Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand & Culture.
Sigmund Freud.
He was the father of psycho analysis. And a new way of understanding human nature which was radical and shocking at the time. This argued that humans from there animal past have repressed desires, which if not controlled will lead to destruction. He derived this through dream analysis.
But society stops us from carrying out these sexual desires.
The unconscious is a strange and irrational place and Freud believes it has a definate relation to our actions.
Sigmund Freud- Civilisation & its discontent.
He argues that our desires are incompatible with the organised society & socialization. For example, we all have this strong desire to have sex. There for this would not be the norm in society s this therefore effects this decision. This means to a certain extent that society will always be unhappy as people wont be satisfied. Repressed desires manifest themselves.
The pleasure principle, says that if our desires are allowed in a socially acceptable way, we are docile and happy once this has taken place therefore content. Civilization will make us discontented eventually.
And therefore we should expect that the nature of all humans is to do the non-norm and there for events like WW1 this is the release of the morbid desire on a grand scale.
Edward Bernays.
After the WW1 the west become developed and affluent due to the west winning the war. During the war he worked in the propaganda office and built up the council on public relations. And employed the principles of his uncle Sigmund Freud on the public relations. He idea was that any business can succeed if you relate the desire for that product to the rational human desires such as the ungratified animal instincts, therefore creating a false need in marketing.
Edward Bernays - Propaganda.
It wasn't socially unaccepted for women to smoke during the 20s and therefore he was employed by a tobacco company to change this. He paid a beautiful debutant to walk down the street with a cigarette and then was photographed by the press. This fed a story to the press that these woman are suffragettes and this was a political protest and they where lighting the torches of freedom against male suppression. And then all women wanted to start smoking as it became sexual and became a stick of freedom within society. This is attaching something meaningless to the hidden instincts to the human rights.
He used celebrities to endorse products and therefore the celebrities would retrieve money form this as well as himself and therefore the upheaval of celebrity. There was a system here of mass marketing and relied on the principle of making people believe the desire was satisfied, which was successful. Things are therefore bought due to the illusion of these things satisfying these desires.
Fordism.
Instead of making a car with people with people who know how to make a car and then you brake it down to belt works and therefore created mass production as it increased the scale of work.
This produced a society which had a load of things as it was producing more than it needs, productivity has increased and therefore profits can also increased while therefore created higher wages. And therefore have more disposable income to spend on things.
This brought the importance of brands, as prior to this moment the brand was simply a name. Because there is a lot of options in society and therefore you have to do something special to make someone want it, a USP. This is a start of where business themselves have to do something to make there brand sell.
Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour.
This makes it personalised this to make it more relatable. This was a pre-mix for a pancake and this didn't sell because out of this focus group people was saying that they felt ashamed as they wasn't doing there role of a housewife properly. So therefore, they changed there product so you have to crack an egg into it. It then became very successful and this is psychological as this gave them the idea of the was preparing something and therefore fulfilled this desired of feeding and cooking for there family.
Before this point the adverts for cars was very informative about what the cars have, and this started to change like this advert. Again personalisation is added into it but very targeted at men and showing power over women, its giving them knowledge that they are in control and connected this to having a car been a very manly thing.
Then very quickly marketing started to branch off of this.
Cadillac 1919
This photo on this advert shows affluent & success due to the house in the background. This started to change the thought in society from the thought of I need and what they want based solely on desires.
Because they wanted to have the ideas of the adverts creating desires of having these products.
If you don't manufacture a false desire in these things you will be left with lots of products which are not selling. But no one ever gets past the false need and desire.
Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders.
He talks about the marketing of things and how they trade off these desires. In this instance one way was to market it around insecurities.
People was sold the idea of satisfying there minds by buying the desirable things and therefore the society became more compliant and happy even thought they was spending more money.
If we can feed the bewilder herd, the illusion that all there desires are satisfied. What you will have is an easily controlled society this is talking about propaganda. this made people happy even though there was still oppressed and equality within society,
Russian Revolution 1917.
A communist revolution in Russia.
This is about chaotic & scary as what they wanted was a mass construction of control and started spread governmental policy. This is the start of the link between the capitalist production, mass production.
Black Tuesday.
More & more wealth was created and there was a boom of affluence. But capitalism can't keep expanding as you will eventually in any cycle get a boom & bust. But they had the biggest crashed in the stock market in the 1920s and lots of people lost there jobs and the economy dropped and started the great depression.
The Great Depression.
For the first time politians started to say that consumerism is not the way to organise society. As it aint a stable way because of this great depression. The Roosevelt introduced benefits and a mass scheme of job creation and a investment in industry. rather than a scheme of big business doing what they want but about government control to bring back society. this was not very popular in big businesses as they couldn't do what they wanted anymore and had guidelines.
Exhibiton in New York - World fair.
Edward Benase steering comity of this worlds fair. This was a giant exhibition with buildings specifically made for it showing all the things which are create about American society. The fair was full of futeristic buildings that if you was to believe in businesses again and consumerism this is what the world can be like. This is based on consumption once again, this is not freedom.
Democracy
The idea of individual freedom and & big business as this was created the idea of you have to invest in these businesses if you vote this labour based social government in then you will receive this kind of society back again.
Conclusion.
Consumerism is an ideological Project - Does government make you free? Does it make you docile?
We believe that through consumption our desires can be met.
The legacy of Benray's we can find in all aspect of our life within the 21st century of society.
the conflicts between alternative models of social organisation continue to this day.
To what extent are our lives free under this consumerist western system?
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