Brandwashed Read online

  True fans of a brand can discern a subtle, distinct difference (which you and I most likely can’t hear) when they snap open their favorite soft drink. And whether or not they’re aware of it, that one-of-a-kind sound subtly activates their brains’ unconscious craving centers. Bizarrely enough, if soft drink engineers tweaked that familiar sound even slightly, the drink aficionado would feel no craving sensation whatsoever. The sound is that subtle. So if a company wants to trigger a craving for its brand, it needs to “own” a symbol that people associate with its brand and no other.

  Which is why I helped this brand create a snap sound that was just slightly, subtly different from that of other soft drink cans. First we altered the can design in a lab. Then, once we had achieved the sound we wanted, we recorded it in sound studios, then incorporated it into the soundtrack of the soft drink’s TV commercials, radio spots, and even online ads. The manufacturer even played its new and improved sound at major concerts or sports events it was sponsoring.

  That was two years ago, and to this day whenever the sound is played at sponsored events, the manufacturer witnesses an instantaneous uptick in sales. Yet when I ask people why they “suddenly” choose that beverage over another, their answer is invariably “I haven’t the faintest idea—I just fell for it.”

  Bet You Can’t Eat (or Drink) Just One

  Chocolate. Cheese puffs. Cookies. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to know that fatty foods are some of the most addictive products out there (perhaps second only to booze and cigarettes). But what you probably didn’t know is that this is no happy accident for the companies that sell these foods. Quite the contrary. The reason these products are so addictive is because the companies that sell them deliberately spike their recipes to include addictive quantities of habit-forming substances like MSG, caffeine, corn syrup, and sugar (and by the way, it’s also no coincidence that the cigarette company formerly known as Philip Morris and today known as the Altria Group is currently invading the processed-foods industry).

  According to a recent study published in Nature Neuroscience, high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in a way that is nearly identical to cocaine and heroin. When two researchers from Florida’s Scripps Research Institute fed rats high-fat-content foods, including cheesecake, candy bars, and even bacon, every single one of the foods activated a release of dopamine, just as the drugs do. Scarier still, over time the rats needed bigger and bigger quantities of junk food to get that same amount of dopamine, just as drug addicts need more and more of their drug of choice to maintain the same “high.” Researchers concluded that when the rats ate enough of these foods, and in big enough quantities, “it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction.”15 The most unsettling finding of all? When the researchers compared the brains of the junk-food-addicted rats to the brains of rats hooked on heroin and cocaine, they found that the addictive effects of the junk food actually lasted seven times longer. “While it took only two days for the depleted dopamine receptors in rats addicted to cocaine or heroin to return to baseline levels, it took two weeks for the obese rats to return to their normal dopamine levels,” the study reported.16

  Clearly, fatty foods aren’t just psychologically addictive; they are chemically addictive as well. But what about the latest food villain of the twenty-first century—salt? Everyone knows that salt is bad for us; it causes high blood pressure, which is linked to heart disease, and so on. But were you aware that, thanks to the obscene amounts of MSG, or monosodium glutamate—a well-known flavor enhancer widely used in both Eastern and Western cuisines—that companies are dumping into our foods, the human body is developing a very real addiction to salt? Indeed, by several accounts, the amount of MSG in processed, packaged, and even some restaurant-prepared foods is doubling every year, not surprisingly given that it’s not only much cheaper than any “real” flavor-enhancing ingredient like spices or grains or even oil—it also keeps us coming back for more. As a result, our bodies are building up an unhealthy tolerance, just as with any other addictive substance. Studies reveal that adding MSG to foods not only makes us want to eat more of those foods in the moment but also increases our cravings for salty foods later. One study reported in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that young adults are more likely to acquire a taste for a new food if MSG is added; another study found that when elderly or diabetic patients are given an item of food prepared with extra MSG, they’ll not only eat more of it, but they’ll also eat less of a non-MSG-laden food later (presumably because they’ve lost their taste for it).17

  If all this talk of salt is making you thirsty, now might be a good time to look at what it is in that can of Red Bull that makes you keep coming back for more. Some actually believe it to be cocaine, which German authorities claim to have found traces of in the popular energy drink (which they subsequently banned in six states across Germany.)18 But this hasn’t been proven in the United States. The real culprit in Red Bull is actually another white powdery substance, which may be legal but can be almost as addictive: sugar. A single six-ounce can of Red Bull contains twenty-seven grams of sugar—approximately six teaspoons, or the amount found in a chocolate bar. Like most drugs, sugar stimulates the release of our old friend, the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine (among others). In one Princeton University study, Professor Bart Hoebel deprived rats of food and drink for hours each day, before giving them a heavy dose of sugary fluids. The research team noted that after consuming the sugar meal, the rats experienced a torrent of dopamine. Not only that, but their opioid receptors—the ones that respond to the highly addictive drug morphine—were also stimulated. A few days later, not only did the rats crave more and more of the sugar water, but their brains actually created more dopamine receptors. Then, when the researchers took away the sugar, the rats exhibited withdrawal symptoms to the point that their teeth were audibly chattering. While Hoebel confirmed that it’s too early to know how this finding might apply to humans and admits that sugar addiction is milder than drug addiction, he concludes that sugar can and does take on addiction-like properties.19 “In certain models,” Hoebel says, “sugar-bingeing causes long-lasting effects in the brain and increases the inclination to take other drugs of abuse, such as alcohol.”20

  And what about caffeine? Is it simply a habit or an actual addiction? Scientists agree that caffeine activates the pleasure centers of the brain by slowing down the rate of dopamine reabsorption, thus making us feel peppy and good (cocaine and heroin do the same thing, but obviously to a much greater degree). Caffeine also provides a shot of adrenaline, so we feel charged up, while blocking reception of adenosine, another neurotransmitter believed to play a part in promoting sleep, making us feel sharp and awake. Now, once the adrenaline wears off, what’s next? Well, as any coffee drinker knows, we feel tired, in the dumps, irritated, and jumpy, and our heads hurt, too, since caffeine restricts the blood vessels in our brains, and we need a coffee to get our adrenaline levels back to the levels to which our bodies have grown accustomed.

  So those unsubstantiated rumors about cocaine in Red Bull aside, this would all seem to be good evidence that its makers deliberately design the stuff to be addictive; a glance at the Red Bull label tells us that a single can of the stuff contains two hundred milligrams of sodium, eighty milligrams of caffeine (nearly twice as much as a can of Diet Coke), twenty-seven grams of sugar (about five teaspoons per can), and some synthetic taurine, calcium pantothenate, acesulfame-K, and aspartame. This could explain why one New Zealand woman was so addicted to Red Bull that she suffered classic withdrawal symptoms ranging from sweating to nausea to shaking to stomach pain and cramping to anxiety attacks.

  Almost makes you want to quit cold turkey, doesn’t it!

  A “Balming” Influence

  Okay, sure, anyone who’s ever polished off an entire bag of Doritos knows that salty, fatty foods are hard to put down. But if you think prepackaged junk foods are the only products out there deliberately infused with a
ddictive ingredients, I suggest you reach into your pocket for your lip balm.

  “Wait a sec,” I can hear you saying, “Lip balm?” You mean that cute little tin or tube of strawberry-flavored goop rolling around in my purse? If the idea that lip balm could be addictive seems far-fetched, stop and think for a minute about how many times a day you apply the sticky stuff. Five? Ten? Twenty-five? Unless you live in the Arctic, there’s no way your lips are getting so chapped that you need to reapply every hour. People are so hooked on lip balm there’s even a support Web site, http://www.lipbalmanonymous.com, for people who “feel mild to moderate withdrawal on having to stop.”21 True, some experts argue that lip balm’s addictive quality isn’t in the substance itself but in the soothing, repetitive ritual of putting it on, but others are convinced we do get an actual “buzz” from applying lip balm, especially those brands that contain menthol.22

  Menthol, a nonessential ingredient added to many a brand of lip gloss, while not dangerous by itself, can be habit-forming. When it shows up in cigarettes, some antitobacco groups claim that it makes them “more addictive, more dangerous and more likely to hook teenagers than unflavored cigarettes,” and in 2009 the FDA even considered banning it from cigarettes.

  But menthol isn’t the only ingredient some lip balm makers add to their formulas to make their products more addictive. Many include “fragrances, preservatives, lanolin and colorings [that] can cause sensitivity and irritation”23 as well as phenol, a carbolic acid, which can actually dry out our lips by interfering with our skin cells’ natural ability to produce their own moisture. So with repeated use, guess what happens? It takes our lips longer to replenish their natural moisture, which means our lips feel drier faster and we need to use more lip balm to get the same effect. In other words, the more lip balm you use, the more you need to use. Which to me sounds a whole lot like an addict who’s built up a tolerance.

  In the case of the best-selling lip balm Carmex, it’s even more sinister than that, according to Dr. W. Steven Pray, Bernhardt Professor at the College of Pharmacy at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. An international authority on nonprescription products and devices, Dr. Pray has spent decades on what he’s the first to admit has been a fruitless attempt to get Carmex to own up to what he maintains is the real reason it uses certain ingredients. Back in the early 1990s, one of Dr. Pray’s students raised her hand in class and asked him if lip balm might be addictive. Upon examining the product’s ingredients, Dr. Pray was taken aback to find not only phenol but also salicylic acid, a substance that is generally used to eat away at dead tissue like corns, calluses, and warts. Phenol, Dr. Pray told me, is a deadening agent that literally anesthetizes our lips, at which point “the salicylic acid begins eating away at living tissue, namely our lips.”

  In 1993, Dr. Pray contacted Carmex’s manufacturer in an attempt to find out just how much phenol and salicylic acid its product contained, only to be told it was a “trade secret.” (The manufacturer has since revealed the concentration of phenol as 0.4 percent and that of salicylic acid as less than 1 percent.) So how can Carmex, which Dr. Pray calls “the black sheep of lip balms,” get away with including an ingredient that actually exfoliates the dead skin cells, effectively eroding our lips? By listing salicylic acid as an “inactive” ingredient—meaning an ingredient that’s there simply to make a product more palatable, like a sweetener in cough syrup, rather than an “active” ingredient, which is what it actually is, says Pray.

  Trade secret, Carmex? Guess what, the secret’s out.

  The Name of the Game

  Zach Richardson is seventeen years old and lives in Fareham Hants, UK, with his mother, Louise. He doesn’t attend school and has no job. So instead of spending his time doing homework or flipping burgers, he sits in his room all day, every day, playing fifteen straight hours of video games on a small TV set (and sometimes simultaneously playing an online football game on his laptop). Zach turns on the Xbox at 9:00 a.m., plays through lunch, then finally lays down his controls sometime after midnight. He often doesn’t leave the house for days. His mother says, “There is nothing I can do to stop him playing.” His physicians attribute the headaches and blackouts from which he’s been suffering entirely to his video game addiction. Yet he keeps playing.

  “I left school more than a year ago and I had nothing to do,” says Zach, “so I turned to video games to fill the days while I searched for a job. . . . It started off slowly. I only spent two or three hours a day playing. It was just for a bit of fun. Now it has got out of control, and I know I have an addiction.”24

  Nearly nine thousand miles away, in Perth, Australia, a fifteen-year-old boy sits by himself in a dark room, playing a game called RuneScape, one of the most popular fantasy online games in the world, for up to sixteen hours a day. A community college student, bright and formerly (before he discovered video games, that is) outdoorsy and sports-mad, the boy hasn’t attended classes in over two months, fooling his parents by dressing each morning in his school uniform, then changing back into his bathrobe after his mother leaves for work.

  “He displays all the characteristics of a heroin addict,” his father later said. “You haven’t got someone putting a needle in their arm and having a high, but you’ve got all the telltale collateral damage of a heroin addict: withdrawal from his family, withdrawal from his friends, lies to cover his addiction. He’ll do anything.”25

  While these are extreme cases, the point is that games can be extraordinarily addictive. Whether we’re playing against our friends, a stranger in Tokyo, or even ourselves, and whether the objective is to beat the high score, unlock the most “badges,” or build the biggest virtual farm, games are deliberately designed to be hard to quit; according to Gamer Segmentation Report 2010, a trade publication, “extreme gamers” spend roughly two full days a week playing video games,26 and according to a recent Harris Interactive survey, the average eight- to twelve-year-old plays fourteen hours of video games per week, while 8.5 percent of gamers between the ages of eight and eighteen can be classified as “pathological, or clinically ‘addicted’ to video games.”27

  So I suppose it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that marketers and advertisers have picked up on this and, taking a page from the gaming playbook, are using games and gamelike tactics to persuade us to buy.

  Before we look at how they do this, we should first ask, Are games truly addictive, in the strictest sense of the word? After all, as we’ve seen, a true addiction is physiological, rewiring our brain in such a way that we need more and more of that substance or behavior to release the amount of dopamine needed to satisfy our craving or deliver that “high.” Does playing a video or online game really qualify? Well, according to a 1999 study, our brains do respond to game playing in much the same way they do to drugs, alcohol, and fatty foods—by releasing more pleasure-inducing dopamine.28 In fact, the study found that any kind of repetitive activity that becomes increasingly more difficult to carry out—which is, as any gamer knows, the key to a successful game—increases the amount of dopamine in our brains. A new study in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that we actually get a surge of dopamine from playing games that we feel we’ve almost won but have lost by a small margin. When we play games (or enter online auctions, something we’ll read more about in a minute), the authors of the study explain, near-miss outcomes stimulate the brain’s reward system, particularly those regions known as the ventral striatum and the anterior insula—the same thing happens when we gamble. “These brain regions are also linked to learning, meaning our brains may be duped into believing we’re gathering new information with each near miss.”29 And according to another study, games such as World of Warcraft “are designed to be filled with challenges that deliver powerfully articulated rewards, and seem to be engineered specifically to get players’ dopaminergic pathways (pathways that mediate interest, focus and reward) activated and resonating.”30

  But this means a lot more for companies and marketers tha
n spiking sales of PlayStations and Wiis. Because as clever marketers have discovered, when games are designed the right way, repeated playing doesn’t only hook us on that game itself; it can actually rewire our brains to addict us to the act of buying and shopping.

  Our Brains Just Want to Keep on Playing

  That’s right, marketers are using games to make shopping addicts out of us, and like any brandwashing strategy, it starts at a very tender young age. According to one study, “When habitual gaming teaches the brain to rewire its reward mechanism, the brain changes its motivation stimulus. The brain releases dopamine to reward the individual for a beneficial activity—such as natural habits like eating [or] sex … or habits like injecting a chemical substance, or participating in a stimulating behavior like gambling or Internet shopping.”31

  Take Club Penguin, a multiplayer online virtual world that uses cute and cuddly penguins as avatars and is designed for children aged six to fourteen (though most of its users are on the younger end). Club Penguin advertises itself to parents as a “safe space”—a way to keep kids away from the seedy underbelly of the Internet (the site is password protected, there are online moderators, and any inappropriate language is blocked via a sophisticated filtration system). What’s more, joining is free! In fact, Club Penguin actually gives its mini-shopaholics what more or less amounts to their very first credit card: “virtual coins” they are encouraged to spend freely on virtual things.

  The “free money” lasts until the moment the children realize their penguins have to eat. And that they need an igloo over their heads. And that their igloos need furniture and decorations! That their penguins need clothing! And toys! And that penguins sometimes get lonely and need their own pets (known on the site as “puffles”). And so on. Once these kids get going, you’d be amazed at how many things they realize their virtual penguins (i.e., they) need. But wait, it turns out children can’t spend their virtual coins unless they’re full-fledged members of the club.