Thoughts 22 Dec 2006 11:15 am
Words
I watched a program on advertising, on PBS, called the Persuaders in which a man quite proudly announced that he was the one who got the whitehouse and their friends to refer to “climate change” instead of “global warming.”
The changing from one phrase to another doesn’t change the truth, global warming is climate change, but it does obscure the origin and muddy the waters, after all, climate change can be almost any event including a lowering of temperature, while global warming is a specific effect.
This is how to lie by telling the truth. This is what advertising and politics is all about.
It was interesting that the advertising campaign for Delta Airlines newest endeavour, named Song, made no mention of the fact that it was an airline or the fact that it was part of Delta. Instead they tried to create a “culture” without telling anyone what they were selling.
Now, I don’t know much about advertising, but how do you get people to buy something, without telling anyone what you’re selling?
Song appears to have given up the ghost, their website says they have joined forces with Delta, without ever mentioning that they were a wholely owned subsidiary of Delta, even when they fail, they try not to tell us the truth.
During the program they showed a huge datacenter that was used to house and sort eveything imaginable about us, so if some politicain or marketing firm wanted a list of lefthanded, whitesox fans who bought oscar meyer hotdogs on Thursdays, this data could be provided.
When I shop at Albertsons I use their rewards card, or whatever they call it, because I save money, but when I get my receipt, I also get coupons and ads based on previous purchases, and I’m positive that they sell this data to companies like Choicepoint.
Between the data brokers and Google cataloging everything we ever search for, privacy has become a moot point, for enough money anyone can find out anything about us and the spin-doctors can rephrase and twist it until it can mean whatever they want it to.
BTW: You don’t have to be a business to use companies like LexisNexis, you just have to give them money.