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Breaking the Intellectual Code
Clotaire Rapaille’s Code
I finally had a chance to catch the Frontline special with Douglas Rushkoff on modern marketing called The Persuaders. It was pretty cool. Definitely worth watching if you have a chance. The thing that struck me the most in it was probably the work of Clotaire Rapaille. If you’ve seen it (or if you haven’t) Rapaille’s special technique is basically figuring out the cultural “codes” associated with a word of concept. From a transcript of his interview online:
One of my discoveries was that in order to create the first imprint of a word — when you learn a word, whatever it is, “coffee,” “love,” “mother,” there is always a first time. There’s a first time to learn everything. The first time you understand, you imprint the meaning of this word; you create a mental connection that you’re going to keep using the rest of your life. And to create this mental connection, you need some emotions. Without emotion, there is no production of neurotransmitters in the brain, and you don’t create the connection. So actually every word has a mental highway. I call that a code, an unconscious code in the brain.
Rapaille does work for something like half of the Fortune 100 companies to help them “break the codes” of American culture (among others). The whole thing really eerily fascinating. The part that most interested me about it was his technique for unlocking these codes. Basically, he doesn’t ask people what they think, because he knows that for the most part that’s bullshit. On traditional market research, he offers the following criticisms:
They are too cortex, which means that they think too much, and then they ask people to think and to tell them what they think. Now, my experience is that most of the time, people have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing. They have no idea, so they’re going to try to make up something that makes sense. Why do you need a Hummer to go shopping? “Well, you see, because in case there is a snowstorm.” No. Why [do] you buy four wheel drive? “Well, you know, in case I need to go off-road.” Well, you live in Manhattan; why do you need four wheel drive in Manhattan? “Well, you know, sometime[s] I go out, and I go — ” You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is disconnected. This is nothing to do with what the real reason is for people to do what they do. So there are many limits in traditional market research.
He talks then about how he doesn’t care about what people think intellectually, because that’s not what drives decision-making, nor is that tied into the deeply-buried “codes.” Also hilarious is the way that he conducts market research sessions. He starts off with the intellectual stuff, just to let people get it out of their systems
Because of the three brains — the cortex, the limbic and the reptilian — I’ve designed a session where we started with the cortex, because people want to show how intelligent they are, so [we] give them a chance. We call that a purge or washout session. We don’t care what they say; we don’t believe what they say. And usually they give us all the cliché. They tell us everything that we have told them already through advertising, communication, the media, the newspaper.
And then we have a break. They’re usually very happy with themselves. They say, “Oh, we did a good job,” and so on.
From there he regresses them to childlike mind-sets where they first imprinted around a word, object or concept - whatever is being studied. As they go on, he describes that people get more and more confused about what they are doing there, and how these exercises are useful. In other words, their intellects get confounded just when the secret codes start becoming unlocked. Brilliant.
As much as some people probably see him as an evil genius, I would absolutely love to work with his team to uncover the cultural “codes” that we have around religion, and how to more effectively leverage those into starting meaningful conversations with people.
So, How Do We Apply This Here?
I find this endlessly fascinating and wonder about what the best way to apply it to my own work here might be. Obviously, a great deal of what we talk about here is very intellectual. And sometimes that’s very exciting and leads to really invigorating conversations. And then on less frequent occasions, it sort of dissolves into what one female reader described lovingly as a “wank-fest” or something along those lines. In other words, we have a tendency to circle around the upper levels, without ever digging down into the more buried emotional codes.
As much as I hate giving away trade secrets, I’d like to share a bit of my own strategy for dealing with all this. I like to think of it as sort of reverse-engineering. Start out a topic at a high-level, but put a lot of hooks into it. Either items which are really intellectually interesting, or sometimes even absurdist logic that is designed to trip some people up. Or simply encouraging people to interact and share works wonders as well. Once somebody has taken the bait, I then go in and try to deconstruct intellect using intellect, cut things down block by block into constituent arguments until we get at a bunch of really heated emotional points which are underlying the whole issue. It’s not that we ever resolve any of it that’s satisfying, but that we engage ourselves and each other on all levels.
I wouldn’t say that I’ve gotten it down to a science yet, but there definitely is a method to my madness, as various people have suspected and pointed out. I’m of course not really doing this in an effort to manipulate people. I’m really just trying to figure out what the best way is to speak to people on multiple levels at once. How can we construct a conversation so that it productive for us intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, etc? It’s a very interesting thing to explore, and it’s great having such a strong and varied group of people to explore it with.
PS. Now that you know all my secrets, you better not use them against me!
- Subcultural Codes & Reference Points
- This quote kicks ass
- The Five Codes of Roland Barthes
- DVD Region Codes vs. Blu-Ray Region Codes
- Either intellectual property means slavery, or it means nothing at all.
- Prev: Julia Sweeney’s Celebrity Atheism
- Next: Evidence for God?
December 14th, 2005 at 12:31 am
I just posted a bunch of links to Rapaille resources on the web at my link blog.
December 14th, 2005 at 2:29 am
Did u just tell me that some one that sales hummers wants to tie in to desire reptilian style (why am I shocked)living waters bring deasert flowers
December 14th, 2005 at 8:17 am
Isn’t that rather intellectual??
December 14th, 2005 at 10:44 am
Nothing this guy is doing is really all that new. ( and that’s not to say what he does isn’t interesting or cool in a way, cuz it is.) It’s the same approach hypnotism and NLP get into. And magick, also. and it’s akin to magick in a way, this getting to the lizard brain and emotions stuff. You wanna make a sigil or spell work? Well, ya gotta amp up the emotional energy and put that into charging your sigil or the working. You can have the latest copy of The Book of 100 Guaranteed, Fail Safe Wiccan Spells and Cookie Recipes and if, in applying those spells/rituals, there isn’t a certain amount of emotional voltage you’re producing, the shit just won’t work. If a marketing campaign or brand symbol/sigil doesn’t tap a certain amount of emotional energy, that spell won’t work, either.
eye worked in a “traditional” market research/ public opinion firm for a few years and it was fairly manipulative. (it’s all how you create the set leading up to the questions you really want to get answered, how you word them, etc., to increase the probability of getting the kinds of responses the client wants.) The part where Rapaille says the answers they give in the intellectual part of his sessions are all the shit they’ve already been told by the marketeers are their reasons for buying and wanting things is very informative on this point. And commercials and ad copy work in that way–occupy the rational brain with something…all those reasonable sounding “becauses” for getting the product, in the meantime, it’s all the jump-cuts and action and images and colors that are most likely to tap into the emotional triggers of the target audience. Hypnotherapists often do the same thing in a session. For example, Milton Erickson, am told, would sometimes drone on with an “induction” where the person had to imagine doing equations on a chalk board and then erasing them and doing them over again…stuff to get the rational mind occupied so that he could more easily access the subconscious without having to worry about the “gatekeeper” mind getting in the way of changing the behavioral/emotional imprint.
Reason is, rather than being the “God” of the brain, really more like the angel with the flaming sword that God puts at the entrance of the Garden of Eden after kickin’ them naked hippies Adam and Eve out.
Having not seen the Frontline special, I’m guessing, this guy does sort of the same stuff to uncover the imprints and triggers for words. And then to change realities in the service of the corporate and product tulpas. Ain’t sayin’ that’s not good. But eye definitely ain’t sayin’ it’s good, either. If you’re refining your ability to do the same thing in relation to understanding people and having deeper, better connections and community, that can be a noble and positive use of these kinds of techniques.
Watch your pacing and leading.
December 14th, 2005 at 11:26 am
“Reason is, rather than being the ‘God’ of the brain, really more like the angel with the flaming sword that God puts at the entrance of the Garden of Eden after kickin’ them naked hippies Adam and Eve out.”
Whoa, that’s awesome.
This Rapaille stuff is great. I don’t see it as evil so much as cutting through all the bullshit. “We don’t care what they say; we don’t believe what they say.” Beautiful! Of course, it always seemed pretty obvious to me why people buy Hummers.
December 14th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
really cool stuff.
maybe we can use Rapaille’s techniques to get people to stop using ‘eye’ in place of ‘I.’
December 14th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
The Eye in the Sky is the I.
December 14th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Eye like it.
Which leads me to ask, if no one else has already. Hebrides, why do you do that? (Is it because you want to make yourself more aware of when you’re saying “I” and “me,” and thereby use those pronouns less?)
December 14th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
maybe we can use Rapaille’s techniques to get people to stop using ‘eye’ in place of ‘I.’
that made kmee smile, jp!
prunesqualloreye: eye recently had a dream which ended with kmee as a child dancing on a large green hill with a bunch of other kids and a bunch of Santa Clauses (Santa Clai? Clau?) while we all sang some happy song who’s only word was “Yo.” (Significant? eye grew up in a bilingual house…enough speculation! eye zetetic this!) When the Santas disappeared and the other kids disappeared…some invisible other kid started interrogating kmee about what had just happened, saying that only eye and m’eye friend Noah had scene the santas. eye sort uv ignored this invisible kid and looked up at the clear blue sky, where, disguising itself as a cloud, was the Eye in der pyramid, watching.
kylark: Rapaille would tell you to NOT believe m’eye explanations!…that is part uv it. calling m’eye attention to the first person usage. it’s also putting a gloss on things…associating eye and kmee with body parts…eye’ll say no more on that point. also, it’s fun, if you wanna gno!
December 14th, 2005 at 3:56 pm
we like our cheese dead, in the fridge in a body bag like at the morgue.
brilliant.
December 14th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Hebrides, I hate to inform you but Prince has been doing the ‘eye’ thing since the Lovesexy album, but with a twist– he actually employs an icon that looks like an eye!
Also: as fascinating as this post is, no one has mentioned the fact that we humans have the capacity to change our code passwords. Therefore, there’s no real danger in someone “breaking the code” because a new, more complex one can be designed and imprinted in no time at all.
But I do agree that most of what people say, whteher cortex or reptilian-based, is BS. But the average con man on the street can do it without breaking it down into codes, and what’s more– he wouldn’t be able to explain it either.
December 14th, 2005 at 9:45 pm
yes, i think a lot of criminality is unconscious. as is most of human behaviour. that`s why analysis on it`s own is unable to help a person to change behaviours. one has to use more covert ways to induce change. i recent posts i have gone off on analytical tangents only because it`s my nature and hobby to be analytical. process occurs deep in the unconscious. we learn there and make almost all of our decisions there. i just find the how fascinating……but like the indian said “me know how, me want to know when.”
(my apologies for the ethnic reference. it was merely illustrative and not meant to be derogatory. so fuck off with the hostile responses.)
December 14th, 2005 at 10:28 pm
Yeah I posted something about that in the forum, James. About how I would have been curious to see them go into in that special the ways in which we can forge new imprints. Rapaille claims in the interview that you can’t do it as effectively when you’re not a kid. Or maybe not as deeply unconscious. But I think any time we use a new word, symbol set or system of jargon, we are doing something similar. Think of all the people suddenly now using words like “gnostic, demiurge, archon,” etc. These words have somehow become imprinted by people who found positive associations with them. Or you could look at Scientology (or Landmark Education), where the whole thing pretty much deals with re-imprinting language to mean something different than consensus reality says it means.
I think the same thing probably is studied in relation to brand names, names of new products, companies, etc.
December 14th, 2005 at 11:32 pm
Something smells like Scientology. More later.
December 15th, 2005 at 7:18 am
James: wh’eye would you hate to tell kmee that Prince has done the eye thing since lovesexy? eye think that’s cool.
that rapaille says kids do the re-imprinting thing more easily or effectively makes a bit of sense, neurologically. the connections are still much more flexible in childhood, as connectivity is still being established and pathways have not become so set from repeated use. or sez this lay person. is that part uv why folks like jesus said that one must become as a child to enter the kingdom of god?
keith johnstone, one of the gurus of improvisational theater has a great quote to that effect, saying: “Adults are atrophied children.” And in general, it is much easier for kids to learn and do improv theater than grown-ups and adults with all the social restraints and anxieties and self-censorships they’ve taken in.
channel null: more! more now! eye love and hate cliff-hangers!
December 15th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
“Rapaille claims in the interview that you can’t do it as effectively when you’re not a kid.”
Three letters: LSD. That stuff completely erases imprints in adults, if done under the proper circumstances. Cures alcoholism too, according to pre-1969 studies.
Hebrides: Actually, I didn’t hate to tell you, because it IS cool. I just didn’t want to be seen as a balloon popper or a wet blanket.