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By Ruth Shalit

Sept. 28, 1999 | The motivation researchers of the '50s viewed consumers not as rational citizens, but as cooperative puppets of ad-manipulation. The consumer, researcher Louis Cheskin told Vance Packard, "acts emotionally and compulsively," guided not by logical thought, but by "unconscious reaction to the images and designs which, in the subconscious, are associated with the product." Packard was horrified by this mechanistic view of consumer behavior, which he viewed as irresponsible, socially dangerous and inherently involving a disrespect for the human personality. "Some of the persuaders, in their energetic endeavors to sway our actions, seem to fall unwittingly into the attitude that man exists to be manipulated," he wrote in the conclusion to "The Hidden Persuaders." "When you manipulate people -- regardless of your motives -- you take away their right to decide for themselves what they want to do and who they want to be."

Virginia Valentine, the critical theory-trained president of Semiotic Solutions, might as well be channeling the spirit of Cheskin when she writes that "in semiotic theory, consumers are not independent spirits, articulating their own original opinions and making their own individual buying decisions." Instead, she clarifies in a promotional leaflet, "consumers are constructed by the communications of [popular] culture ... They are not prime causes. They are cultural effects."

It's an audacious stroke: marshaling post-structuralist literary theory on the side of the old, sepia-toned vision of consumers as compliant stooges. "Our society is but a cultural construction," Valentine writes, quoting Foucault. "There is no concrete social world out there." If there is no objective reality, only a whirling universe of brands, then there is no harm in offering semiotic solutions to marketing problems; in deploying floating signifiers on behalf of Safeway. As Valentine puts it, "Our interpretive role is not to look for 'truth,' but to crack the code on behalf of our clients."

Ruth Shalit The return of the hidden persuaders Driven by a booming economy, a corporate obsession with brand-building and a feelgood philosophy, a motley crew of ex-grad students, starry-eyed admen and hypnosis gurus are probing the consumer unconscious to sell soap.

Not everyone supports the new creed. Humbled by 40 years of journalistic exposés and Mad magazine parodies of galvanic skin probes, peripheral embeds, and other subliminal ad-pro legerdemain, today's self-respecting marketing executive is likely to be wary of techniques that seem exploitative or dehumanizing. At a recent account planning convention I attended in San Diego, Hal Goldberg, the focus-group hypnotist who'd so transfixed the marketers at Shell Oil, drew a decidedly mixed response from his audience of ad agency strategists. Goldberg began his speech by stressing the refreshing uninhibitedness of consumers anesthetized through hypnosis. "When respondents are awake, they're reluctant to be frank and to tell you what they really feel," Goldberg told the group. "You'll find that respondents are much more willing to talk when hypnotized."

Goldberg cues up a videotape. "Now I'm going to show you a clip from a focus group we did for a weight-loss client," he says brightly. "Here, we were taking respondents back to the first time they realized they were overweight. As you'll see, you get much more emotional content out of hypnotized people."

The video shows a small, plump woman in a white blouse and bright coral scarf. She's sitting upright in her chair, and her eyes are screwed tightly shut. "I'm 11 years old," she says slowly. "My parents had just divorced. We had moved to a new town."

"I want you to go back to that point in time," Goldberg says. "I want you to tell me what's happening."

"I hated where we were," the woman says. "There was nothing that was familiar. I was new in school. I had no friends. And the kids called me fat."

"What are you thinking and feeling about that?" Goldberg probes.

"Just very sad," the woman says, her voice breaking. "Angry, too." Tears are rolling down her cheeks.

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