The Saturday Review called for a renewed commitment to high school civics education to stop "the hidden persuaders from running off with politics."

But is she aware, I wonder, that her choice is circumscribed by "hidden persuaders" that play on raw emotions?

The existence of tens of thousands of volunteer marketing "agents" raises a surprising possibility - that we have already met the new hidden persuaders, and they are us.

Saatchi & Saatchi was among the hidden persuaders and such niche retailers as Next and the Body Shop made looking and feeling good availiable to all.

Critics of advertising often take for granted the power of "hidden persuaders."

They were driven by hidden persuaders: the distraction of the movie, the sound of other people eating popcorn and the Pavlovian popcorn trigger that is activated when we step into a movie theater.

It would be hard to dream up a more unlikely band of "hidden persuaders," as Vance Packard termed the seductive images of advertising.

They don't merely steal other politicians' cute tricks or paraphrase Stevenson's "Home Book of Quotations" but deliver the best speeches money can buy written by well-paid hidden persuaders.

Ruled by a power elite, the affluent society was shaped by hidden persuaders.

"Scent is the hidden persuader," said Diane Ackerman, the author of "A Natural History of the Senses" (Random House, 1990).