Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

Most of the time, people recognize advertising. When I am discussing marketing or public relations with students new to the topic, we normally start by using advertising as a point of reference. If you work in PR or marketing then perhaps you have an elderly relative who is convinced that you are "something to do with advertising". 

Advertising, after all, is the thing that interrupts us when we are doing what we really want to do. It interrupts the TV or radio show we are enjoying, or maybe the newspaper or magazine. It is a clearly identified paid message. 

The idea that we might be exposed to advertising messages without realizing it is scary. When James Vicary announced in 1957 that by including messages about Coke and popcorn on a single frame in a movie reel – ie, for one twenty fourth of a second – he had boosted sales of the products, people were scared. Including these "subliminal" messages, which the brain doesn't register, is illegal in Britain as a result of Vicary's experiment.

Of course, the movie theater announced that there had been no boost in sales and Vicary admitted his research was premature. Others have suggested it was simply a hoax. 

The British satirical show "Spitting Image" used subliminal messaging to suggest the script writers were extremely skilled lovers and you should "sleep with one today". Norris McWhirter of The Freedom Association lodged a complaint about this and the show responded by including a montage – what we would now call a photoshop – image of McWhirter in an unflattering sexual pose. The show was consciously, and harmlessly, breaking the law. 

The ideas of hypnotism, voodoo, and subliminal advertising are all linked in that they play on deep human fears: that we are being manipulated. 

The Cambridge Analytica story does the same. Yes, this blog is already on the record as saying that Mark Zuckerberg should have been much quicker to take control of the story. But that doesn't mean the story itself is very interesting. 

Cambridge Analytica's overhyped services were just about targeting messages. People have been doing this for years. In 2004, the Guardian encouraged its British readers to write to voters in Ohio because it, correctly, anticipated that this would be the key state. The Obama campaign in 2012 extracted Facebook data to target messages to people in swing states. The media thought this was an example of Obama's brilliance and demonstrated how social media would democratize the world. 

But in 2016 it was the Trump campaign that was better at targeting. Not, in this writer's view, because of Cambridge Analytica or the Russians, but because Hillary Clinton made a huge strategic mistake. She thought she was sure to win the Electoral College but was in danger of losing the popular vote. She concentrated her efforts on solidly Democratic states such as California, New York and Massachusetts to push up her vote. She succeeded. But the Trump campaign had developed messages that were carefully crafted for blue collar voters in the rust belt. That's where the election was actually decided and so he won. Nothing spooky or magical about it. 

Did the Trump campaign pay Cambridge Analytica for its services? Sure. In my view they almost certainly overpaid. Did they collude with the Russians? Possibly. Let's see what evidence emerges. But the facile images that circulated on Facebook had no influence on the election result.

Fears about manipulation using social media data are deeply felt but also deeply misplaced. It is just a matter of focusing messages on the swing states. Trump, Obama, Bush and Bill Clinton all did that effectively. That's why they won. 

Does anyone seriously think that images such as this won over any Clinton voters?