OUGD401 - Context of Practice Lecture 10

Consumerism: Persuasion , Society, Brand and Culture

Sigmund Freud was able to explain what drives us to spend and consume things. The development of psychoanalysis and his theory of human nature enabled greater understanding of why we do things.

His theory suggested that as a species we retain instinctive animal desires, anything that blocks our aims leads us to want to destroy them.

Civilisation constantly represses their desires in order to function within society, creating a sense of constant conflict.

The pleasure principle suggests that if we do things that we want we think we are happy.

The Id is the unconscious and the Ego is conscious.

Having dangerous desires is incompatible with being in a community meaning they have to be repressed. If as a society we are continually repressed there is likely to be an eruption e.g.war.

Edward Bernays 

A press agent who used Freud's theories in advertising to sell products. Public relations became a new sector which looked at public opinion as a way of coming up with strategies to make products / brands popular. It was used as a way simulating propaganda for companies.

Politicians use public relations to make people like them
Celebrities are associated with people and products to make them more desirable.
The legacy of Bernays and PR can be felt in all aspects of 21st century society.

We realise desires through a thing, product or acting in a certain way.

Fordism
The speed of production increased in car factories through the changing technologies and mass production. There was a possible crisis of having too much stuff because of over saturation due to mass production. This meant people may not want to buy things as much anymore.

Companies need to brand themselves so they would stand out from similar products.
Giving products a persons name created an authentic and human feel rather than mechanised. This allowed for a unique identity to be created making it desirable.

Illusory idea that products will meet another desire aside from their function. People believe that the product will help them realise their ambitions. Products can be attached to a lifestyle that  people aspire to have so buy the product.

Marketing hidden needs (selling)
- emotional security
- reassurance of worth
- creative outlets
- love objects
- sense of power
- sense of roots
- immortality

Walter Lippmann
Believed that society could be organised to create a social system where people would behave and be passive.

If desires are met this makes people feel happy for a while. This creates a system where products make you think you are happy and content so therefore people act passively, but it is an illusion. It suggests that these things make our lives richer but actually they make us poorer in terms of money.

For capitalism to work a profit must be made. If too uch is produced but not enough sold this creates a depression.

Democracy and freedom are incompatible.

We believe through consumption our desires can be met.

To what extent are we 'free' in a Western Consumerist system.