Cultural imprinting is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the landscape of cultural meanings — which in turn changes how we are perceived by others when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser "says" something about you. But you aren't in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign.
This is an important read as we start producing our agitprop. There's a lot to think about as we try producing messages that will actually break through to the masses.
I feel like the author is just repackaging a concept and acting like it's new. Aren't culturally-motivated emotional associations with ads still emotional associations with ads at the end of the day?
it's just a rational-agent repackaging of emotional association, as you say. Even worse, it is a fundamentally spectaclist perspective.
"The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images."
For certain types of agitprop (e.g. motivating people for an action) i think advertising psychology can be effective, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of theorizing all our agitprop with this lens.
Is there a different lens you suggest? Or a different, more grounded, theory as to what makes ads "work?" I'm sharing this partly because I want to produce agitprop that's more effective.
I don't think its a big distinction, but it might be an important one?
Perhaps? I'm sharing things that are what I'm thinking about when making my plan for agitprop. I have another post coming explaining why IMO we need agitprop as a "gap" between burgerland's understanding of Marxism and the current left who thinks everyone reads 500 pages of theory on a weekly basis.