The Age of Manipulation: The Con in Confidence, The Sin in Sincere [Paperback]

Wilson Bryan Key (Author), Bruce Ledford (Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0819186538 | ISBN-13: 978-0819186539 | Publication Date: December 18, 1992

Exposes the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate our thoughts and senses.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many of you may think that the practice of making subliminal suggestions has been proven to have no effect on consumers. WRONG! This book, written by the world's leading authority on these techniques, dissects them in detail. After reading this book, you may realize that the stuff dribbling down your chin is not Diet Coke, but Pavlovian saliva. Very Highly Recommended.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Madison Books (December 18, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819186538
• ISBN-13: 978-0819186539
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #595,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, funny, mind-boggling... A must!, July 8, 2004

By 

Andrea S. Shiratsu "Suemi" (Sao Paulo, SP Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Age of Manipulation: The Con in Confidence, the Sin in Sincere (Hardcover)

I found "The Age of Manipulation" at a local library while I was doing a research about subliminal messages and I wanted to know why they're such a big deal for some people.
I thought I was going to read about some conspiracy theory not to be taken seriously. After all, who needs hidden messages in the media when we have so many lies in our daily news and everything that's called "entertainment" has a strong sexual appeal, most of them are not subtle at all. In other words, who needs subliminal messages? Who needs some dirty message we can't consciously notice when there's so much dirt in the media that we can see with our eyes wide open?
I must admit I thought the book was about some religious/right wing ramblings taking everything in our daily life to "magical" proportions. But I wanted to know more so I read it. I realised Dr Key really has a point. It's not about magical thought or conspiracy theories at all, what he did was just to link Freudian theories, philosophy, science, to things he saw in the media, and that's what's brilliant about his work. He saw what we couldn't see without a "little" help. So if you see something dirty in his books, don't blame him, blame Freud ;-) Or our incounscious defense mechanism that block what we have seen because what we saw could shake our values systems, our view or the world, everything we belive in. Freud again. It's not a book for everyone, if you want to "stay safe" don' t read it. You'll never see the world the same way again after reading it - that could be a blessing or a curse.
In those times when conglomerates that dominate our global economy also dominate everything we call news, culture, art and entertainment, this book is a must! As well as his older books, if you can find them, go for them! But if you get "The Age of Manipulation" that's enough, it's his most comprehensive book, the one that says it all.
We've been had for so long, that's enough! Let's not allow humanhood "devolve" to media zombies.
Somebody please reprint this book before it's too late.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He sure stirs up the pot..., August 18, 2000

By 

Richard Brodie (Kirkland, WA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Age of Manipulation: The Con in Confidence, The Sin in Sincere (Paperback)

Dr. Key's fourth book on subliminal advertising is worth the purchase price just for the pictures: liquor ads with blatantly obvious erect penises drawn into the stream of pouring gin, "sex" airbrushed into practically everywhere, and even a McDonalds ad with a hand dipping an unforgivably phallic "Chicken Tender" into sauce. Key hypothesizes that the male homosexual taboo is at play in many of these ads. When we perceive these images subliminally but repress them, he says, it creates an irrational attraction to the advertisement. He showed some of these ads to Inuits, almost all of whom saw the penises immediately and burst out laughing. Americans only saw the images immediately 5% of the time. Although Key doesn't use the word "meme," he is thinking along the memetic paradigm as he uses Madison Avenue's sneaky tactics to enlighten readers about the vulnerable nature of their minds. A well written and erudite book.

--Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

25 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating examination of ads, but scientifically unsound, September 27, 2001

By 

Eric (Huntingdon Valley, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Age of Manipulation: The Con in Confidence, The Sin in Sincere (Paperback)

Like other reviewers of this book, I am familiar with the work of Cialdini, Aronson, and Pratkanis. I highly reccommend these authors for a good scientific examination of persuasion (and subliminal persuasion).

I come from a psychology (undergrad) and marketing (MBA) background, and I work in marketing. I found Key's discussion of the ads featured in this book to be very informative; I think he is right on with his analysis of many of the ads featured. With all the money that comapnies spend for these ads, it is highly unlikely that the hidden messages are accidential. I enjoyed this book because I have never encountered an attempt to point out and explain the hidden messages in ads.

However, Key should have just left it at the modest claim that advertisers sometimes use hidden messages in ads in an attempt to get people to buy products. Instead, Key goes on to claim that subliminal and archtypical messages are the main factor in all of our purchasing decisions. This is an extremely tenuous argument, and one that he does not back up scientifically except to refer to "numerous studies published", and citing several scattered studies.

I could also do without Key's self-aggrandizing, and his notion that he is out to save the world from the virulent world of big business and government propogandists. The tone of the book is hardly endearing, and Key goes way beyond what a reasonable academic would try to prove from the evidence presented. Key's ramblings on page 196 about the evilness and uselessness of university business education is laughable.

Key also presents no evidence that the subliminal messages are what causes people to buy. As a marketer, this information would be vital to me. Are there studies comparing consumer choice with identiacal ads, only varying the presence or absence of the subliminal images? In my MBA program we were taught sound analysis of marketing plans, not subliminal trickery.

All in all, I enjoyed the book for its analysis of hidden messages in ads. But please look to other psychology, communication, and business scholars for a more scientific analysis of the issues presented.

Eric