Close Read #too many!

What Your Supermarket knows about You by Martin Lindstrom, is an interesting article describing the intricate world of consumer advertising. Advertising isn't just limited to the television or a newspaper article. It's everywhere, even in the tiling of your local supermarket.

Details: Lindstrom made sure to add many details in describing his experience. Why? Details in Lindstrom's piece adds to the gravity of his message about details! If he didn't provide specific examples, his points on consumer advertising would be less meaningful. In other words, providing a specific example makes Lindstrom's experience more believable, thus making his point on subliminal messaging more persuasive. Lindstrom's first example of subliminal messaging is the supermarket's use of "different floor tiles- a type of parquetry imparting a sense of quality". By using details to describe the tiling, it gives beef to the idea that floor tiling actually play a bigger role than just a floor to step on. His ideas of subliminal messaging wouldn't be relate able to the common consumer, it if wasn't for his specific examples: his details.

Diction: Lindstrom doesn't want this to be a formal essay. He wants it to appeal to the common shopper. He wants to take the idea of consumer advertising out of its normal scientific realm and show its affect on everyday people like you and me. How does Lindstrom accomplish this? Diction! Lindstrom uses colloquial language to make his essay informal though his topic is essentially a research topic. Lindstrom uses words like "Bingo!" and "zone of seduction" to ease the formality of the piece. If Lindstrom were writing a research abstract, these words would be inappropriate, so instead he wrote a creative piece to act like a research abstract for the common consumer.

Imagery: This piece surprisingly also has imagery within it. Lindstrom paints a picture of a the Consumer Factory in Chicago as being like "NASA’s operations area". Lindstrom does this so that his readers associate consumer psychology as a hard science operation, not a pseudo scientific horoscope. Lindstrom understands that the line between psychology and pseudo science is awfully thin, which is why he felt the need to emphasize the current research that is taking place in labs. Lindstrom also paints a picture of what the lab is, "row upon row of people staring intently at hundreds of screens". Again Lindstrom, tries to emphasize the gravity of this science. Lindstrom's piece is meant to be eye-opening, "The more attention you pay to the details, the more aware you’ll become of how you’re being manipulated".