Marketing Goes to the Movies: Forbidden Planet
“Monsters, John — monsters from the id!”
So gasps Lieutenant “Doc” Osroe (Warren Stevens) as he expires, his mind boiling over from the massive injection of too much knowledge for it to handle, in Forbidden Planet
The story, based loosely on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, concerns a spaceship assigned to discover the fate of a long-lost expedition to the planet Altair IV. The only survivors they find there are the brilliant but secretive Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). They also meet Robby, a robot somehow created by Morbius using the incredible technology of the planet’s extinct race, the Krell. The Krell had found a way a boost their intelligence to achieve almost godlike levels of power, only to find themselves destroyed by an element of their own psyche they’d all but forgotten — the animal passions of the id.
The “id,” as you may know, is one of the three levels of human consciousness described by Freud and company as id, ego, and superego. The ego is our daily level of get-through-the-day consciousness, the part of us that we’re aware of as “us.” The superego is the higher, altruistic self that concerns itself with the common good, charitable works, the better of society, and so on. It’s the angel on your shoulder, pure intellect, untarnished by lust or greed.
Then there’s the id.
The id is that lizard brain I mentioned in my most recent post. It’s the part of us that never evolved — the animal that pursues its needs and wants with no other thought than “Gimme.” It’s the part of us that would murder, steal, or worse to get what it wants, when it wants it. In the Krell’s laudable desire to boost their brainpower to allow creation from pure thought, they inadvertently fed that same power to this hidden part of their minds. The resulting rampaging ids of an entire population led to just what you’d expect — the extinction of the race. “My poor Krell!” exclaims Morbius. “After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.”
Is the id “evil?” No. The id is simply the pleasure-seeking part of the brain, and pleasure can come from simply feeling loved or safe or excited or fed. It’s these feelings we mean to stimulate when we write marketing copy, because they are such powerful motivators of human behavior. We can deliberate the pros and cons of taking an action, but ultimately it’s our desire for gratification that makes us act.
But while appealing directly to the id will certainly get results, the most effective marketing, in my opinion, is that one-two punch of id and superego that has the reader yelling “Leggo my ego!” (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) For example: “Whizzo Organic Cleanser not only make cleaning easier, so you have more time to relax and have fun (id) — it’s also safe for humans and good for the environment (superego).” My ego is now free to buy Whizzo without guilt over my desire to work less and play more, because hey, it’s the socially responsible thing to do, right? I’m OBLIGATED to have more fun.
Of course there’s a great loophole to all this. When you appease your superego by doing “the right thing” — does it feel good? Sure it does! (Here, id, have a cookie. Now run along.) So when your marketing stimulates both the higher and lower parts of your readers’ brains, that middle part will feel no conflict about taking action. “What’s not to love about this?” they’ll say. “It’s good and good for you!”
And for YOU.
