On Our Must Read List: Brandwashed

I'm about halfway through Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom (Crown Business 2011), and despite all that I've already read about marketing, advertising, and social psychology, I'm learning a lot. A marketer and brander himself, Lindstrom highlights a cornucopia of examples of the ways in which corporations entice, manipulate and influence our consumer choices. Some of the sticky points for me so far:

• the impact on fetuses of external surroundings and what the mother experiences, and how that can influence a baby's future preferences;
• the major part "tiny" elements play in attracting customers, from use of color to particular sounds to how many bubbles are on soft drink packaging;
• the addictiveness of everything from lip balm to computer games;
• the amount and kind of market research and strategy that go into something like body spray for young men;
• the rise and influence of neuromarketing.

Lindstrom's book addresses the influences of peer pressure, addiction, our senses, sex, nostalgia, fame & celebrity, and happiness & health, as well as some of the consequences of all this marketing, such as loss of privacy.

What Lindstrom's book lacks is any cogent practical help for educating and empowering ourselves to recognize and counteract all these influences. However, he does offer 10 ethical guidelines on his website that he recommends companies follow.

You can find recent interviews with Lindstrom here and here, and read recent articles by Lindstrom here.

While not everything in the book is new, there are plenty of relevant and intriguing tidbits that would be great for classroom discussion.

~ Marsha

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