The Persuaders

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.

One thing that I was surprised about was the availability of information that an ad agency or a company can receive about their target market. I was aware of much of the market research that takes place, but I was not aware how much information on habits and media intake is available. I believe that this can be helpful for researchers and ad agencies in terms of business. However, it also seems invasive to look through internet records or credit card receipts that stores keep on record. This tied into what I learned about myself while watching the film. Because companies can submit this information to ad agencies that pay them, it is easier for a campaign to specifically target me. Even if I never participate in any research or polls, there can still be a record of what I am buying and what target market I would fit into.



"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?

Although there is no denying that there has been an influx of advertising in recent years, I believe that It depends on location as to how a person encounters it in daily life. Most people will experience it through television commercials, radio commercials, or print ads. However, if one lives In the city they are subjected to an extremely large amount of advertising simply when walking down the streets. However, I don’t think that this should be considered to be too much advertising. It doesn’t affect the people who see it in a bad way, instead, as the movie suggests, it just makes it more difficult for campaigns to break through the clutter. Therefore, I think that people have generally become more accustomed to the amount of advertising that is now in life. So, ads must compete against other ads and the fact that people tend to tune them out now.