This is a calculated move to normalize such technology. Yes, it will cause controversy in the short term, and these companies knew this was a possibility—but as a result the image in people's minds won't be the gestapo rounding up grannies; it'll kids finding puppies. To call this "unwitting" is simply naive (not surprising for Greenwald).
And yet there are countless examples that show the exact opposite.
This made it through one of the largest marketing budgets in the world…
The justification was marketers at large corporations don’t mess up and that’s both ridiculous and provably false.
Completely off topic, and for future reference, it's "err" not "air".
Completely fine mistake, stupid homophones and all. Just thought you'd like to know.
Also, these things happen to me all the time if I use voice dictation. I don't trust it because of edge cases like this.
The people creating ads are just organizationally isolated in most cases.
Sometimes it was for no other reason than a bunch of people in house felt they needed to justify their existence, but regardless that’s how it was 90% of the time.
So it is unsurprising to me that a creative team might have been given brand guidelines and a goal, like "hey we want to sell this, we want people happy with this" (much more concretely, obviously) and that could lead to this sort of ad, and I think that's probably more plausible than the team going "we're going to psyop everyone into surveillance statehood".
Some companies put up “press kits” on their site for public use but it’s usually logos and just basic info/stats .
They'll avoid negative perception because this is their job, the message is still arbitrary.
Then this guy [1] walks into the room and says no, be bold, who could possibly object to my life's work, and he gets his way because he's signing the cheque.
On what planet would the ask be marketing copy versus straight access?
In a Super Bowl spot? Why? Nobody was taking out Super Bowl spots for their PRISM participation.
Propaganda is, and always has been, a subset of marketing aimed at shifting public perception. It would be wild to assume it never happens.
The argument isn't against ethics. It's about self interest. Amazon bought the Super Bowl ad to sell Nest units.
"Unwitting" is correct. There are no lizard people coordinating our march towards dystopia. Just individual people who will–like me–read this article, think we should do more, and then probably do nothing.
(If you want a realistic conspiracy, Amazon may have greenlit the spot with an eye towards an audience of one or two in D.C.)
There are no lizard people coordinating our march towards dystopia. Just individual people who will–like me–read this article, think we should do more, and then probably do nothing.
It's very much possible for people to brand the surveillance state as cute; and for consent for a surveillance state to spontaneously emerge / be generated from the attempts of marketers trying to make the Ring dystopia cute.
Both serve the same goals, in a different manner. Both require the same choices by marketing - active and with conscience aforethought.