Consumerism: Persuassion, Society, Brand and Culture

• National cash register building
• Adam Curtis - Century of Self 
• Naomi Klein  - No Logo 1999

Sigmund Freud

• Psychoanalysis- hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts which need controlling.
• The Interpretation of Dreams 1899
• The Civilisation and it's Discontents 1930 - consumerism 
• ID, Ego, Super Ego - unconscious. 
• Fundamental tension between civilisation and the individual.
• Human instincts incompatible with the well being of community.
• The pleasure principle.

Edward Bernays 1891 - 1995

• Public Relations
• Employed by public information office during WW1 - propaganda
• Crystallizing Public Opinion, 1923
• Propaganda, 1928
• If you can attach instinctual meaning to consumerist products - can make them need/want them
• Product placement
• Celebrity endorsements
• The use of pseudo scientific reports

Fordism - Henry Ford, 1863- 1947

• Transposes Taylorism to car factories of Detroit 
• Requires large investment, but increases productivity so much that relatively high wages can be paid, allowing the workers to buy the product they produce. 
• Car - buy to make you more sexually desirable.
• Need culture - desire culture- self - replaced with consumer self
• The Hidden Persuaders - Vance Packard

Marketing hidden need.

Selling

• Emotional security 
• Reassurance of worth
• Ego gratification
• Creative outlets
• Love objects
• Sense of power
• Sense of roots
• Immortality

Walter Lippmann 

• A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd- 'Manifacturing Consent' 1920. 

Research what people want - what they desire and advise governments. If you can create a system where these dangerous desires are being met then people will be docile and happy which will preserve the system as it is. Money to big companies who give the public the illusion of freedom. 

• Government policies allowing big businesses 
• Communism - alternative model to consumerism - profit - cant expand the market anymore - boom and crash - America 24 October 1929. 'Black Tuesday' led to the Great Depression. 
• If you allow big businesses to do whatever they want the society will be damaged.

Roosevelt and the 'New Deal' - soft socialism - more restrictions on big business. Tax big businesses and distribute to poor. 

Giant PR exercise -PR (propaganda for big business) - World's Fair. Pioneered by Bernays - meant to be a celebration of America... free... you can buy anything - consumerism =choice.

Big business knows whats good for the country rather than politicians - democracy - illusion of democracy - centralise power - we're all kept placid cementing the social order as it is. 

• Consumerism is an ideological project.
• We believe that through consumption our desires can be met. 
• The customer self. 
• The legacy of Bernays can be felt in all aspects of 21st Century society. 
• Conflicts between alternative models.