"The Persuaders": a Reflection as a Marketing Major

“The Persuaders”: A reflection as a Marketing Major The Persuaders (2004, directed by Douglass Rushcoff) is a documentary with a hard eye on the multi-billion dollar advertising and marketing industry. They examine the subconscious and psychological techniques behind advertising and marketing developments. The documentary also determines how these new methods of marketing influence us, our desires and our self-image, finally theorizing on the future implications or repercussions of the influential forces that are constantly at work.

I was very excited when we began watching this film in class, I’m a marketing major myself, with little to go on with what my future will hold, so the film was fascinating to me, it had me reflecting on many other advertisements I saw and how much they’ve influenced me without even realizing it. One of my more prominent memories was me and my family visiting the united states for the first time (that I could recall), I was watching TV in the living room of my grandmother’s house when a commercial came on for flare jeans. I felt my eyes go wide as the girls on the screen danced around sporting jeans that covered their feet almost entirely, I grew fascinated as they yelled and sang running around the screen having amazing fun, because they all had the same jeans on! I was young, didn’t care at all about fashion in the least bit, but the second the commercial was over I ran to my mother saying “I want flare jeans! I want flare jeans!” still not ENTIRELY sure as to what exactly they were. I find even now, perhaps more than ever, I am influenced by advertising in ways that I never even stopped to think about before seeing this film. The way Rushcoff presented the information was excellent; he was, for the most part, unbiased (though it’s near impossible to stay unbiased about anything, we’re only human after all) and extremely informative. I have to admit, however, that I grew more and more disheartened as the film wore on,