The Persuaders and the Snare of Materialism
The Persuaders are a collective group of people that influence the general public in the product purchasing process.
They are the man behind the mask that is constantly persuading you and I to buy their product. We are constantly being persuaded by advertisements on the internet, on television, and on your cell phones, everywhere you look something seems to be screaming “BUY ME!”
“The Persuaders” gave me more insight into what goes on behind every advertisement. I knew that there was planning for commercials and your usual target audience, but there is an entire phycological aspect that I was completely unaware of.
Clotaire Rapaille is a phycological advertising guru who explains how advertisers need to understand the core of a human’s mental process, or code, for each product in order to advertise well.
An example of this would be SUVs. The SUVs code is dominance, and Rapaille advised SUV companies to make their SUVs bigger and tint the windows, to accentuate the dominance code. He calls this code the “reptilian hot button”.
Douglas Rushkoff, the narrator of the show, concludes with this thought: “Marketers find a way so deep inside each one of us that it no longer feels like persuasion at all. Maybe we are in control. Once the market becomes the lens through which we see the world, then there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’ anymore. We’re all persuaders.”
We persuade ourselves into buying a product. The advertising just creates a perceived need for us to satisfy in our lives, but that need cannot be satisfied, and will continue to grow with more and more consuming.
America is consumed and blinded by materialism. Rushkoff states that “as long as we are thinking about ourselves, we’re better consumers.”
This statement is so true, we are a culture completely absorbed by ourselves. Every company advertises that the consumer is the center of everything. We like to be the center of our lives, when we are constantly thinking about ourselves.
What is our Christian responsibility to using persuasive techniques?
I am a little unsure of what a Christian’s responsibility to the persuasive techniques should be.
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If the technique is to lie then I would say not to partake. But, if the technique is honest and is just be strategic in the target audience, then I would personally have no problem with that.I would say that it depends on the situation and what type of technique being used.
Why are people so consumed and crippled by materialism?
One, they think that the products that they are buying will satisfy a need in their lives. This need cannot be filled with purchasing more products, it can only be eliminated by being set free from a materialistic mindset.
Second, they believe that they will be accepted by their peers if they own a certain product. This belief is seen in many stages of life. When I was in elementary school, you were considered cool if you owned a pair of Etnies, a type of skateboard shoe.
While I was in middle school you were cool if you owned a pair of Nike Hyperdunks. I’m sure elementary school and middle school has some other pair of shoe that makes you “cool” now. The thing is that the “cool” factor is always changing and you can never keep up with it.
The third reason why people are consumed and crippled by materialism is because materialism only generates more materialism. Think of the last time you bought a new product, maybe it was a shirt, shoes, or a phone. A perfect example is the iPhone.
The moment you buy an iPhone, you are now sucked into a cycle of buying more iPhones at some point (assuming that you like the product). Every year around September, Apple releases a new iPhone. Which means that every September, the newest and coolest iPhone in your pocket is no longer the newest and coolest iPhone anymore.
So what do we do? We buy the newest and coolest iPhone, only to repeat the same cycle every year, or every other year.
My point is that materialism is a flaw in our culture, and the only way to rid ourselves of its clutch is to realize that Christ is more than the things on this earth. Everything that we buy will soon become outdated, out of style, worn, used, broken, and then gone.
As a Christian it is obviously okay to consume products, but this does not mean that we can worship these products. In order to become a disciple of Christ we must be willing to be without any product that we own. Because Christ is better. Matthew 19:16–22 holds the account of a man that decides to not follow Christ because of his love of his own possessions.
Unfortunately many will hold on to the love of possessions, and continue to be crippled by the snares of materialism. And many will find freedom from materialism in Christ and experience true joy. The final question is, what will you do?
On my honor, I have watched The Persuaders in its entirety.
