Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Exploiting Bigley For Fun And Profit
Southern Railways have started running a subtle but tasteless manipulative poster ad on their trains. The copy reads:
This should qualify as a form of subliminal advertising. They are relying on the adversive Pavlovian conditioning of the Bigley and Berg videos, to be unconsciously recalled in association with their preachy fare evasion message. Most aversive conditioning is instrumental in nature. For example consciously learning not to slam your fingers in a car door. Only something as horrifying as the Bigley video however actually evokes a visceral unconcious response. Watching Bigley's murder makes you feel queasy, literally "gut-wrenching terror". When Pavlov's dogs heard the bell they salivated, but didn''t know why. Similarly when we see the jumpsuit, even in an inappropriate context, we are supposed to make a strong negative association; unless you analyse it carefully you wouldn't know why.
Southern Railways have started running a subtle but tasteless manipulative poster ad on their trains. The copy reads:
"Pay the fare, or pay the cost. Each year 8,000 people are prosecuted for fare evasion on the UK rail network."This runs over an image of a young offender in a jail cell wearing a Ken Bigley/Nick Berg/Guantanamo orange jumpsuit. Quite apart from the obvious deception, that no-one ever goes to prison for fare evasion, there's the anomaly that no-one in the British prison system has to wear an orange jumpsuit.
This should qualify as a form of subliminal advertising. They are relying on the adversive Pavlovian conditioning of the Bigley and Berg videos, to be unconsciously recalled in association with their preachy fare evasion message. Most aversive conditioning is instrumental in nature. For example consciously learning not to slam your fingers in a car door. Only something as horrifying as the Bigley video however actually evokes a visceral unconcious response. Watching Bigley's murder makes you feel queasy, literally "gut-wrenching terror". When Pavlov's dogs heard the bell they salivated, but didn''t know why. Similarly when we see the jumpsuit, even in an inappropriate context, we are supposed to make a strong negative association; unless you analyse it carefully you wouldn't know why.
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