What’s unbelievable is that some corporate marketing head(s) actually thought this was a positive marketing idea. The creep factor is just off the charts!
We have the worst “elites” in recorded history. These ppl are reprobates.
What’s unbelievable is that some corporate marketing head(s) actually thought this was a positive marketing idea. The creep factor is just off the charts!
We have the worst “elites” in recorded history. These ppl are reprobates.
I've had a few minutes to calm down from my initial horror and look at this commercial as a marketer.
It's going for virality.
That's literally all there is to it. I don't even believe there's weird subversive pro-transhumanist propaganda involved.
"Holy shit, look at this horrible commercial. I need to share this with 5 friends immediately."
It's outrage porn.
I actually don't think there's anything else going on now. That's literally it.
Look at a bio picture of the director with a prop robot and look at his facial expressions. He was fermented in this way of communicating from birth. Upsetting you makes you talk. The valence of it is utterly irrrelevant, and his brain probably doesn't even register the difference between positive and negative valence.
I think you could be right. I was thinking the same thing, transhumanism is the underlying current but the actual people making it might simply have no senses to feel that it could be creepy in a way that it makes it a bad commercial. An entire generation, or two my now, have been raised believing that "exposure" is all we need, and it could be the result of that!
Thanks for exploring this further, everybody. Tracey below posted that the commercial is from 2017, so 5 years ago it did not kill the business.
The ice-cream-product has artificial sweeteners, all of which, including Stevia, stimulate appetite by stimulating insulin production, making people gain MORE weight (lab rats, also).
"Stevia
To keep calories low, Halo Top uses the zero-calorie sweetener Stevia. For added sweetness, it also uses organic cane sugar — which is still sugar — and erythritol, which is a type of sugar alcohol."
5 years ago a lot of the people who might LIKE this commercial were seething that Donald Trump was president, and the economy was doing ok, meh, keeping the stock market bubble from popping, anyway...
This commercial may be "the most honest commercial" in the same way that Trump was "the most honest president" as Syria's president Assad remarked, not trying to hide the truth much at all...
There was safe-space for snark.
This video feeds into the western mental divorce from the realities of old age and death, and loneliness. The people watching it had mostly abandoned any elder who was suffering from dementia like this to some institution, or some other family members.
People had not yet been lonelyand fearful/anxious in COVID lockdowns, watching TV series and eating ice cream and chips.
Thank you John, this is a very interesting comment, and certainly requires human perceptive ability to dig the nuance! I appreciate the semantic nuance!!
Valence is irrelevant due to the generally true nature of the adage that there is no such thing as 'bad publicity'.
People who laugh at or 'get' the commercial will tend to buy the ice cream, at least compared to the mass of people who do not ever see the commercial.
People who are put off by the commercial will not necessarily impact sales negatively.
Some will share the clip with friends, not all of whom will have a negative reaction.
By reacting negatively, some parents will generate a positive interest in their kids, some of whom are motivated to do as much as possible to rebel (or if they're lucky, have been brought up to be positively contrarian or at least skeptical).
All of the above are on top of the pre-existing 200 million in the USA who are getting well conditioned to doing what they are told.
Not only is valence irrelevant, but (and I do have some experience here) industry people know that negative emotion is WAY easier to evoke than positive, because we're so cynical and unhappy now. Outrage and fear are extremely easy stories to tell; delight is way more work. It's simply amperage they want, because amperage drives shares drive virality.
What’s unbelievable is that some corporate marketing head(s) actually thought this was a positive marketing idea. The creep factor is just off the charts!
We have the worst “elites” in recorded history. These ppl are reprobates.
I've had a few minutes to calm down from my initial horror and look at this commercial as a marketer.
It's going for virality.
That's literally all there is to it. I don't even believe there's weird subversive pro-transhumanist propaganda involved.
"Holy shit, look at this horrible commercial. I need to share this with 5 friends immediately."
It's outrage porn.
I actually don't think there's anything else going on now. That's literally it.
Look at a bio picture of the director with a prop robot and look at his facial expressions. He was fermented in this way of communicating from birth. Upsetting you makes you talk. The valence of it is utterly irrrelevant, and his brain probably doesn't even register the difference between positive and negative valence.
I think you could be right. I was thinking the same thing, transhumanism is the underlying current but the actual people making it might simply have no senses to feel that it could be creepy in a way that it makes it a bad commercial. An entire generation, or two my now, have been raised believing that "exposure" is all we need, and it could be the result of that!
It doesn't invalidate any of your broader insights about transhumanism- it indirectly bolsters some of them.
But it's worth remember that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. :)
Thanks for exploring this further, everybody. Tracey below posted that the commercial is from 2017, so 5 years ago it did not kill the business.
The ice-cream-product has artificial sweeteners, all of which, including Stevia, stimulate appetite by stimulating insulin production, making people gain MORE weight (lab rats, also).
"Stevia
To keep calories low, Halo Top uses the zero-calorie sweetener Stevia. For added sweetness, it also uses organic cane sugar — which is still sugar — and erythritol, which is a type of sugar alcohol."
5 years ago a lot of the people who might LIKE this commercial were seething that Donald Trump was president, and the economy was doing ok, meh, keeping the stock market bubble from popping, anyway...
This commercial may be "the most honest commercial" in the same way that Trump was "the most honest president" as Syria's president Assad remarked, not trying to hide the truth much at all...
There was safe-space for snark.
This video feeds into the western mental divorce from the realities of old age and death, and loneliness. The people watching it had mostly abandoned any elder who was suffering from dementia like this to some institution, or some other family members.
People had not yet been lonelyand fearful/anxious in COVID lockdowns, watching TV series and eating ice cream and chips.
Thank you John, this is a very interesting comment, and certainly requires human perceptive ability to dig the nuance! I appreciate the semantic nuance!!
Valence is irrelevant due to the generally true nature of the adage that there is no such thing as 'bad publicity'.
People who laugh at or 'get' the commercial will tend to buy the ice cream, at least compared to the mass of people who do not ever see the commercial.
People who are put off by the commercial will not necessarily impact sales negatively.
Some will share the clip with friends, not all of whom will have a negative reaction.
By reacting negatively, some parents will generate a positive interest in their kids, some of whom are motivated to do as much as possible to rebel (or if they're lucky, have been brought up to be positively contrarian or at least skeptical).
All of the above are on top of the pre-existing 200 million in the USA who are getting well conditioned to doing what they are told.
Not only is valence irrelevant, but (and I do have some experience here) industry people know that negative emotion is WAY easier to evoke than positive, because we're so cynical and unhappy now. Outrage and fear are extremely easy stories to tell; delight is way more work. It's simply amperage they want, because amperage drives shares drive virality.