The Trickster: Creativity in Modern Advertising and Branding

Peter Cooper

The `Trickster' phenomenon is a powerful source of communication and persuasion, which operates at a deep psychological level: it reflects the primitive part of ourselves that secretly desires the fantastic and escape from rationality and the everyday.

The Trickster: Creativity in Modern Advertising and Branding

Peter CooperSimon Patterson,  CRAM International Ltd

INTRODUCTION

The Trickster phenomenon is one of the most powerful sources of communication and persuasion known, rivalling logic, rationality, and the arts of rhetoric. It operates at a deep psychological level appealing to our wishes to be persuaded, using a complex array of devices to entice, convince, and seduce. The Trickster is not merely a con-man as the name may suggest, nor are the devices trivial stunts, sleights of hand, or gimmicks. On the contrary, its powers are archetypal and compelling, creating the...

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