We seek media for information and entertainment, but media seeks something from us too. In order to watch a video or read an article online, you'll probably be forced to see an advertisement.

“We play with your subconscious mind,” Edwards said. “Recording artists, film, television—any type of storyteller does the same thing. They don’t all have evil intentions ... but from a marketing standpoint, it’s very tactical. We’re not just sharing, we’re trying to get you to act on what we share.”

This is what advertisers refer to as an “impression”—a subtle yet persistent command that advertisers use to get your mind to reach a desired conclusion. Often it’s not obvious or overt—manifesting in consumers as a small unconscious bias; a subtle like or dislike for certain things.

The key strategy in promoting an impression is repetition, because marketers know the more you’re exposed to a message, the more likely it is that you will react.

This is just one of many tools used to better capture our attention. With so many ads saturating the marketplace, the fight for exposure has never been more fierce.

This is why companies devote so much effort to building an indelible brand. In the past, branding referred to a hot iron that burned a mark on people, animals, or objects to signify ownership. Today, branding is used figuratively to describe a process of burning a message in your mind.

“We know that it takes multiple impressions (six to seven) before a concept or brand is sealed in a person’s mind. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do it,” Edwards said.

Good branding can convince you to make a purchase, but the ultimate branding objective is forging a lifelong relationship with consumers. If this emotional connection can be maintained, the consumer will be forever devoted to your product.

The branding that worked on our parents or grandparents seems crude and quaint by current standards. In order to make an impression today, ads need to be funnier, sexier, or more relatable to be heard over the ever-increasing volume of messages competing for our attention.

And it’s not just advertising. Other forms of media can adopt persuasive tactics too. In fact, when a message is disguised as mindless entertainment, it’s easier for the public to accept.

“The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today,” wrote the founder of modern advertising tactics, Edward Bernays, in his 1928 book “Propaganda.”

Until media cleans up its act, Edwards cautions people to be aware of the impressions that are being made on their mind. The most effective method is to limit the content you consume and to regularly reflect upon what you truly believe.  It’s a kind of media mindfulness—the more conscious you become of the hypnotic messages triggering your desires, the easier it is to break the spell.

Edwards calls this “guarding the mind.”

“It may be as extreme as not owning a TV or only subscribing to content that gives honest, accurate, unbiased commentary,” she said.

Other examples of guarding the mind include avoiding movies, videos, or music that glorify violence, misogyny, and other forms of disrespect, as well as choosing brands that support the community and promote having a positive self-image.

In the old days, ads were pretty basic—just a description of goods and services. But in the 1920s, Bernays changed the game. Inspired by his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays used psychology to develop a new strategy of marketing that would influence the subconscious mind.

He called this strategy “engineering consent.” In essence, it’s a form of mass hypnosis. It was also the start of mass consumerism—an economic model in which people buy things not just for necessity, but for pleasure, prestige, or even rebellion.

Bernays’s first strategic ad campaign was in 1929. The owners of cigarette brand Lucky Strike were looking to capture the female market, but it was considered taboo for a decent woman to smoke. So Bernays hired some young women, gave them cigarettes, and staged a scene in the New York City Easter parade. He sold the event to the press as a brave display of female empowerment, and referred to the cigarettes as “torches of freedom.” The story ran nationwide, and the number of women smokers skyrocketed.

This transformation was essential to social engineers following the industrial revolution. New technology allowed for production on a massive scale, but for this economic model to work it required a public that was more uniform and predictable.

In “Propaganda,” Bernays argued that the masses needed guidance from an “invisible government” in order to provide social stability. By appealing to the unconscious desires described by Freud, Bernays proved that the masses could be much easier to control.

“We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of,” Bernays wrote.

Bernays envisioned a few superior “wise men” overseeing the direction of society for the good of the masses, but a different story unfolded in practice. Bernays’s techniques could be used by anyone with a sinister agenda looking to steer the public mind. This included Bernays himself at times. In the 1930s, he started marketing cigarettes as a way to soothe a sore throat and stay slim, despite being well aware of early evidence that smoking caused health problems. He did, however, discourage his own wife’s smoking habit.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels borrowed heavily from Bernays’s work. President Franklin Roosevelt considered hiring Bernays to sell the American public on World War II, but Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter talked him out of it. In a letter to the president, Frankfurter described Bernays and his ilk as “professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism, and self-interest.”

Today, selling and psychology still go hand in hand.