• by Hank Kim , Richard Linnett , September 1, 2005

Are purveyors of branded entertainment the new "hidden persuaders"? On the cover of the 1971 paperback edition (42nd printing) of Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, a juicy red apple dangles from a giant fish-hook. The image says it all, but just in case, the back cover copy drives Packard's thesis home:

"This book tells why your children like cereals that crackle and crunch...why men think of a mistress when they see a convertible in a show window...why men wouldn't give up shaving even if they could."

Packard was a pop sociologist, the '60s version of today's Malcolm Gladwell, and Ralph Nader is one of his best-known pupils. Nader, through his group Commercial Alert, has been attacking branded entertainment and product placement as if we were the latest evil incarnation of Packard's so-called "depth boys" (DBs). According to Packard, DBs are admen who engage in "subterranean operations" to manipulate people into buying things.

When the book was first written in 1957, advertising agencies were experimenting with psychology and sociology to find ways to motivate buyers. This outraged Packard and other self-appointed guardians of culture.

Today, Madison Avenue uses the findings of psychology and sociology to create and deliver brand messages. But the notion of subliminal advertising, what Packard called "subthreshold effects," is still a hot-button topic of conspiracy theorists and self-appointed old-guard moralists such as Nader.

"Product placements are inherently deceptive," says Commercial Alert's Web site, "because many people do not realize that they are, in fact, advertisements." Are we that stupid?

Apparently, Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein thinks so. In May, he gave a speech to the Media Institute in Washington condemning the "increasing commercialization of American media" and placing the blame squarely on the heads of advertisers and paid product placement, which he likened to undisclosed video news releases (VNRs). These are paid news releases created by public relations firms to promote the point of view of government and corporations, but aired on TV as if they were unbiased news segments.

Sorry, Adelstein, but undisclosed vnrs are not the same thing. They are indeed deceptive. There's no way to tell the difference between a legitimate news segment and a vnr if the true genesis of the vnr is not clearly and prominently disclosed.

Conversely, a brand logo in a shot or a slogan in a script is utterly transparent, and, if executed properly, actually enhances the storytelling and viewer experience by providing verisimilitude. After all, people do drink Coke and drive Volvos in the real world - not some XYZ Cola or generic car.

In the '60s, the persuaders may have been hidden, but not today. They are out there, in many cases too far out there, and everyone knows who they are. Certainly Adelstein realizes this - he calls "The Apprentice" an "infomercial for the latest corporate sponsors."

The Hidden Persuaders was a hit in the '60s, as was Nader's auto industry conspiracy book, Unsafe At Any Speed, published in 1965. Some say Nader's book, like his recent run for president, damaged his cause more than helped it. The Corvair, the subject of the book, was one of the most successful compact cars of the time, and allegedly the most fuel-efficient. After Nader knocked Corvairs off the road with his exposé of the car's safety shortcomings, the u.s. auto industry dropped the idea of economy and efficiency and pumped out more gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly road hogs. Perhaps Nader's latest effort with Commercial Alert will also ultimately hurt his cause rather than help it.