OUGD501: Design Context - Consumerism Lecture Notes

Consumerism: Persuasion, Society Brand and Culture

Aims:

• Analyse the rise of US consumerism
• Discuss the links between consumerism and our unconscious desires
• Sigmund Freud
• Edmund Bernays
• Consumerism as social control

Century of self - Adam Curtis 2002

No Logo - Naomi Klein 1999

Sigmund Freud (1895 - 1939)

• New theory of human nature
• Psychoanalysis
• Hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts which need controlling
• The interpretation of Dreams (1899)
• The Unconcious (1915)
• The Ego and the Id (1923)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
• Civilisation and is Discontents (1930)

Freud's model of personality structure:

The conscious is buried under the surface..

1930

• Fundament tension between civilisation and the individual
• Human instincts incompatible with the well being of community
• The Pleasure Principle

WW1 - was a testament of all his beliefs and ideas. WW1 was to epitome of all his thoughts.

Edward Bernays (1891-1995) Sigmund Freud's nephew

• Press agent
• Employed by public information during WW1
• Post-war set up 'The Council on Public Relations'
• Birth of PR
• Based on the ideas of Freud
• Crystallising Public Opinion (1923)
• Propaganda (1928)

Touches of freedom

1929 - Easter day parade

Women were not known to smoke - it was frowned upon. 

Bernays was employed by a tobacco company to try and get women to smoke. 

He created a publicity stunt. Paid debutantes to walk down the parade, he tipped off photographers, girls lit up cigarettes, he fed a story to the press that the women were a bunch of suffragettes and it was a political opinion.

He believed that he could make people want something by simply advertising it. 

A cigarette became a symbol of power and sex appeal.

American mass production:

• Product Placement
• Celebrity endorsements 
• The use of pseudo-scientific reports

Linking a celebrity to a thing automatically makes it seem that it is part of the celebrity and lifestyle which many people aspired for. 

Politicians got involved with the campaign. The president of America hired Bernays to make him seem more interesting and gain more supporters. He was re-elected on the back of Bernays campaign.

Fordism

• Henry Ford (1863-1947)
• Transposes Taylorism to car factories of Detroit
• Moving Assembly line
• Standard production models build as they move through the factory
• Requires large investment, but increases productivity so much that relatively high wages can be paid, allowing the workers to buy the product they wanted

The importance of brands:

This the start of consumer culture and branding. Branding emerged when more products were introduced. Rivalry was brought into society. Brand images help to relate to a real person and make it seem more special. 

Aunt Jemima's pancake flour:

Did not sell at first because house wives felt guilty/ they were cheating because they did not make it themselves. Aunt Jemima changed their product to involve the TA more. They made the mixture need an egg cracking into it which made it more popular. 

Car adverts became penis extensions. Advertisements played on the mens masculinity to make men feel like they had to have one or they would nots seem manly.

Desire :

People did not need any items so this meant that a false desire was created and made people feel like they needed the items when they actually didn't. 

The Hidden Persuaders

Marketing hidden needs

• Selling emotional security.

Freezer studies - do not save lots of money they spend more than you need

The emotional security of having food in the freezer is reassuring for a family.

• Selling reassurance of worth 
• Selling ego-gratification
• Selling love objects
• Selling sense of power
• Sense of roots

1920

A new elite is required to manage the bewildered herd 

'manufacturing consent'

Russian Revolution 1917

October 24, 1929

'Black Tuesday'

Profit rose significantly until the biggest crash on Black Tuesday. Lots of people lost their jobs, the start of the great depression. 

Roosevelt and the 'New Deal' (1933-36)

• Came in on the back of a promise to introduced welfare and benefits. 
• Mass scheme of jobs creation.
• Investment with industry.

This was really unpopular for big businesses. They were anti-roosevelt.

Worlds fair:

• Giant exhibition in New York
• Buildings specifically made for it
• All that is great about American culture
• Edward Bernays was behind it
• Model of how the world would look if they replace their faith in the government

Democracity:

• Model of how the city would look
• You can only be free if people start spending again
• This future will be yours if you ignore political parties

YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU OWN.

• Consumerism is an ideological project
• We believe that through consumption out desires can be met
• Consumer self
• The legacy of Bernays/PR can be felt in all aspects of C21st Society
• The conflicts beween alternative models of social organisation continue to this day
• To what extent are our lives free under the western Consumerist system