Cigarettes, Whiskey, Beer and Fast-Food Hamburgers

The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard, 1957
Chapter 5
Self Images for Everybody

People have a terrific loyalty to their brand of cigarette and yet in tests cannot tell it from other brands. They are smoking on image completely.” Research director, New York advertising agency (name withheld upon request).

The subconscious salesmen, in groping for better hooks, deployed in several directions. One direction they began exploring in a really major way was the molding of images: the creation of distinctive, highly appealing ”personalities” for products that were essentially undistinctive. The aim was to build images that would arise before our “inner eye” at the mere mention of the product’s name, once we had been properly conditioned. Thus they would trigger our action in a competitive sales situation.


A compelling need for such images was felt by merchandisers, as I’ve indicated, because of the growing standardization of, and complexity of, ingredients in most products, with result in products that defied reasonable discrimination. Three hundred smokers loyal to one of three major brands of cigarette were given the three brands to smoke (with labels taped) and asked to identify their favorite brand. Result: 35 per cent were able to do so; and under the law of averages pure guesses would have accounted for a third of the correct identifications. In short, something less than 2 per cent would be credited with any real power of discrimination. Somewhat comparable results were obtained when merchandisers tried “blindfold” tests of beer and whiskey drinkers.
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Reading The Hidden Persuaders in 2007, I don’t find Packard convincing when it comes to cigarettes and whiskey. I’ve been a steady purchaser of these two products for forty years or so. I also am a big purchaser of beer and fast food hamburgers. In all my thousands of purchases of cigarettes, whiskey, beer and fast food hamburgers, I can say confidently that advertising has never had an impact. I shop only on the basis of price and taste, and I can tell my hamburgers apart by taste. Some days I prefer a Whataburger. Some days when I’m in a more frugal mood, I’ll take two MacDonalds double cheeseburgers. On a splurge day, I might have a Wendys with fries. I usually try to avoid Burger King due to the burgers’ overdone charcoal taste, but sometimes stop for the two-for-one deals. If a depth psychologist were to peer deep into my subconscious, he would find little in the way of hamburger advertising or self image brand extensions. On a typical day, I eat a hamburger, drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, and have a bowel movement—all parts of my human condition concerning which I have no pride and would just as soon do without.