Magician exposes secrets

Some may know of my interests in magic. Here, and in the future, I would like to expose some secrets for you.

Now before any of the magical authorities invoke any of the various curses unleashed on initiates who pass on secret knowledge to cowans and other knowlessmen, let me state that the secrets I will reveal are those of the corporate world intent on getting you to part with your very hard-earned cash.

My purpose is simple. I want to reveal some of the ways sellers get you to buy stuff, particularly stuff you didn't know you wanted. You and I are the targets of deliberate manipulation of our desires. And just as conjurers quite rightly hate having their secrets exposed I am hoping that by showing how some of this manipulation occurs that we can reclaim some of the initiative and not be forced into purchasing decisions that are not in our best interest.

Let me begin then, by giving a brief history of how the situation of us being made to want things came to be. It can perhaps best be traced back to Edward Bernays. He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and he was one of the first to try to influence the buying public through the manipulation of the message or, as he referred to it, "the engineering of consent".

Now strictly speaking, what Bernays was involved in was public relations rather than advertising. However, some of the same principles are used by advertisers to influence us and affect our behaviour and are derived directly from his ideas.

He was able to demonstrate the power of his techniques, for example, by helping the tobacco industry. In the early part of the twentieth century few women smoked in public. Even those women who smoked in private were often seen as rebels or eccentrics. Bernays approached the tobacco industry and offered them the opportunity to capture this untapped market (with such health benefits to womankind as may be imagined). To do this he tapped into many women's desire for emancipation, liberation and equality by making the smoking of a cigarette - or 'torches of freedom' as they were billed - a symbol of independence. The market blossomed and through this kind of exercise the field of public relations was born.

In future posts I shall attempt to show how we are being manipulated to this day. More importantly, I shall suggest what sort of counter-measures we might deploy in order to reclaim our right to decide what is important in our lives from those who would seek to decide for us. I believe it is we, as individuals, rather than PR consultants and corporate vested interest, who should decide on what we should spend our time, money and effort. It is up to us to put back the quality in our lives.