Suppose that subliminal advertising actually worked, 100% effective and legal. Would you use it? I always wanted to ask potential clients that question, but never had the nerve. I think it would have been a good indicator of how long the client-agency relationship would last.
For all our talk about the selling power of creativity, most of us are here for the creativity. Selling is just the whetstone, the challenge that gives it shape. If marketing really were simply a matter of following a formula, it would be even less decent and humanist than it is. Despite all the research dedicated to finding such a formula, the lack of a Pavlovian "buy" signal is the only thing that keeps marketing from becoming the evil, soulless endeavor that so many people already think it is. It is our ignorance that forces us to be interesting, to engage rather than manipulate, to treat other people with respect.
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