The Psychology of Magic, Mediums, Politics, and Advertising
Here’s an interesting post at AdSavvy all about – you guessed it – the psychology of magic, mediums, politics, and advertising with more than a couple of references to some chap called ‘Derren Brown’.
yh first 2 comment come on:D
i just finished watchin derrens evening of wounders thing
it was good
hope the show i have tickets for will be as good:D
Who? 😉
Oh… yeh, that Darren bloke is mentioned int he… wasn’t he on some programme tonight on Channel 4 at 10pm, wouldn’t know.. didn’t watch it, nor did I record it, nor will I watch it on E4… Darren who?
xx
I didn’t even get to the article, just the juxtaposition of Derren and GOB (from Arrested Development) got me excited.
Our brains are probably preprogrammed to go through these things I guess, at some point. Depends on what your focus has been about in your life as well.
It does not really matter what thing psychology/neuropsychologists will use to learn about stuff. Most know from the inside, but others prefer to study it from the outside.
I find this article a little bit offensive. The advertising industry are not plotting to brainwash the world! I’m a graphic designer, specialising in corporate branding and advertising. I don’t start my day thinking – how can I use my magical, amazing powers to control the fragile-minded…No! If we had that ability, why would we feel the need to exploit that power, by making you buy stuff! Cognitive psychology in advertising terms only means we try to perceive what the other person thinks they want to buy in this product or service and promote that quality. Nobody has wondrous properties of controlling the human mind. Advertiser and designer CAN NOT be deceptive in promotional material simple because we would be infringing the Trade’s Description Act. People are free thinkers and altogether independent.
Derren investigating the techniques that political organisations use: now that is a tv show I’d love to see. One for the future perhaps?
A fun article, but apparently not fun enough to be graced with the YouTube clips at the end of the page.
The clips have been “disabled by request” (i.e. taken off YouTube for riding rough-shod over copyright law) which is a shame. Surely a tad short sighted, as a few clips would be a great advert for this Derren chap.
I just love the accompanying photo of Gob from “Arrested Development” 🙂
David: They seem to still be on YouTube, just double-click on them to go to the site itself. It’s only the embedding that’s been turned off.
Political propaganda……..I can absolutely identify with that.
Like a lot of people I am always being asked to attend various staff briefings which are generally filled with hierarchy who blatantly use misdirection confusion and persuasion techniques to try to convince employees that the level of service/efficiency our organization provides is acceptable.
Very convincing information packs are usually given out at these meetings and ‘buzz words’ are continually used to make sure we all get a ‘positive’ feel from the experience. Of course, the only problem is that the information we are being ‘fed’ is complete nonsense.
The reality is that lack of funding plus staff cut-backs has made it totally impossible to achieve any kind of service at all. However, the ‘powers that be’ seem to have overlooked what’s really going on and they act and talk as if they’re living on a different planet speaking a different language.
Cleary ‘management speak’ has been around for many years but at least I’m now learning to recognize some of the techniques being used by various organizations to distort reality and make people believe that ‘all is well’ when the complete opposite is true……thanks Derren…..keep it coming.
Darren brown is like THE most amazing person in the whole world!!!!! everything you do is brilliant although all tricks its still awesome to watch.. plus he has amazing eyes.. hehe 😀 xxxxxx