summarise on 100 words
the process is centainly not rational.To quote Stan Gross, a marketing consultant in Pennysylyania , ' i can't ask you why you like a centain package , and you can't tell me.The package is not silent.it screams - but it screams to your inner mind .To plumb this inner mind,Gross asks groups of people to play games meant to elicit inner,pre-rational responses.Formed into teams ,they are given a series of packets and challenged to tell stories about them.They are asked :'if the toothpaste were a person,write its obituary.'Or,'if this detergent were a film,what would it be about?"He encourages such playfulness because he think it bypasses rational judgement and gets truer reactions.
Obviously , Gross and other psychological marketers are dealing with fears and desires that go deeper than whiter laundry.Parents worry that they are falling their children.Individuals feel lonely and unfulfilled .To assuage these anxieties through such placebos as a frozen pizza ir a packet of chewing gum -doesn't that seem cruel?Gross argues that people know, on some level ,that the purchases they make will not fulfill their deepest wants .'Buying things is a way of coping ,"Gross says.We may know they are empty symbols ,but we pursue these bright baubles because they satisfy us.And perhaps because , at still another level , we enjoy watching their gloriously sophisticated competition for our favours.