Came across a “cheesy, seriously cheesy” but fascinating movie called “Hardwired.”
The premise is that – “only a few years from now” – corporations run and do everything, including a form of brain surgery only a marketer could love.
Here’s how it works: “Hope Industries” implants a computer in your brain that enables the company to show you holograms of advertisements for all kinds of products. A dude who no one else can see appears out of nowhere and pitches you on a new watch. A little girl shows up in your own living room (with that fuzzy appearance around the edges that all holograms seem to have in movies) and tries to sell you gum.
It’s a seemingly brilliant strategy hatched by a crazy scientist played by Val Kilmer who says things like, “Subject 373 could expose Project 660,” and “If they erase his hard drive, we’ll have to know how they hacked in. Prepare for surgery.” Ouch.
But I digress.
The point is that Hope has a plan to embed millions of these chips and then sell the “ad space in everyone’s heads for trillions of dollars.” The ad space in my head. Whoa. That’s like… totally deep.
If you’re in marketing, I would highly recommend this movie, if only for the opening credits. All the grand places in the universe have been branded: the moon has a Pepsi logo over it, the Hoover Dam is sponsored by McDonald’s, with a big “M” emblazoned on it… and don’t even ask me about the Washington Monument.
