No other business shapes our lives the way advertising does. But how did it become so powerful and should we be worried about the influence it wields?

Fifty years after Vance Packard's ground breaking "Hidden Persuaders", Jeffrey Robinson put this multi-billion pound industry under the microscope. From the pioneering post-war boom years of the fifties to the present day, he describes the key players and ground-breaking campaigns that took advertising -- and manipulation -- to an art form.

He examines advertising's attempts to utilize science, from the early search for the industry's elusive Holy Grail, subliminal perception, to the advances in research and technique that have brought into play tools like psychographics and neuro-linguistic programming.

Showing how art and science combine to target individuals more precisely and make us complicit in our own seduction, Robinson argues that advertising has become the dominant cultural force, defining our very hopes and dreams.

As advertising adjusts to the almost unimaginable opportunities offered by the digital revolution, The Manipulators is an entertaining and timely look at the past, present and future of this global industry.

"Thorough, well researched... continues to fascinate..." --- The Independent