Packard, Vance (1914-1996)
Definition:
Author of the hugely influential Hidden Persuaders, first published in 1957, and periodically reprinted by Penguin ever since. The 1981 edition includes an Introduction and Epilogue by the author. A lifelong crusading journalist, Packard set out to expose what he saw as the undue influence that American advertisers of the time were capable of exercising over their audiences if they were advised by 'motivational researchers'. He was no witch-hunter, however, and his carefully articulated concerns are understandable in the context of the post-war and cold-war period during which the book was written. He is widely credited with having alerted the world to the manipulative potential of SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING, which has been a subject of debate ever since, though it in fact occupies only two pages in the original text and another two in the 1981 Epilogue. The Hidden Persuaders is the one book about advertising with which total outsiders are likely to be familiar, almost always at second hand. It was followed by four more equally trenchant critiques of the consumer society: The Status Seekers, The Waste Makers, The Pyramid Climbers and The Naked Society.
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[subliminal advertising]
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© Westburn Publishers Ltd 2002, The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing edited by Michael J Baker, ISBN 978-0-946433-01-8. www.themarketingdictionary.com. Entry: [Keith Crosier], [1998].