Example Essay Rough Draft [1]... Still with out a title (:

We met in the 540 A Publix (aka The Baby Publix). His name, Cup, Reece’s Cup. I was with my mom doing our biweekly, Sunday afternoon, grocery run when we made eye contact. Maybe it was his shinny orange packaging, or perhaps it was his pasty peanut butter heart. Caught up in his rich dark chocolaty skin, I begged my mom to let him join us after dinner. Of course I didn’t realize it then, but now it is completely clear to me, I was tricked. The owners of the Publix Corporation, or possibly Reece’s, used me to get to my moms check book.

That Reece’s Cup was put there on purpose, with unflawed logic behind its exact placement. Sure, my mom walked past them without being sucked into the rabbit hole of Skittles, Twizlers, and M&M’s, but it all rested on my direct level of eye sight. There is no way, that at seven years old, I would have been able to pass by a Reece’s Cup.
So I wonder, are people subject to all of the tricks up the corporations sleeve’s, or rather are we the basis of their selling techniques.

Think about it, in every grocery store candy is always in the check out line. Why? Mothers who bring there children into the store can not avoid the register, but it expands even farther than that. The actual candy is placed on the bottom half of those shelves, to be absolutely sure that children notice it, with gum and magazines at the top. But not just any magazine, mainly the weight loss magazines, or those with headlines such as “Brittany Still Fat after the Baby”. Ironic that they are positioned directly above American’s largest temptation, sugar? Not at all, simply genius.

Walking into the dim lit split doorway of a Hollister or Abercrombie is a little different than that of most department stores. A mixture of darkness, sweet scents of perfume, and overbearing fake plants create an atmosphere of relaxation. An atmosphere that makes you want to take your time to glance around at everything. One that makes you look a little harder at things you normally wouldn’t, because the dark lighting makes it slightly more difficult to focus your eyes. The spot lights are always rested on the most expensive items in the store, but they are the items that many would give into the price in order to receive the satisfaction of “trendy” clothes. The loud, upbeat choice of rock music that bounces past the perimeter of the store makes one excited, and often forget about how much they really are paying for a paper thin blouse.

It is because of all of the above statements that once we enter the store, we can no longer think clearly, and that we are distracted from truly analyzing the signs that read, “Buy two get, one free!” We get so caught up in the “sales” that we cease to realize that the regular price has increased from $15 to $21.99; so that we really are still paying for the “free” shirt. Only one who has a brick wall for a conscience could escape the temptations that lurk around every corner of the store; from the spot lit mannequin, with a god like aurora, propped at “center stage”, and the life size posters in the dressing rooms, to the faces on the bags and the pictures of Jake and Malaya on the human named cologne bottles. They all stare at you, sending the message that if you buy that top, you will look like the poster model, it’s a trick. A trick that is even performed, innocently, by Hollister’s employees, who are almost forced to spend half of their weeks pay check on their work dress code.

Sometimes what our eyes see, and what our ears hear is no further than skin deep, however our mind still believes it. Corporations are all about the money. All about tricking their audience into believing it’s a deal, and diminishing their customer’s ability to make rational decisions. Sales articles and commercials have convinced us that these companies actually care about the money we are saving in this economic downturn. Instead, it is a misdirection, a manipulation of a person’s emotions by using lights, signs, and colors, almost like magic.