Once Upon a Time there was an Artist Named Garry Sanipass…

I’ve been thinking a lot about advertising and propaganda lately. They’re kind of like cousins — different in purpose, but born from the same family of persuasion.

I was listening to a podcast that talked about a period in the 1950s when the U.S. government, through the CIA, was experimenting with mind control. There was even a doctor in Canada, funded by the CIA, who would completely wipe a person’s memory — a process called deprogramming — and then attempt to rebuild their identity through something called psychic driving.

Basically, it meant playing a message on repeat, over and over again, until it sank deep into the person’s mind. Repetition.

That word stuck with me — because repetition is also a key principle in design and branding. It’s a softer, more socially acceptable version of psychic driving.

So it makes me wonder: what’s really going on with “branding”? What is that repetition doing to us?

The theory of repetition — sometimes called the mere exposure effect in psychology — is based on the idea that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like, trust, or believe it. It doesn’t even matter if the message is true or meaningful; familiarity itself creates comfort.

Here’s how it ties together across different fields:

• In advertising, repetition makes brands feel familiar and safe. Seeing a logo, slogan, or color scheme over and over builds an unconscious emotional bond — it’s not about logic, it’s about conditioning.
• In propaganda, repetition is used to bypass critical thinking. When a statement is repeated enough times, people start to accept it as truth simply because it feels true.
• In design and branding, repetition creates cohesion and recognition. Think of how a consistent logo, font, and color palette make something feel unified — that visual repetition helps the brand live rent-free in your mind.
• In “psychic driving” or mind control experiments, repetition was weaponized — taking this same principle to an extreme, where identity could be overwritten through sheer exposure.