- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939):
- New theory of human nature
- Hidden primitive sexual forces and animals instincts which need controlling.
- The interpretation of dreams (1899)
- The unconscious (1915)
- The Ego and the ID (1923)
- Beyond the pleasure principle (1920)
- Civilization and its discontents (1930)
- The animalistic core is completely separate to the civil society.
- As people, we are constantly repressing our 'nature' in order to live in a compatible society.
- If we believe that we are doing something that we enjoy then we are momentarily happy and content.
Model of personality structure:
- EGO - reality principle
- The ID - animalistic, conscious, primal driving desires.
- If you make a world where people are constantly repressing their natural instincts, there will be a eruption and a blow up (wars for example).
Edward Bernays (1891 - 1995)
- 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 (his uncle)
- Crystallizing public opinion (1923)
- Propaganda (1928)
Torches of Freedom - 1929 Easter day parade:
- At this time it was seen unfeminine for women to smoke and Bernays tried to tackle this by hiring multiple Female 'role models' to be seen at an Easter Day parade to light up cigarettes. - Symbolic act of feminine freedom. 'They weren't lighting a cigarette, they were torches of freedom'.
- Politicians started to get involved in this type of advertisement and self promotion. If people could act so strongly against a cigarette/feminism campaign, imagine what they could do to promote themselves.
- Celebrity endorsements, when a celebrity quality is put onto a product or campaign.
- The use of pseudo-scientific reports - 'More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette' LIES.
- Smoking relates to our desire for freedom.
- Desires that society doesn't allow us to realise - you can realise desires through buying products, politicians and other social characters.
Fordism
- Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)
- Transposes taylorism to car factories of detroit.
- Moving assembly line.
- Buying something that is named 'Hartley's Jam' gives off more of a personal and NOT mass produced feel.
- If you can attach a more creative element to a product then people will be more inclined to purchase it and use it. e.g. Aunt Jemima's pancake mix went from being a 'cheat' mix (with the dehydrated egg) to a creative product when the egg was taken out of the powder and people had to add an egg they felt like they were cooking themselves again...
Marketing Hidden Needs:
- Selling emotional security - The Hidden Persuaders.
- Selling reassurance of worth.
- Selling ego-gratification.
- Selling Creative Outlets.
- Selling Love objects.
- Selling sense of power.
- Selling a sense of Roots.
- Selling immortality.
- People feel more content.
- The fridge freezer was sold with the idea of never running out of food - looking after your family.
- If you can attach emotional worth to something then people are more inclined to buy it. - More desirable.
- Roosevelt: he said he would tax people more + tax businesses more in order to reinvest it n employment programmes and house building programmes.
- The start of a challenge to renegade society.
- People tried to get Roosevelt out of power - giant publicity stunt. Giant advert for consumerism, consumerism was the way to get out of the depression etc. - Giant trade show.
Conclusion:
- Consumerism is an idealogical project.
- We believe that through consumption our desires can be met.
- The consumer self.
- The legacy of Bernays / PR can be felt in all apsects of C21st Society.
- The conflicts between alternative models of social organisation continue to this day.
- To what extent are out lives 'free' under the western consumerist system?
