Samsung’s creepy TV ad hypnotizes you to forget a TV show – CNET

screen-shot-2018-03-22-at-9-44-09-am
Samsung

“The hypnosis session you’re about to experience has been designed to enable you to forget one of your favorite TV series, so you can experience it as if for the first time, even though you’ve already seen it.”

That’s what you’ll hear when you visit Unspoil Me, a site Samsung set up to promote its new QLED TVs

The soothing voice belongs to Fredrik Praesto, billed as a “certified hypnotist.” It’s accompanied by a spinning whirlpool shape in a sea of black, the only visual as Praesto describes the session (“it will take about 20 minutes”), settles you in (“I want you to think about a TV series you want to forget”) and encourages you to “close your eyes and forget the outside world.”

The bizarre marketing ploy was created by Samsung Nordic AB and requires you to agree to relatively lighthearted terms of service, wherein you state, “I will therefore only think about a film clip or TV-series which I’ll have the possibility to forget.” For 20 minutes. Yeah, right.

Full disclosure: I did not sit through the entire session, in part because I was pretty creeped out by the idea of self-hypnosis, and I want to remember every second of “Game of Thrones.” Hey, at least it doesn’t try to hypnotize you into buying a TV. Or does it….?