads Implant False Memories

[snousle]

This is a major reason I don't watch TV - it actually does contaminate your mind. I now have no confidence that anyone can distinguish between memories originating in TV and in real life, no matter how much they think they can:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/ads-implant-false-memories/

Comments

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, I don't think this phenomenon is limited to ads. I think it is side effect of our continually changing ideas of ourselves. Ads simply take these widespread ideas floating around in the air and concentrate them into 30 second spots, which is why I like good ads. They're not unlike good paintings.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I agree, the phenomenon is widespread and a basic part of the human mind; the question is who has control over it. Your friends and family, or corporations? People telling their own stories, or marketing departments telling you to buy things you don't need and eat foods that will kill you?

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

I have mixed emotions about it all, but I think you can separate the author from the message, not unlike distinguishing a brilliant painting done by a clearly disturbed artist.

I'm not sure that people are perfectly unconscious about the effects ads have on them. I think it is a form of hypnosis, though. I suppose if you're dead inside you don't really care that you're drinking Coke with lunch and you don't even like it. But it is exactly such a person who needs access to a wide variety of ideas to one day wake up. If commercials are such a person's access to new ideas I find it hard to deprive him of them.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

I've lost count of the reasons why I don't (and won't) own a television set, but this is on the short list. The human memory is nothing at all like the tape recorder most of us mistakenly believe it to be. And despite most of us genuinely believing ourselves not to be affected or influenced by advertising, fact is it works. Otherwise it wouldn't be a multibillion-dollar industry.

[dhpbear.livejournal.com]

...or are they just telling us it's a multi-billion dollar industry :)

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Except of course that the person who wrote the article noticed the "memory" was in conflict with what she knew about her high school's rules at the time (no glass containers) and thus realized she was mistaken.

I find good ads for products I already like emotionally satisfying because they reinforce the idea that I've made a good decision - but I cannot think of a single example where advertising has changed one of my existing product preferences. And when it comes to new stuff - generally there's a lot of research involved. I started using Sanyo Eneloop NiMH batteries because of the buzz from knowledgeable users and the objective testing reported on CandlePowerForums.com - not because I saw an ad. At most, an ad can prompt me to go research a product, but that's about it.

Of course, it's clear I'm not anything close to "average" - so it really shouldn't be a surprise that the effect is different on me than on most people. I prefer to avoid advertising simply because I'd rather focus on the content I'm interested in - that's why I pay for the netcast of The Stephanie Miller Show, and prefer to watch TV shows via DVD or digital copies that fall from the sky, where the ads have been excised. ;)

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

It probably works. But I'm not sure how often, and I'm skeptical of "otherwise it wouldn't be a multibillion-dollar industry" as a reason for thinking it must be working. I suspect that irrationality is at least is common in business as it is in government, family, and other departments of life. There is a lot of advertising (and, more broadly, promotion) that I have trouble believing is actually cost-effective in raising sales, and it would not surprise me to learn that malice & stupidity play a large role in shaping it. Of course, there is market research, but isn't it mostly paid for by the people whose activities it justifies?
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net
||: Never being in love is like never being in debt. :||

[mellowtigger]

I'm more concerned about automated filters that show us more online material about what we already hold to be true. Without opportunity for expressions of contrary opinions, we will become more firmly entrenched in our own beliefs. It's one reason that I dislike "private" blogs and Facebook filtering. I can be wrong about stuff, and when I'm wrong I want somebody to point out where I am wrong rather than remain silent (or algorithmically hidden). Contradiction needs to remain polite, of course, and that common failure is yet another affront to civility and our democratic future that needs to be "fixed".

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

We watch TV.

I've learned that whatever they're advertising, if you think in the exact opposite direction, you probably got the actual point they're trying to make.

For instance: Back in the 80's, our local station advertised 3-4 times an hour, "We got new 35MM prints of Star Trek! It will look much better!"

No, what they meant was, the new prints were cut by 5 minutes, so they could insert more commercials.

I knew that. So, I wasn't surprised when scenes were cut, and some scenes never really had an ending.

But I'm not sure if my neighbors were singing the same tune. Could be they were all extolling the virtues of better pictures. And how great Geico is.