The Persuaders PBS: Advertising, Manipulation & Democracy

Introduction: The Clutter of Modern Advertising

Douglas Rushkoff's Frontline / PBS documentary "The Persuaders" offers a history of advertising and a critical exploration of its evolution in the twentieth century, examining techniques used in corporate marketing, concepts such as "brand loyalty," and the effects that advertising has on the public. The first portion of the documentary concentrates on the "clutter" caused by modern advertising, asking viewers to consider the way in which products are no longer advertised by describing their function or merits, but on the basis of image alone.

This first section concludes with a detailed examination of the launch of a new "brand" — a low-cost air carrier called "Song," a subsidiary of Delta Airlines. We watch as Delta identifies the female consumer as their target audience and then attempts to construct an "identity" for Song designed to invite women to purchase tickets as a way of participating in that identity. The second portion of the documentary goes on to explore political advertising more closely, asking how the techniques examined in the first section are now being applied in politics. Overall, the documentary makes a persuasive case that the ethical standards governing advertising in America are in need of greater enforcement.

Brand Identity and Emotional Manipulation

"The Persuaders" makes for disquieting viewing because the ordinary person is unlikely to have thought of themselves as merely illustrative of a demographic profile. Not only are viewers invited to see inside this process, they also come to recognize the fundamentally dehumanizing way in which it regards the consumer. Kevin Roberts, the marketing expert interviewed in the film, offers a lengthy description of what he calls "lovemarks" — corporate brands that inspire passionate devotion in consumers even when that devotion is not logically warranted.

In other words, advertising seeks to create through imagery the same effect that nicotine creates in tobacco: an impetus whereby a sense of dependent need is manufactured between the consumer and the corporate product. We are being appealed to on an emotional level, even as economics presupposes that consumers are making rational choices.

Political Advertising and the Limits of Rationality

On the political level, this becomes even more disquieting, since the American political system dates from the Enlightenment and presupposes the rationality of the electorate. In the second portion of the documentary, Republican pollster Frank Luntz claims, "I am more interested in how you feel than how you think," asserting that "only 20%" of human motivation is rational while "80% is emotion."

One of the sharpest points of critique of contemporary political advertising culture comes with the documentary's revelation of "truth in advertising" standards that apply to products and corporations — but not to political ads. As the film puts it: "politicians can legally say whatever they want." This raises the issue of whether political advertising can be deliberately designed to exploit racist sentiments, as with ads used by George H.W. Bush (linking Michael Dukakis to convicted rapist Willie Horton) and Jesse Helms (an ad showing a pair of black hands reading an employment acceptance letter while white hands read a rejection letter, alluding to public anxieties about affirmative action policy). Ethically speaking, it is a very slippery slope from this kind of manipulation to the "big lie" technique associated with totalitarian propaganda.

Conclusion: The Case for Reform

The most urgent message to be taken away from the documentary is the idea that reform is most urgently needed in electoral politics. The absence of enforceable truth-in-advertising standards for political speech creates a system in which emotional manipulation, racial coding, and deliberate linguistic distortion go unchecked. Until the legal protections that govern commercial advertising are extended to the political arena, the democratic ideal of an informed and rational electorate will remain vulnerable to precisely the kind of exploitation that "The Persuaders" so vividly documents.