Pester Power Pets: Advertisers Target Your Dog

2
Vote

Pester Power Pets: Advertisers Target Your Dog

Posted by weirdoddtruenews (#14) 622 days ago (http://www.youtube.com)

Anyone who has brought up a child in the last couple of decades will be familiar with pester power - in practice if not the term itself. And advertisers love it. Children are so much more impressionable than adults, so much easier to manipulate and control using the sophisticated psychological techniques which go into modern advertising.

Convincing children to nag, harrass, and beg their parents to buy something is easier for these sly ad men to accomplish than going direct to the parents themselves. And many parents are pretty sick of it, which is why some countries have gone as far as to ban advertising to children altogether. But the ad men aren't taking this lying down, and are now opening up a new front in their pester power war on your bank balance - by targetting your pets.

The video which I have included with this post was made by Nestle for their Purina brand dog food, and includes high pitched whisltes beyond the range of human hearing, but within the range of a dog's hearing.

The advert follows on from behavioural research in the US on the effects on dogs of different sounds played through a television. The sound occurs twice during the youtube video, but if you play it you will not hear the sound - no human being can.

The idea is to get dogs to react to the advert and get all excited when they see it, or more accurately hear it. That way unkowing owners will think that their clever pet is actually showing an interest in the food itself and will (Nestle hope) go out and buy it for them.

The ad went live in Austria this week, and will no doubt be coming to your TV in some form soon.

Perhaps the most suprising thing in this story is that Nestle are not the first company to target your pets. As far back as 2001 Animal Planet were impregnating posters with the smell of dog urine and placing them on lamposts, in the hope that dogs beig taken for walkies would alert their owners to the Animal Planet Awards.

So if you pet suddenly shows an interest in a particular brand, please think before you buy - do they actually want it or are they being controlled through sophisticated scientific advertising techniques?

CLAIMER (Not a Disclaimer): Despite the fact that this is a satire site which regularly publishes completely fake news stories, please note that this is published in the 'Weird News' section, and is, in fact, completely true... OPEN LINK

Readers | Discuss | eMail Story To Friend

Weird News | dogs pets animals advertising ads adverts products All

Share on Tumblr

Who Voted for this Story

weirdoddtruenews

Pester Power Pets: Advertisers Target Your Dog

Comments

Who Voted for this Story