The Corporation Page #9

our minds

and manufacture

our consent.

Corporations don't advertise

products particularly;

they're advertising

a way of life.

A way of thinking.

A story of who we are as people

and how we got here and

you know what's the source

of our so called liberty

and so called freedom.

You know so you have decades

and decades and decades

of propaganda and

education

teaching us to think

in a certain way.

When applied to

the large corporation

it's that the corporation

is was inevitable

that it's indispensable

that it is somehow

remarkably efficient

and that it is responsible

for the sort of

for progress and

the good life.

Perception management is a

very interesting concept

It's basically a methodology

which helps us when

we work with our clients

to go through a very systematic

thoughtful process

in order to be able to

help our clients identify

what the resources are

that they have.

What the barriers to their

success are

and how we can use

communications

to help them accomplish

their objectives.

If Michael or Angelica came

tome and said

Dad what do you do

and why is it important?

My answer to that question

is basically

that I help corporations

have a voice.

And I help corporations

share the point of view

about how they

feel about things.

They're selling

themselves

they're selling

their domination

they're selling

their rule

and they're creating

an image for themselves

as just regular folks

down the block.

Hi how

y'all doing today?

Good to see you.

How are you doing today?

Hi how you

doing today?

We're from Pfizer.

We're your neighbours.

You're in the new houses?

Are you in the new houses?

Ohhhhhh!

These are some neighbours.

Can we say hello?

Can we say hello

just for a minute?

So what do you think

of the neighbourhood now?

It's all right

it's good.

Yeah I think it's been

getting better

over the last 20 years

that I've been coming here.

Yeah

So I think together you

know working with you

and Pfizer and our

other partnership

well make this

a better place.

Okay.

Okay nice to see

you Miss Fraser bye.

There used to be a lot

of crime at this subway.

One night as I was going

home I got caught

and was almost mugged.

So we decided

to make a change

to make

this community better.

We're looking

at turnstiles

that prevent fare beating.

It used to be you could

just hop right over.

So Pfizer in collaboration

with the transit authority

actually purchased

these machines.

This is a talkback box

that allows us to speak

to the Pfizer guard

which is approximately

500 yards from here.

Now I haven't seen

the Pfizer guard today

but I'm going to see

if I can call him.

If he's not I'll have

to go wake him up.

Hello.

Hello.

Tom Kline speaking.

So I'm sure

before we're through

hell call back.

But particularly

on the off-hours

this allows a passenger

to call directly

to the Pfizer

desk for assistance.

And then the Pfizer guard

calls the transit police

and the transit police respond

to any crime situation.

As a result of all this

crime is down in that station.

It's much safer for

our community partners.

Thank you.

I'll press the other button

just to be sure...

Well go over and

talk to him personally.

It's tough you know

they're putting

some taxpayer shareholder

money into helping

and who can say?

But that money should be

going to the taxpayers

to decide what to do.

And while they're doing

those sorts of nice things

they're also playing a role in

lowering taxes for corporations

and lowering taxes

for wealthy people

and reconfiguring

public policy.

And what we don't see is all

that reconfiguring going on;

we don't see all that

vacuuming up of money

vacuuming out the insides

of public processes

but we do see

the nice faade.

When I was researching

the takeover of public space

when I started off I thought

okay this is just advertising.

We've always had advertising.

It's just more advertising.

But what I started

to understand

and what I

understand now

is that branding if not

advertising its production.

The very

successful corporations

the corporations of the future

do not produce products.

They produced

brand meaning.

The dissemination of

the idea of themselves

is their act of production.

And the dissemination of

the idea of themselves

is an enormously

invasive project

so how do you

make a brand idea?

Well a good place to

start is by building

a three dimensional

manifestation of your brand.

For accompany like Disney

it goes even further

where it's actually building

a town Celebration Florida.

Currently there are

about 5000 residents

who call Celebration home.

And there are about 1300

single-family homes

a town centre that's a place

where people gather.

It has about four

or five restaurants

and about a dozen

other shops.

Their inspiration

their brand image

is the all American family.

And the sort of

by gone American town.

Their brand driver is family

magic and everything

that the company does is in

and around those two words.

If you take that

a branded environment

such as a Disney World

or a Disneyland is a logical

extension of that brand.

Film animated film

family oriented film;

it's a very logical

extension of that.

As a business though

they also know that

if they want to get

into other forms of

entertainment

that does not fit

family magic

they do not brand

it Disney.

If they want to get

into adult

more serious type fare

when it comes to film

they brand it Touchstone.

Disney brand

speaks of reassurance

it speaks of tradition

it speaks of quality.

And you can see that here

in this community

that we've built.

And that's where you

see the truly imperialist

aspirations of branding

which is about building

these privatized

branded cocoons.

Which maybe you start

by shopping in

and then you continue

by holidaying in

but eventually why

not just move in.

What happens if we

wake up one day

and we find out that virtually

all of our relationships

that are mediated between

us and our fellow human beings

are commercial?

We find out that virtually

every relationship we have

is a commercially

arbitrated relationship

with our fellow human being?

Can civilization survive on

that narrow a definition

of how we interact

with each other?

Wow what a dream...

I can give you the day

in the life of a person

who might be the target

of undercover marketing.

And I will

tell you this

that some of these things

are happening right now

around you.

So you walk out of your

building in the morning

in some city

and you walk by

the doorman and say

hey good morning!

And you notice there's a

bunch of boxes at his feet

from some on line

or mail order retailer.

And there's a bunch of boxes

there with of course

big brand message on it.

You walk out

and wonder

a lot of people must be

ordering from that company.

Well what you don't know is

that we paid the doorman

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