Media: A Sensory StimulantA mass communications major once told me that an individual is subjected to more than forty thousand advertisements during a single day. From radio to television a persons senses are bombarded by images, sounds, and even the smells of ever conceivable form of media. Newspaper pictorials use print to deliver visual messages. Companies erect walls of advertising billboards along our highways that utilize large graphics and bright colors to draw the attention of sight. The radio attacks the sense of hearing with commercial advertising twice as loud as the stations booming rock music. The pages of mens magazines are doused in the smell of a single cologne ad that lurks within the pages waiting to be unhinged. At grocery stores and markets tasting tables are set up to create interactive advertising for an individuals pallet. No matter what form of media is used to communicate ideas to the population there will always be a stimulation of one or more of the human senses.II. The Hot Dog Stand EffectThe most effective media combines several senses of an individual to arouse an emotional reaction. I call this the hot dog stand effect. Consider a hot dog vender who has set up his cart on a corner of down town New York City. The venders ultimate goal is to sell as many ho dogs during the lunch hour as he possible can. To maximize his hot dog distribution he must entice the hungry stomachs of corporate New York who to busy for a decnet meal. This enticement can be achieved with a careful combination of sensory stimulants.Lets begin with a hungry individual on her lunch break. The venders assault on the ladys senses starts with hearing. As the victim, I mean hungry individual, navigates the street through the throng of fellow lunch fiends her ears tune into a voice above the urban noise. Straight down the aural canal and into the cochlea of the ear the sound taps into the brain and translates Hot dogs, get...
