Whatever you like/dislike, think of or hope for
is now being recorded. What magazines do you
subscribe to? What did you last purchase on
your credit card? What is your zip code?

LIKE/DISLIKE

• "In a consumer culture - that is, a culture that offers choices beyond survival basics - the motive has never been need, but want. Pushing that motivation beyond want to deserve is a recent, and powerful, cultural transformer."
  The Popcorn Report (39-40)
• "Egonomics means simply this: there is profit to be reaped in providing for the consumer's need for personalization - whether it be in product concept, product design, 'customability', or 'personal service'."
  The Popcorn Report (44)
• "For example, we saw how NIKE targets young urban blacks although 87 percent of its domestic athletic shoes are sold to whites who strive to imitate black athletes."
  Targeting The Trendsetting Consumer (104)
• "Moreover, the endorsement of young consumers often contributes to the creation of a hip brand identity, as we have seen with NIKE, Ben & Jerry's, and The Body Shop."
  Targeting The Trendsetting Consumer (130)
• "Unlike mainstream consumers, whose primary motivation is peer acceptance, alphas (trend setting consumers) are unconcerned with popular opinion. Indeed, many alphas derive a certain pleasure in standing out from the crowd and they respect others - individuals, businesses, and institutions - who follow a distinctive vision."
  Targeting The Trendsetting Consumer (8)

MAGAZINES

• "Businesses often want lists of people with specialized interests as potential clients. In any case, owners of these publications know that some companies and agencies are willing to pay for their lists, and making money is the name of the game."
  The Privacy Poachers (70)
• "At BrainReserve, we track some three hundred newspapers and magazines and, in addition, monitor the top twenty television shows, first-run movies, best-seller books, hit music, and TrendTrack to all types of stores (both in America and abroad) for new products."
  The Popcorn Report (22)

CREDIT CARD

• "Your credit card use allows an investigator to track your movements."
  The Privacy Poachers (88)

ZIP CODE

• "Believe it or not, today one of the factors deciding whether or not you get a loan is your zip code, because experience has shown that, on the average, residents of certain areas are better credit risks than others."
  The Privacy Poachers (92-93)

Consumer habits are big bucks to marketing
agencies. Answers you give in telephone surveys,
free giveaways, sweepstakes, or focus groups
are tabulated to aid in the packaging of products
to make them more personal or attractive.

CONSUMER HABITS

• "Occasionally, we make 'cabinet checks', where we boldly go into a consumer's home to peer into the pantry, the fridge and spot-check what products are actually there."
  The Popcorn Report (151)

TELEPHONE SURVEYS

• "Questions can usually be classified as requesting one or more of these types of information.
  1. What people say they want: their attitudes
  2. What people think is true: their beliefs
  3. What people do: their behavior
  4. What people are: their attributes"
  Mail And Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method (80)

In America everything is for sale. A product
could be a politician or political cause, jury
verdict, rock band, life-style or tube of tooth-
paste. The object is to make you buy it.

POLITICIAN

• "But Clinton's staff took computer mapping to new levels of sophistication by mapping crucial information daily. The campaign showed the powerful advantages that state-of-the -art marketing can bring to a political campaign."
  American Demographics (13)
• "The whole idea behind targeting is to make your money go further. If you can isolate the people who will determine the election, you've saved money."
  American Demographics (13)

JURY VERDICT

• "Lawyers use focus groups and surveys to find out what wins in courtrooms. Their research shows that demographics and values affect the way juries see evidence."
  American Demographics (52)

LIFESTYLE

• "Nonsellout types such as Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) have sold out and looked cool doing it, encouraging the general public to follow the lead."
  Spin (42)

Advertising breeds artificial allegiances. It gives
you non-choice, choices and tricks you into
believing you're part of the action.

NON-CHOICE

• "That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy?"
  Media Control (7)
• "That is certainly what advertising does. Instead of presenting a private argument or vista, it offers a way of life that is for everybody or nobody. It offers this prospect with arguments that concern only irrelevant and trivial matters."
  Understanding Media (205)

ACTION

• "People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They're not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That's really threatening."
  Media Control (5)
• "Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness."
  Understanding Media (202)

"Ads seem to work on the very advanced principle that a small pellet or pattern in a noisy, redundant barrage of repetition will gradually assert itself. Ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion."
Understanding Media (202)

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