Subtly Snapping Phones in Half

There was an article on Slashdot yesterday about fake home videos on YouTube that are actually ad campaigns or depict fictitious activities. One video hi lighted was of a smiling woman easily snapping a Samsung cell phone in half while saying "Samsung handset, easy to break at one try!"

The underlying article was kind of interesting, but it was this Samsung handset example that really caught my attention. Such vivid imagery represents some very powerful yet very subtle manipulation. If there's anything that I've learned from the various literature that I've read is that these sorts of things are inescapably influential on the decisions we make. A viewer of this video will make an almost unconscious connection between the brand/device and the concept of "easy to break." And, almost counter intuitively, the most susceptible people would be the ones who say "oh, what an obvious attempt at manipulation! I won't fall prey to that." and then promptly put it out of their minds.

Robert Cialdini's "Influence" teaches about the subtle and inescapable effects of various kinds of influence tactics. The implication from the book is that rather than try to ignore or forget the manipulative event, the only way to combat it is to acknowledge its irresistable effect. Then, when a decision arises where the incident might be relevant, one would consciously remember the influencing factor and then deliberately use analytical techniques (e.g. focusing purely on quantitative qualities) to mitigate the bias. I expect there's probably an expiration so by the time you forget to remember, the influence is probably gone as well.