User:Kellygiles/Oneirological advertising

Oneirological advertising is a patent-pending marketing tactic that is currently under development. The concept is developing branch of Oneirology. Oneirological advertising, therefore, is "dream advertising," or showing advertisements in a person's dreams.

There are three different methods of oneirological advertising (OA), and each method has a corresponding communication chain. All of the OA methodologies require an ornamental attractor.

The ornamental attractor is the most complex and extraordinary object in the dreamscape, and it is the end result of oneirological advertising. It is the intended advertisement, presented in a way that is memorable enough so the dreamer can recall the attractor and the advertisement's message upon waking.

Background

Historical Roots

Subliminal Advertising[1]

Since the late 1950s, market researchers have tested the feasibility of “hidden” advertisements that are communicated at an unconscious level. Examples include flashing pictures and messages on television for milliseconds at a time. The efficacy of this tactic has been debated since its inception, with little evidence of concrete success.

In-Sleep Marketing [2]

In the mid-1990s, In-Sleep Marketing began utilizing Nanorobotics to turn advertising messages into electrical impulses. Devices called nanobots were implanted inside subjects’ brains at the pons, the site of dream creation. At night, subjects wore small ear devices containing another nanobot programmed with an advertising message. Upon reaching Rapid eye movement sleep, the nanobot was released into the bloodstream and the advertising message was relayed to the nanobot in the brain. It is unclear if In-Sleep Marketing is still in business.

Tipado.com

Most recently, Terry Tipado[3], MPhil, has started researching the possibility of placing advertisements in dreams without the use of any external devices. He coined the term "oneirological advertising" and is in the process of obtaining a patent for the process.

Types of Oneirological Advertising

There are three ways to present oneirological advertising to an audience. The ideal method is the one that is most feasible, non-invasive and ethically sound.

Ambient Oneirological Advertising

Ambient Oneirological Advertising (AOA) is the most omnipresent of all methods — a "tactical cloud" of advertising administered throughout a large environment. In order to effectively execute this method, a company must incorporate its product in unconventional ways and places.

If the target company served pizza, AOA tactics would include:

• Hiring a fleet of cars and installing a pizza-smelling filter in the exhaust pipe to flood the air with the smell of pizza. • Locating a canopy of trees over a busy road and carefully carving out a product logo within the leaves and branches so that the shadows cast upon the road and vehicles will be in the shape of the logo

AOA Communication Chain

Ambient Oneirological Advertising operates in a vast, citywide channel (communications) and has to alert individuals to the presence of a brand; therefore, it has the largest hurdles to overcome in its implication. The noise in this model refers to environmental obstructions that are competing with the oneirological message. To overcome the noise, an increased number of transmitters must be implanted within the environment.

For example, a tree canopy that has been configured to mimic a company’s logo is the signal. Noise — a cloudy day, winds that move the canopy, nighttime, or the time of day — could skew the signal and render it ineffective.

Potential Problems with AOA

Ambient oneirological advertising is the most laborious of all three methods because the target area must be meticulously explored and measured.

AOA is the most intrusive form of oneirological advertising. The population in the target area does not have a choice to avoid or stop the advertisement.

Globular Oneirological Advertising

Globular Oneirological Advertising narrows the scope of Ambient Oneirological Advertising, thus greatly reducing the element of intrusion. The oneirological advertisement is confined to a small area that is clearly branded from the outside to alert individuals that an advertisement lies within.

Inside the environment, many of the subtle environmental changes used in AOA can be reduced in scale and implemented within a store. The ultimate goal of this technique is to create an environment that mimics the interval of time shortly before a person falls asleep. This is accomplished by implementing specific sleep cues within the area.

If the target company served pizza, GOA tactics would include: • The store’s lighting imitates the illumination emitted by the sun just before sunset. • The restaurant’s menu is written in LED lights (LINK) on a black board to mimic an alarm clock screen. • All chairs and tables are lowered to the estimated average height of a bed. • The restaurant's seats are made with overly comfortable sofas.

GOA Communication Chain

The GOA Communication Chain operates in a confined and well-controlled channel, which creates a “hyperbaric chamber effect.” With less noise, fewer transmitters are needed to convey the signal. The signal in the GOA Communication Chain is also being delivered in a pre-branded environment, a storefront, for example.

The channel (or the store) serves as the company branding. The signal, therefore, is not responsible for sending a branded message but for creating an ornamental attractor within the individual.

Potential Problems with GOA

Some of the GOA techniques may induce sleep in the customer.

Contiguous Oneirological Advertising

Contiguous Oneirological Advertising operates solely within a person’s bedroom, via sleep mask. Lucid dreaming masks[4] have already allowed users to experience [lucid dreaming], or a state in which he or she is dreaming with complete awareness.

An ideal application of contiguous oneirological advertising would be a custom-engineered device that transmits some variation of code that can be disassembled within a person's conscious or subconscious cognition. Examples include: • Emitting waves that mimic [brainwaves] seen in stages three and four of the [sleep cycle] • Acoustic patterns that influence occurrences in the dreamscape • Olfactory suggestions to guide the dreamer • Tactile stimuli that manipulate the dream

COA Communication Chain

The COA communication chain introduces a new element: code. Once the message is emitted by the transmitter via the signal, it must also be transmitted through cognitive code so that it can be reassembled within a person's conscious or subconscious cognition.

In the COA model, there is only one transmitter, a device that emits a signal completely devoid of noise. The channel in COA is so direct that the noise-free signal arrives unaltered in the form of a message. The message is then disassembled through the use of a cognitive code and reassembled within the addressee's cognition.

Potential Problems with COA

Devices that induce lucid dreaming are not supported by concrete research or evidence. They substantiate their claims with words like "energy," "positivity" and a potpourri of neo-religious jargon. Oneirological Advertising (in its idealized form) would not rely on such contraptions.

Ornamental Attractor

Based on concepts from Aldous Huxley and Terrence McKenna, the ornamental attractor is the result of a successful oneirological advertisement. It is the most complex and ostentatious thing within a dream, and its purpose is two-fold. First, it grabs the attention of the addressee (the dreamer). Second, the ornamental attractor's grandiose nature aids in the addressee's recall of the dream.

For the dreamer, the ornamental attractor will be a recognizable brand. Without the ornamental attractor, the intended message would collapse, be overshadowed by other elements of the dream, or be forgotten when the dreamer awakens.

Inducing the Ornamental Attractor

Inducing the ornamental attractor requires a four-part process. First, the addressee needs to be in the presence of a unique object within the dream; the object is the ornamental attractor. Second, that object must produce an element of awe. Third, the addressee has to surrender to that awe. Finally, the ornamental attractor comes to fruition, and an effective oneirological advertisement is created.

Presence of the Ornamental Attractor

To understand what it means to be in the presence of an ornamental attractor, it is important to look at what humans have historically considered awe inspiring. In early Roman times, awe resulted from understanding the natural sequence of the seasonal equinox. Although awe can be inspired by both wonderful and horrific events, oneirological advertisements should not be the result of fear.

The Element of Awe

Hallucinogens have been known to induce feelings of awe. For instance, in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, experimenters reported that DMT induced strong feelings of terror and confusion, and that they are still in awe, struggling to understand their drug-induced experience. The element of the incomprehensibility is essential to an effective ornamental attractor. If the addressee fully understood the attractor, it would be less awe-inspiring.

Surrender to the Ornamental Attractor

To surrender to the ornamental attractor is to cease all action and focus solely on the feeling of awe. Abandoning all immediate action in exchange for the ornamental attractor is irrational because the individual is doing so without temporal, special or cognitive references.

The irrationality of the decision can be resolved with a light-switch-like resolution. Jacques Ellul addressed this problem by polarizing the process with a referential “Yes” and “No.” Yes is the ultimate source of hope and consequently cancels out the No. Everything in the dreamscape before the presentation of the ornamental attractor is the No; the surrender to the ornamental attractor is the Yes. The No is the only way to arrive at Yes, in much the same way Keats wrote that happiness is housed in the temple of despair.

Arrival of the Ornamental Attractor

The ornamental attractor results from a carefully planned effort to present company-branded stimuli in a person's conscious environment to induce the ornamental attractor’s existence in the dreamscape. Although the ornamental attractor is based on a branded message that the addressee encountered during consciousness, the ornamental attractor is so incomprehensible, it cannot be compared to anything experienced in reality.

Without an adequate conscious substitute for the ornamental attractor, the addressee will incorporate the object into his or her conscious reality, in much the same way aborigine shamans incorporate information from dreams into their waking lives as a substitute for the previously unknown.

Application

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola's "Open Happiness" campaign alters the environment in such a way as to present viewers with the familiar Coke bottle shape in many different forms. The process is similar to Ambient Oneirological Advertising because an environment is being altered to subtly present branded symbols. The process is not quintessential AOA because it occurs through television as opposed to in-person.

AT&T

AT&T's relatively new wireless advertising campaign presents environmental changes that replicate the height gradations of the strength signal bars on an AT&T cell phone. The process is similar to Ambient Oneirological Advertising because an environment is being altered to subtly present branded symbols. The process is not quintessential AOA because it occurs through television as opposed to in-person.

Ethical Concerns

Nightmares

When an event or object is implanted in the dreamscape, the threat of that object manifesting itself in a dreadful manner is always present. To reduce the possibility of nightmares, the ornamental attractor is presented in such a way as to avoid raising cognitive alarm.

Misuse

As with all new technology, if applied with ill intent, oneirological advertising can be devastating.

Privacy

As with other forms of subversive advertising, there are concerns that placing content in an individual’s subconscious in an effort to effect his or her behavior is an invasion of privacy.