My point as a designer is to educate more people on both sides: The DESIGNER and the VIEWER should be one team. The day for ponzi-scheme like actions has passed. The goal should be a win-win for all parties interested.

As DESIGNERS and MARKETERS we have the same exact ability. Only the difference between us and the people who our our audience is that we can decide to put messages that will make life worse or life better.

I think it’s important people are reminded of these things often. Mind control was used in WWII all over the place. Now it’s all over advertising and business. I just hope all the designers reading this page are the kind of people who use these laws of understanding for the best possible outcome for us all as a whole society.

What good is it if we use this power to make a quick buck, yet do not take extra measures to create messages that will improve our health and our environment in trade?

The question is, knowing this power, how do you choose to use it? As a parent and as a marketer?

Good point though. We do unbelievably unethical things and get away with it.

Twenty years later somone wants to kill us. But we move to the South of France and can’t be found!

Great conversation and debate going on here everybody. What do you all think of this then?

WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w

Derren Brown reproduces the Milgram experiment on the episode, “The Heist.”

SUMMARY:
In this episode, Derren Brown subconciously influences middle management buisness men and women with no previous criminal record to pull an armed robbery without ever directly mentioning the idea to them.

Watch this and DERREN BROWN’s (famous British hypnotist – persuader) and tell me how you feel after you’ve seen what he can do with suggestion… ;)

* Jennifer L. Seeley

That’s why parenting comes into it. Until they are capable, we make the decisions for them.

So it doesn’t matter what advertising is shoved in front of them, because they aren’t (or shouldn’t be) making any purchasing decisions of their own. The adults who care for them should be.

Now if the adults aren’t capable of making the right purchasing decisions for their children, then they are as such pretty much children themselves – ie powerless in the face of advertising to make the right decisions regardless.

Then that is a whole other argument about who is and who is not a fit parent in today’s society and the incidence of poor parenting in society not the fault of advertisers.

A bad parent will be a bad parent, and responsibility for bad parenting cannot be laid at advertisers feet. Bad parents will damage their children in more ways than just giving them too many MacDonalds.

Our current legal system evolved from a system where children under the age of 12 were considered to be incapable of reason that includes making accurate predictions regarding the outcome of poor judgment. I don’t see any reason to change that assumption.

The opinion espoused by the previous poster is pretty much the same as that put forward by the public relations firm that advises the Tobacco Council. There is a warning on the package. No reasoning person would knowingly expose herself to the danger of tobacco, therefore smokers don’t deserve protection.

Throughout their lives children, and as they grow into young adults will have many unhealthy things like this advertised to them. Indeed they will be bombarded on a daily basis with the suggestion that they should eat unhealthily.

I think childhood is the appropriate time to teach children (that will become adults) that although unhealthy things are advertised to us on a regular basis, that we must still make healthy decisions regardless.

There’s no point wrapping them in cotton wool with regards to the world of advertising, because it’s going to hit them very soon anyway. Best to teach them whilst they are still under your control that the odd unhealthy treat is fine – in moderation.

By the time they reach say 14yrs old they will start to make their own eating decisions as they spend less and less time under your control ….for instance whilst out shopping with friends. Hopefully by that point as a parent you will have taught them that you don’t have to eat what the advertisers tell you to eat, or indeed believe half of what they tell you.

For instance, advertisers regularly tell us that unhealthy food is healthy in some way. During childhood you can educate your children that they can’t believe what the advertisers say and teach them about food labels and how to read them and make their own decisions about what is and what is not healthy.

I have young children and I have to agree wit Cam Beck, it’s ridiculous to place responsibility at the feet of MacDonalds.

It’s very easy to say no to your kids … you just say no. There – done, they don’t have to eat MacDonalds every time they want to. You are the parent, you’ll be saying no to far more things than just MacDonalds if you are any sort of decent parent.

If you can’t say no to regular trips to MacDonalds then that is just the tip of the iceberg of your up and coming problems with parenting your child.

My children like MacDonalds yes, but they only go there about once every six months if that.

They don’t even ask really because they know it’s pointless to ask to go much more frequently than this… further more I’ve shown them plenty more places to eat that are nicer than MacDonalds so they aren’t even that interested in going. Possibly the other reason why they don’t ask.