The Subliminal Persuaders And The Letter P

It's always fascinating when answers to a question come about all by themselves.

Last night Karin was watching a soap on television she quite likes. As it started she noticed the letter 'P' at the bottom of the screen. She asked me what it meant.

I'd noticed this myself several times prior to the start of programmes, but had never made any effort to find out what it signified. "Must find out," I muttered and immediately forgot all about it.

Today I bought a newspaper and, when I got home, opened it up at random to page 60 and found the answer to the question!

It seems that the 'P' has been around (in the UK) since 2011, though surveys have shown that very few people know what it means: Product Placement.

This is something I believe originated in the USA, and to me it's a form of brainwashing - though that's probably a little over the top. As the letter in the Daily Mail newspaper (21 Jan 2014) explained:

"Product Placement ... that means some companies are advertising their products discreetly in that programme. For instance in Coronation Street it is advertising the National Building Society, so if you watch the programme you will see a National cash machine in Dev's corner shop."

So, as well as having obvious commercial breaks full of ads, there are now hidden persuaders within the actual programmes themselves.

There are rules about product placement - see the Ofcom website - but, whatever is said, it's surely a form of subliminal advertising, which was once banned.

These hidden persuaders are difficult to avoid wherever we look. Did we really want to buy or drink that can of Coke or consider a National Building Society account? How many of our thoughts are really our own? Or maybe Big Brother is at work?

Conquer The Earth And Extinguish Independent Thought - That's Big Brother

This was George Orwell's house at 22 Portobello Road, London. The house (and the sign bearing his name) is genuine but the question is: Has the photo been photoshopped and the camera added? Could well be, but the photo gets a message across!

I then found the same photo on the Imgur website and when I saw the number of views it had - 976 - I saw it as an indicator that I should publish the photo.

I have written several times about how 976 is an important number in my life. See, for example my posts, The 976 Coincidence or The Missed Post Coincidence And Other Wanderings.

Quote from 1984: "His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals - DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over again, filling half a page."

Quote: "In North Korea, every person is property and is owned by a small and mad family with hereditary power. Every minute of every day, as far as regimentation can assure the fact, is spent in absolute subjection and serfdom. The private life has been entirely abolished. One tries to avoid cliché, and I did my best on a visit to this terrifying country in the year 2000, but George Orwell's 1984 was published at about the time that Kim Il-sung set up his system, and it really is as if he got hold of an early copy of the novel and used it as a blueprint."
~ Christopher Hitchens, in "Worse Than 1984 : North Korea, slave state

Strange where you end up after looking at a photo.

Quote from 1984: "The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought."