Well our team was doing a run on an Ares facility and when we get into the lobby of this high tech facility there is a catch tune playing. All of our characters had to make a willpower check (and had to subtract dice from the check ifw e had hearing mods.) The troll in our group failed and started singing the song.... except the only thing he really could sing was whenever the song mentioned Ares.... which was quite often. The elf after telling the troll to shut his trap for a few minutes kind of lost patience and cracked his mop over the trolls head to stop singing the song (the team was dressed up as janitors.) Also there was another post closely linked to our adventure where someone gets hit by brainwashing ice that tells the character to give up all the information he knows about the party.

Needless to say it kind of got me thinking. I mean advertising is everywhere now a days. In a world where many of the large corporations can do as they please (as long as it doesn't destroy the world... and then really only if they are found out doing it to begin with,) are people who work for these companies basically brainwashed to only buy things made by the AAA company and all of their double A and single A subsidiaries? I mean of course there is probably subtle means that they use like all of the pixils on someones comlink are actually miniature logos of the corporation. Also can't forget the non-subtle, like on their favorite police action show Har. D. Bitten, Cop Extraordinaire blast the ganger smuggling illegal BTL's and says. "Man thank god for my 'Ares predator ™' if I didn't pick this up at my local Ares retail outlet along with that external smart link now 20% off, instead of that crap the force gives out that scumbag would have gotten me for sure!"

Is there more then that, since advertising probably isn't extremely regulated and at the same time has had about 70+ years to really rock on trying to get people to buy sht. Does it all become background noise after a while though? If everyone has billboards breaking someones will and making them want a certain product baring life and limb, does then the next billboard break their will and tell them that they shouldn't get that mean ol' nasty product, that creates tooth decay... and um..... cancer... of the soul, and instead get their awesome mega spectacular product no matter the cost?

I think there will be a difference for how much people advertise giving a the location, but I still think there will be things like armored drone piloted blimps in the barrens trying to broadcast the signal to those select few who might be foolish enough to look up. I mean Africa today is basically used as a dumping ground for advertisement. When I was in Africa there were about 30 different types of Doritos and all sorts of other products that will never see the light in a first world market. Questions? Comments?

I don't believe that corps actually need to do anything really subliminal to make their employees purchase only from them. They control almost all aspects of their citizens lives; down to what they are exposed to in the first place. Careful selection of district and workplace capacities can make the employee self-identify as an Ares citizen and be a member of a culture that is uniquely Ares. To Ares employees, people outside of the corp are subtly alien and uncomfortable to be around.

Add to the fact that they will not be given currency that is usable outside of the corp at all and only vetted and rebranded products would be made available to them for the currency that they do possess; like an authoritarian, micromanaging autocracy.

I must thank Dr. Funfrock for enlightening me about this, I had not truly considered the abuse of authority that megacorps would actually be committing.

Two words: Zik Zak.

Yes?

Not everyone is on the grid. After two huge crashes everything is shot to hell right now. People still make money or do things that do not completely revolve around the corporations. Yes people who work for a certain company probably only buy from a certain company, but not everyone gets to be able to do this. Also many people who have low level crap jobs probably don't live on the corporate compound, where everything you need is probably taken care of (within reason.) Every company probably wants to extend their demographic (to include every living breathing person on the planet.) Not everyone is controlled, and there are probably a few who do not want to be. I'm thinking that there are a lot of people who think that they are staying of the grid completely, but don't realize that when they go and buy something at stuffer shack they might have been a victim of corporate advertising.

I think an interesting run is to plant a song or a message or something onto a corporate server, so that more people will buy their product (instead of the cheaper product the corporation that they work for already sells.)

Also I wonder what substitutes for counter culture in 2070? I mean in our world today many people who believe are counter culture are totally buying into just another type of product corporations sell. I mean all the kids who shop at Hot Topic and are part of the counter culture, are just buying into the system... yet again.

Corp brainwashing is almost certainly possible, it appears to be part of Horizon's rehabilitation program in their prison system. I believe however that mass subliminals, like mass magical influence are probably banned under coporate court regulations and other functions in advertising are governed by national regulations like simsense safety levels. The means of advertising are largely unregulated, but the content of that advertising is.

Heath seems to have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of currency. If a currency backed by a stable entity, which Ares qualifies as ahead of a number of current states then it can almost certainly be used outside the corp as it is percieved to hold value. They may be encouraged not to spend their wages elsewhere, but they still can if they choose to do so as Ares' currency is credible. The real controlling factor is the nature of many corporate enclaves, particularly arcologies. Don't expect to see any noncorp outlets in there and not much non-corp media.

This heavily comes down to issues of international trade theory, for instance a modified version of Krugman's model is particularly valid, since for the large part different corporation's consumer products are homogenous, and since megacorporate structure is essentially subdividing the national labour force into segments, viewing international trade as an expansion to the labour force is another reasonable assumption. We also assume that consumers have a desire for variety in their consumption. Under megacorp conditions relatively few varieties will be produced, since increasing returns to scale in each variety of a given good make it hard for smaller firms to compete in the consumer market and make it hard, but diminishing marginal utility means consumers are better off splitting their purchases between substitute products, rather thean solely buying Ares' Beef flavour soy, occasionally they'll get a bit of Azzie Pork flavour and would probably willing to pay more/ go to more trouble to acquire since their utility for that variety has not diminished as greatly.

Hence, Ares can either produce small amounts of a large number of varieties of a different good (which is less profitable as unit costs are higher), allow consumers access to other corps' products or ban them and allow a black market to form. Arguably this third option would be the most profitable if the corp could control the market, but only really work on seafloor and orbital arcologies where the corp has complete control of their citizens comings and goings, while it would fall flat in Fun City where option 2 is the only viable solution.

Sorry, finals season. Tried to keep it brief.

Um... corporations do all kinds of things that could get a load of hurt put on them. Aztechnology does shady stuff, Ares does shady stuff, every single AAA corp does shady things. I mean take Renraku's blunder in Seattle. I think every single AAA corporation could have an omega code put on them, and the only reason why they don't is that no one knows about their super top secrete projects. Screwing with peoples heads in such a trivial way is not all that hard. I mean they used to flash images of a yummy hot dog, and some cola during previews at the movie theaters because they realized that it was to fast for people to visually see the image, but the brain would still process the image.... result? People would have a sudden urge to pick up a hot dog and a soda. This is old news. Really old news.

Why is it such a big no no for corporations to basically hit one of their workers with this kind of stuff 24/7? I mean yes there is probably something on mind control, but advertising through bombardment is a thing of the past. I am just wondering how much farther have corporations taken it in 2070. I don't think the corporate court would put an outright ban on things like this, and whats not to say that employees are not basically lab rats the minute they sign that contract?

Fine if the court puts a ban on something all that means is that each corporation has to find a creative way or a loophole to exploit the ban, or else they are fish bait the minute another corporation can bypass the advertisement ban one way or another. I'm sure the corporate court also put a ban on testing with the HMVV virus, but I'm sure people screw around with that puppy all the time to create more powerful ghouls that have a higher chance of retaining their sentience or at least more likely to become puppets for the corporation. Screwing around with blood magic? Opening rifts into another reality? Messing with insect spirits? If the corporations always played by the rules it would be a pretty boring world in SR.

****

The Shadowrun team enters a somewhat grungy bar and approaches a man in a slick two piece suit flanked by two somewhat gangly men. The man looks around the bar before activating the white noise generator "I have a job for you, and I hear your reputation is the best. Half now and half upon completion, and I am willing to pay the going rate for your services.... oh by the way call me Johnson." The stranger slides a chip across the table. Crank checks the chip and finds that it is totally clean, before slotting it into his comlink.

Two strangers in gray pants, white pressed shirts, and red ties appear on the Vid screen. One of them turns to the other in the hallway and utters, "Bob you done with those T3AI84's yet? They could increase the groups work efficiency by up to 3.5%"

Bob: "Almost, but I would hate if these files fell into the wrong hands, because it could create a decrease product capacity 30% and allow Jacob to become our boss... and lets face it if the project gets pulled we would then have to redistribute the V473's and we wouldn't want that would we? Not to mention it would have to go cross department heads and we would find ourselves cross referencing the XV847's with the J-LAN configuration, and it's just time we don't have." Both of the figures laugh nervously before the vid screen fades to black.

Mr. Johnson turns to Crank and smiles briefly, "Gentlemen I want that file, and who I am, and what I do with it is no concern of yours."

****

I brought up that currency argument in my discussion with Funfrock. Sure, it could be used outside of the corp should it be transferrable to groups outside of the corp. Unfortunately it's quite likely that corp scrip is not transferrable to entities that exist outside of the corp and hence there can be no possiblity of trade; one cannot exchange a good that both parties can hold for one that only one party may. The monetary system will be wholly electronic in corp territory and scrip will be designed to necessitate a corp account to use - it's a scrip, after all, and scrip is almost totally pointless to the issuing body if not for the capacity to monopolise the market of its users - it's a bother and only profit-earning if one can use strategic pricing controls to your advantage.

One cannot enforce a monopoly if someone else is able to offer goods and services at a comparable price and, since scrip only has worth to the issuer for its monopolistic usage, we can therefore assume that any way to exchange scrip for nuyen or vice versa is kept inefficient enough, by the corps, that most people choose to work in their local scrip instead of exchanging to other currencies to get better prices. One has to assume, therefore, that currency and goods exchanges are zealously broken up when they reach a certain scale of operation, to the point where secrecy premiums are sufficient.

The competing products point, I say "yes" to. They'll be rebranded to fit into the corporate monoculture that is carefully maintained inside the corp in order not to instill conflicting values, but ultimately I doubt that Ares is going to bother acquiring assets to compete with the economies of scale that AzTech possesses. It will court competing products, of course, and will price the various products strategically to avoid becoming too reliant upon any one supplier and therefore avoid funding the growth to worldwide monopoly of a competing entity, but will ultimately import goods and services to cover the areas it cannot compete in.


I'm open to a total reconfiguration of my understanding should I be proven horribly wrong. It's not like I claim to be perfect or anything.