Everyday you are being subjected to mind control; your thought processes are being hijacked, and I don't mean the scary MKUltra type control. These mental hijackings are ones that you have fully accepted into your life, and you see them as part and parcel of modern day existence.
In order to save time and energy, your brain uses a variety of shortcuts in its decision making processes. The Incredible You! series is in large parts about how to hack into these shortcuts so that you can reprogram yourself to behave in a certain way.
However there are others out there who also know about these shortcuts, and are putting you under a constant barrage of psychological pressure in order to get you to behave they want.
The best way to avoid these dastardly mind-hackers, is to become fully aware of all of the ways in which you may be manipulated.
Mind Hijack By Song
From Mongolian throat music to thrash metal; music is a pleasure enjoyed by all the world over. It is so powerful that you don't even need functioning ears, deaf people who can only feel the vibrations of music through their body, enjoy music.
We live out a large part of our lives to music, our childhood's are permeated by various tunes, punctuated by our changes in taste. Our romances are often played out with an accompanying soundtrack. Beyond our romantic interests, music can remind us of a number of different people and situations.
Music acts as a mood modulator, sometimes we use it to make us feel happy, or articulate the sadness we are feeling. Hearing a long forgotten tune can take us back to an also forgotten time, sparking a reliving of moments with clarity.
So it is no surprise that advertisers place a great deal of importance in choosing the right soundtrack for their product.
The depressing thing is, these master persuaders don't even have to be that sophisticated. If they want a certain demographic to feel nostalgic about their product, they simply have to choose tunes that were popular around the time of their childhood.
So if their target audience is 40somethings, then they have an easy template to choose from. It just depends on what emotion they want their audience to feel.
Nostalgia = choose popular song from late 70s to early 80s.
Young cool = choose popular song from the early to mid nineties
Responsible = choose popular song from between 2000-2007 (capturing an age whereby it's more likely they were having children)
Obviously the list goes on and on, and is probably a bit more sophisticated than I am giving it credit for. But the main point here is that if you listen to a song you like, at the same time as watching an advert, you will soon start to associate the two together. That's the point at which the advertisers have won.
Mind Control Points: 4/5
Best Defence Mechanism: Turn down the adverts on TV, better yet, don't watch them at all.
Hijack By Association
If you're middle-aged, wearing this aftershave will make women view you like this.
Wearing Dolce & Gabanna will make hot men desire you, and you can live out that 'safe' rape fantasy you have.
People who wear Sony headphones are cool and relaxed, and always travel in first class.
We are all aware of celebrity endorsements; right? Paying a film or TV personality to say that they like or use your brand often proves to be a great idea. I personally have always found it bizarre that somebody should want to buy something based on what some dude or dudette off the telly thinks.
Then of course there are the celebrity political endorsements, although to be fair, this seems like more of an American thing. However it still baffles me why seeing some actor say; he/she is a great politician and I'm voting for her/him, makes any difference at all, but it does.
However I'm not talking about those obvious endorsements, I'm talking about ones that you don't even realise are happening.
I'm assuming if you are reading this, you live on planet earth and therefore have or do use one or all of the following; Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Bebo and a whole host of others. Even if you somehow never use any of the sites mentioned above, you have a smartphone whose firmware is written by either Google or Apple.
Well all the aforementioned are doing their very best to exert their own form of mind control on you. A large part of their strategy is using association to entice you in, though in this case, they don't use celebrities. Instead they use your friends, and sometimes even random strangers to get you to do what they want!
However association doesn't just work in this way, advertisers are constantly trying to associate their products with objects, and the most dangerous of all; feelings.
As we discussed in their use of music, they are trying to associate feelings of nostalgia, happiness by using music. However what if they want to associate their product with feelings of rebelliousness, or counterculture?
This is more subtle and may encompass many different tactics. From using algorithms to make sure they pop up in certain places, to using certain images and colours. Remember when I say product, I don't necessarily mean physical products, or services that you buy for your own benefit.
A product can also be political, Donald Trump's election campaign manager is on record saying that they used 'dark' Facebook posts (meaning posts that could only be seen by the audience they selected), to put off certain demographics voting in certain areas, for example black males in Philadelphia.
They wanted to associate a feeling of despair when it came to voting at all. Because of course the Trump camp knew it had a limited appeal to young black males in Philly, so best that they don't vote at all.
The most impressive example of a company managing to associate a product with a feeling, was when the Coca-Cola company managed to associate that Christmas feeling with their drink. Before 1931 Santa's suit was either tan, or green, depending on which country you lived.
Now however, good old Father Christmas is always seen decked out in Coca-Cola red. Thanks to some advertising execs who realised the power of associating a product with a feeling of happiness and joy.
Mind Control Points: 5/5
Best Defence Mechanism: Pay attention to what context you're being advertised to. If an ad, or link to a news story pops up on your feed, ask yourself why it is appearing in that particular context. Search with engines other than Google, and browsers other than Chrome, and compare results.
Hijack By Group Cause
Have you ever wondered why politicians get away with lying so much? I mean, election after election, we hear politicians making promises, or quoting stats, that are simply not true.
What is even more baffling, is that these lies are often uncovered and exposed to be false. Sometimes before the election has even run its course. However it doesn't seem to matter, the lie has been said and believed and that's that.
We saw this in the summer with the UK referendum on whether Britain should stay within the European Union. The 'leave' campaign hired a bus to go around the UK with a message on the side which read words to the effect of; The NHS gives 270 million pounds a week to the EU. This statement was and is, false, it was exposed as much. Though even with politicians on the leave side admitting it was false, it made no difference to whether people believed it was true or not.
How can this be possible? How can somebody hear a statement and believe it; then get told it's a lie by the person issuing the statement, yet still believe it?
It is because their mind's have been subjected to the group cause hijack. If you are somebody who believes in a particular group or a person, then you are much more likely to believe everything that person or group says. Even if they later tell you they were lying, you will make up some reason in your head why they had to say that.
Political parties are not the only ones who try and take advantage of the natural human urge to group together. Companies also use this trick in advertising, though you may know it by its more common moniker; branding.
Branding is essentially the practice of building a following behind a group ethos, usually by using visual cues, but not always.
Of course with branding you are first employing some of the other tactics listed here, and beyond. However the aim is to get people to like your products, merely because they are your products.
As a brand marketer, your aim is to make sure that people do not take each of your products on their own merits. Rather they should buy things from you merely because how your brand makes them feel.
The absolute monster masters of this are the Apple Corporation. Never before in history has one company, released so many faulty products, and been so successful. Whether its a phone that bends when you put it in your pocket, or a laptop that burns you if you put it on your lap. Apple have released many products that simply were not ready to be sold to the general public.
However because they spent time, money and thought into building their brand, their customers simply forgave them and carried on buying Apple products. Apple realised that if you get them to believe that they are part of a cool group of people using cool products. Then much like the politician who can lie to the face of a supporter, so too can Apple keep selling things that are not quite up to scratch.
This is so much to the point, that Apple fans will defend any deficiencies in the products, saying things like; hey 
Mind Control Points: 4/5
Best Defence Mechanism: Try not to publicly affiliate yourself to any particular political dogma. Always question why you like a product; is it because it serves the purpose perfectly well; or is it that you just like [INSERT BRAND NAME] stuff.
OK these are just three ways that politicians and advertisers are fighting for control over your mind. There are of course many more and I'll be covering those in coming articles.
Notes:
Strictly speaking the Coca-Cola company popularised the image of Santa Claus in a red outfit. There are drawings on the cover of Newsweek of Santa wearing reds at least 40 years before Coke drew their images. However the popularity of the advertising campaign led to a homogenised view of Santa, and is responsible for how he is portrayed today.source: Santa's suit - Wiki
HAVE YOU PAID MUCH THOUGHT TO WHY YOU MAKE THE POLITICAL AND PURCHASING DECISIONS YOU DO? HAVE YOU IDENTIFIED OTHER WAYS IN WHICH YOUR MIND IS SLOWLY BEING COERCED INTO THINKING A CERTAIN WAY? AM I JUST A JEALOUS APPLE-HATING PC FANBOY?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!