Re: Way OT: Adam Smith and Software Markets

["Stanley R. Allen" <u384k@gsde.hou.us.ray.com>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Stanley R. Allen wrote:
>> Cf, "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard.
> 
> Wasn't he the "naked woman in the ice cubes" guy?

No.  Packard was a 'pop' sociologist and pushed no personal pet
theories like Wilson Key.  Packard's book just reports, in a popular
format, about the work of marketers who use 'depth' (psychological)
techniques.

> Subliminal advertising works about as well as hypnosis
> and telepathy, which is to say, not at all.

Huh?  Hypnosis doesn't work?  Telepathy and hypnosis should
not considered together as if they were similar things.

Subliminal advertising was over-sold but it looks to have
some basis in reality, and where it works it does so on
the same principle as hypnosis -- suggestibility.  You can
think of any modern, sophisticated advertising effort (such as
the cascading collection of Budweiser ads that are sprinkled
through the various sporting events on TV) as an experiment
on a broad range of levels of human consciousness.  There are a
number of stages of awareness and "subliminality" just refers
the lowest levels.  There is no magic to it, just like there is
no voodoo associated with the idea of "the unconscious".  It
just means that sometimes we are not aware of some things,
including our own motivations.

The result of the ad experiment is measured as the cash the public
spends on the product.  Their goal is to make the selling and buying
processes as unobtrusive as possible so that people simply don't
notice being persuaded or purchasing (or even consuming!) the product.
To a large extent they've succeeded.  It's the triumph of science to
conquer nature, and the science of marketing targets human nature.

The last frame of this 'toon says it all:
http://www240.pair.com/tomtom/media/arc/1993%20archive/93-04-27-advertising.gif

BTW, budweiser and coca cola seem to have succeeded at a special
kind of sub- or un-conscious marketing that directly relates to
the success of languages like C and C++ -- cultural ubiquity.
The assumptions that people make about their circumambient
situation remain for the most part unexamined.  So it's not a
surprise that programming languages are chosen without much
analysis -- whatever is provided as the norm is tacitly accepted.

-- 
Stanley Allen
mailto:Stanley_R_Allen@Raytheon.com