OUGD501 - Seminar 2: Consumerism - Persuasion, Society, Brand & Culture

• Desire - false need for commodities - satisfaction, inequality - inequality disguised by the illusion of freedom
• False needs vs real needs
• Greed
• Caused by mass production in advertising and branding
• Freud - Irrational desires and animal instincts - 'pleasure principle'
• Bernays - brought the concepts together through PR
• This caused social control vs Freedom (inequality) - palliative

After discussing the above, we were put into groups of five and given sections each from chapter 7 of John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing', and were given the task to discuss these pages and get the key points of each page. Showing how it links to consumerism and find adverts where we can see this working.

Pg 131 - 135

• Publicity can't linked too strongly to the product - it needs to be seen as something that will add gain to the consumers life. Adverts can't be too far away from their grasp, but not too easy. Must be something desired.
• Publicity is based on the selfish desires of people's envy
• People work to make others envious of their possessions - advertisements play on this - gives the illusion that the product will give happiness - false sense of happiness
• Envied people have power and control over others
• By buying a product you are hoping to see yourself as the object of envy
• Oil paintings were a way of seeing affluence and so you can envy others - Berger compares this to modern advertising.

Task: Write an analysis of one advert using quotes from Berger to back up how the advert reflects the physical and mental condition of consumerism. (Approx 500 words)

This iPad advert focusses purely on the product itself which makes it an interesting advert to look at in relation to consumerism. At first glance, it seems to be a relatively straight forward advert, showing exactly what the product can do, how easily it works and how quickly things can get done on it. This doesn’t initially seem like it plays on the desires of the spectator-buyer, however when it comes to technology, envy has always been on the person with the newest, fastest and most advanced piece of software.

Referring to what Berger says; ‘The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life. Not with the way of life of society, but with his own within it. It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better. It offers him an improved alternative to what he is.’ (Berger, 1972, p142), this advert completely goes by this. It shows a piece of software which can do multiple tasks, very quickly and literally at the touch of a finger. It shows a piece of technology in a simple format which is easy to use and quick to learn, with no other attachments. It relates itself entirely to a humans desire for simplicity and a fast, working piece of technology which can hold a large amount of information, and is portable.

It shows how easy one’s life could be with the product, and how there is much less time wasted having to go on a different array of technologies to do different tasks. ‘Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable’ (Berger, 1972, p131). The advert shows an array of different people each using the product, all doing a different thing each to show the diversity of the product and how it can completely transform your life into something easy to manage and keep control of at all times. Making one’s life easier to manage gives the illusion that it will be a happier and simpler one, with this product playing a large part in this happiness and pleasure of having this idealogical life. ‘Publicity begins by work on a natural appetite for pleasure. But it cannot offer the real object of pleasure and there is no convincing substitute for pleasure in that pleasure’s own terms’ (Berger, 1972, p132).

It works on the illusion that this product will give that happiness, and that without it, life will be the same old life it is, with no improvement. The spectator-buyer imagines themselves with the product and what it could do to increase the ease and happiness in their life, becoming envious of the potential future-self, and seeing how having this product, and being that person in the advert will make others around envious of what they have. ‘The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself’ (Berger, 1972, p134). It is a very sly and hidden message it gives, but it does entice the spectators natural need for improvement to life.