Breakthrough works like Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard made Boomer college boys like me aware of the techniques that Madison Avenue was using to enhance their media advertising and in-store marketing messages. 

One technique, the playing of background music in retail stores and supermarkets, was highly touted as a way to subliminally jump-start shoppers' buying urges.  For half a century the subliminal music strategy has been universally accepted and implemented by virtually every retailer from Macy's to the local mom and pop market.

Lately, however, the dreaded PA system phrase "Attention Shoppers!" followed by any manner of annoying propaganda is being heard more and more. Usually, the interruption comes at the very moment when we have begun humming along with the elevator-ized version of some monster acid rock hit from our youth; at the very moment that we are grabbing extra snacks and beverages that were originally scratched off our shopping lists in an effort to stay within the weekly grocery budget.

I don't know about you, but hearing that some obscure product has been marked down or that the pharmacy will be conducting a blood pressure screening next Tuesday or that my plastic store key fob might get me a nickel-a-gallon discount at the store owner's down-the-street gas station if I spend 50 bucks is not only enough to break the subliminal music spell but enough to make me angry enough to put those subliminally-selected unlisted items right back on the shelf -- any shelf, anywhere in the store.

I don't know about you, but I had never heard the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida guitar solo played on the cello before and, quite frankly, I was really grooving on it when the amateur announcer's voice began droning.  By the time the nitwit had finished with his loud, boring announcement the Muzak system was playing a lame oboe version of Harper Valley PTA.

I don't know about you, but if I wanted to hear raspy-voiced mumblers directing each other from one department to another or incessantly paging incoming phone calls I could have gone to work instead of the store.

I don't know about you, but if I wanted to spend too much money while being continuously aggravated I could have taken a trip on the Thruway.

I don't know about you, but the only time I'd be happy to hear some dopey kid or his manager come on the PA is if "Attention Shoppers!" is followed by "the store is on fire...all of the emergency exits are wide open so get out of here as quickly as you possibly can." 

I don't know about you, but if I owned or managed a store I'd want to make my customers happy -- or at least not unhappy -- that they came to my place to spend their hard-earned money.  Uninterrupted music and a moratorium for amateurish announcements would be a welcome change in my recent shopping experiences, transforming them from ridiculous to sublime.

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