'Advertising doesn't sell things; all advertising does is change the way you think or feel' (Jeremy Bullmore) Evaluate this state with reference to selected critical theories.

‘Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way you think or feel’ - Jeremy Bullmore. Evaluate this statement with reference to selected critical theories.

Advertising doesn’t sell things; advertising is simply a means of persuasion and a tool that is used to manipulate the viewer into having false desires for products and services they otherwise wouldn’t want or need. These uncontrollable urges are what force you to become a consumer; the advert’s only role is to implant these feelings into the viewer’s mind. It may be able to change whether you think that you need the product, it cannot however change whether you do truly need it. Advertising: ‘It is common knowledge that the people who work in it manipulate the values and aspirations of the entire nation, yet twice as many people work in McDonald’s (UK) as in all British advertising agencies put together. On more than one occasion, it has sought to defend itself on the grounds that it doesn’t really work. And politicians are united on it: in both their skepticism about its value and their blind belief in its necessity three weeks before a general election.’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:3) Like Bullmore has stated, advertising is a very controversial subject that has always been put under much scrutiny and de-valued by many.

But advertising is everywhere. No matter who you are, where you go or what you do you are constantly bombarded with visual material that has now become a sensory overload. Times Square in New York is an obvious example of this, in which an array of various different types of advertisements has now become a huge attraction for tourists from all around the world. ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’ is a documentary that explores the world of advertisement, product placement and the way in which it affects the world. ‘Morgan Spurlock: Where should I go to not see one bit of advertising? Ralph Nader: To sleep.’ This does now seem to be the case; it would appear that the only place that you can truly escape all forms of advertisement is in your sleep. But can you even escape it there?

‘I have found it simplifies things a lot to recognise that, at root, there are really only two kinds of advertising. There is advertising that we, as people, go looking for. And there is advertising that goes looking for us, as people.’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:5) There are advertisements that are designed to be useful when needed, such as telephone book ad’s but then there are those adverts that ‘go looking for us’. These are often things such as billboards, television commercials, posters; anything that grabs our attention without our permission.

However, does this make everyone a consumer? Not everyone who purchases a product is buying it due to influences from advertisements; surely those who are poor cannot afford to have such choice?

‘To call people consumers is to imply that this somehow describes their only purpose in life. Further: when we think of people as consumers, we underplay their other roles and functions.’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:4 quoting Puttnam, D.)

In the book ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, Debord says ‘All that was once directly lived has become mere representation’ which is referring to the importance of the image in the current society in which we live. He goes on to say ‘Images have supplanted genuine human interaction’. His idea and aim was ‘to wake up the spectator who has been drugged by spectacular images’.

Advertising has now taken over art as the main form of visual culture. Art was for the rich showing the rich, whereas advertising merely shows trappings of the ‘ideal’ life but critisises it, saying we ‘need’ this lifestyle. This then persuades the viewer into buying the product or service, regardless of whether they actually need it or not in an attempt to capture this aspirational lifestyle for themselves. ‘The pursuit of individual happiness has been acknowledged as a universal right yet the existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless. He lives in the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be.’ (Berger, J. 1972) Advertising has caused people to doubt their value and make them want to buy products that they feel will somehow improve their lifestyle. However, as this isn’t a solution, they end up being stuck in limbo between reality and happiness.

The persuasion and manipulation that advertising uses can be clearly seen back towards the very beginnings of advertising, like within this advert for ‘The Uncle Sam Range’ in 1876 by Schumacher and Ettlinger. This is a very nationalistic image that utilises pride in order to persuade and convince the public that they should purchase their product. The overwhelming American colour scheme in conjunction with a bombarding use of stars and stripes add to the overall feeling of patriotism. This use of iconic imagery is a visual trick used by the designers in order to create a sense of responsibility on the viewer’s behalf to purchase the product, as though they would be doing their country a service if they were to purchase it. It also implies that through purchasing this product, they could have this aspirational life that every American dreams about.

However, advertising became much more involved with persuasion and manipulation shortly after the end of the First World War. In 1955 food rationing came to an end and the freedom to choose what they wanted to purchase became available to the people of Great Britain; the world of advertising had to undertake a rapid alteration if it was to continue being as successful as it needed to be. The people had never been given this sort of freedom and choice before and it meant that they instantly became a huge factor and an essential role in the survival of the companies; ‘before this we were grateful to get what we could, we understood our place’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:7) The independent television also arrived within 1955 which gave companies another platform on which to advertise their products. ‘And within five years or so, television had become much the most famous advertising medium. Within seven, it was national. And it brought cornflakes and jingles and indigestion remedies into even the grandest of people’s drawing rooms. It was, in the very best of senses, irredeemably vulgar.’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:9) This meant that advertising quickly became a huge part of everyone lives, no matter what their social status was. The power the ‘consumers’ now had over the advertising companies started to increase; the general public now effectively ‘owned’ the brand and became what kept them alive. In terms of advertising, they had to find new, innovative ways to persuade the consumers in order to keep them purchasing their product and not choosing from the various other products that were now available.

The way in which advertising has taken advantage of peoples insecurities in order to sell products means we have become a throw away culture, people not seeming to have any sense of responsibility or respect for the economy resulting in a severe lack of our natural resources.

A modern example of how advertising has taken advantage of consumer’s insecurities can be seen within almost all perfume advertisements. In traditional art you would often see imagery and representations of a Goddess; in advertising however this role has been taken over by a model who, also being a human being, makes the viewers feel less adequate and socially acceptable if they aren’t as good as the model. We are made to believe we can achieve this status however if we were to purchase the perfume shown within the advertisement. This obviously isn’t true, but as a society we have been told through constant advertisements that this will be the case.

The society we live in today is a consumer culture, it organises itself around the buying and selling of commodities; people construct judgments on people by the things that they own, ‘materialist trappings’, as opposed to what people actually do. There is a fundamental difference between what you do and what you buy. For example, buying a cd and calling yourself a punk is completely different to forming a band and actually making music; although you only listen to the music and therefore aren’t actually a proper punk, because of what you buy you shall be perceived as one.

‘The anxiety on which publicity plays is the fear that having nothing you will be nothing’ (Berger, J. 1972) In the current economy that we live, people seem to think that by purchasing certain goods you will become a better person.

Advertising ‘proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. The more, it proposes will make us in some way richer – even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.’ (Berger, J. 1972) People are still convinced that by purchasing certain products they can buy their way into this lifestyle that they see on the T.V and in magazines. The reality is though, once you’ve bought these products, your life shall be exactly the same only filled with material possessions and false hope.

As Judith Williamson once stated, ‘Instead of being identified by what they produce, people identify themselves through what they consume’. Stewart Ewan refers to this as ‘the commodity self’, were we create our identities through the consumer products that inhabit our lives; we create this superficial barrier in an attempt to be judged on different merits. The perversity of our consumer society means that even food has been affected, but moral superiority isn’t always available to those other than the rich. This then starts to add to the already apparent separations between the various classes, only worsening the current state of society.

The staples of our existence, the essentials that we need, are effected by our mass consumerist society; food, clothing and housing. Without these we would have no other means of expressing ourselves and it would result in people not being able to judge others on their possessions, forcing them to value others on who they are.

Perfume adverts are unable to sell their product through merit alone; selling an odour would be impossible without the customer being able to experience the odour for his self or herself. This means that they often have to depict a sense of glamour and fortune within their adverts, implying that through purchasing their product you can have this glamour and fortune. By attaching symbolic associations such as these to their perfume they are able to convince the consumer that they could have the aspirational life they dream of. ‘Publicity does not manufacture the dream. All that it does is to propose to each one of us that we are not yet enviable - yet could be’ (Berger, J. 1972) What Berger is saying is that advertising tells people that if they want to be envied and desired like the models they see in the adverts, they must buy the products. Until then they shall be nothing of any value.

‘Commodity culture manipulates us and makes us think one dimensionally - it stifles us and prevents us living full, meaningful and creative lives.’ (Marcuse, H. 1964)

This commodity culture perpetuates false needs through three main techniques. To explain these successfully, I shall use the iconic and globally recognised brand ‘Apple’.

Aesthetic innovation is a process that consists of products being made and advertised as being more stylish and aesthetically pleasing but not necessarily any better technologically. There is a lot of pressure placed upon the consumer to ensure they always have the nicest, most beautifully designed product they can. Apple always make sure that when releasing a new product, it looks more stylish and appealing that its predecessor.

Novelty also plays a big role in the sales of various types of products. The fact that a product is new, ‘top of the range’ makes you as a consumer want to purchase the product in order to keep up with the latest trend. Apple definitely use this to their advantage within their product lines, ensuring that they release new models on a regular basis to guarantee their fan base continues to grow.

The worst of the three, however, is planned obsolescence. This involves marketing cycles and limited lifetimes of certain products meaning that they’re only designed to last a certain amount of time that often coincides with the release of a future product. For example, cars aren’t made out of stainless steel because this would mean that they would last a lifetime. They are, in fact, made from materials that will eventually erode and rust therefore causing the consumer to have to purchase a new car. In terms of Apple products, they often design their products in a way that means they are very liable to damage and malfunctions forcing the user to get it repaired or purchase a new model.

An idea taken from John Berger’s theory is that people, when they see an advert, envisage their future self with the product or service being displayed and become jealous. This then makes them go out and purchase the product or service to ensure they can achieve this aspirational lifestyle. This is very manipulative and almost tricks the consumer into buying the product, making them feel as though they need the product when in actual fact it is often the opposite.

Another feature very common of advertisements, modern ones especially, is commodity fetishism. This is where advertising conceals the background ‘history’ of products; the context in which a product is produced is kept hidden for various reasons. The theory behind commodity fetishism involves the relationship between the consumer and the maker, where the commodity becomes the third person. The more time that is then invested in the third party, the less you then understand about the reality of the relationship. For example, when someone purchases something they create a relationship between themselves and the maker of the product. Nike is a brand that has been accused of this in the past. People pay lots of money for a pair of trainers, only to be blinded about the truth behind the production of the shoe in the first place; which in many cases is child labour and the breach of the minimum wage. Due to the advertisements and publicity, the consumer is unaware of this and have less understanding about the relationship they created.

 

This Adbusters spoof of a Nike advert clearly demonstrates this lack of realisation in terms of the relationships created through the purchasing of Nike trainers. It helps give some clarity to the consumer and open their eyes to the truth, making them question their own interpretation of ‘cool’ and whether or not it is worth purchasing Nike trainers after knowing these harsh realities.

A by-product of this fetishism is when products are given human traits, or reification. Products themselves, such as lipstick or high heels, are perceived as sexy or romantic when in actual fact it is the wearer of these products that would become more sexy or romantic.

The constant bombardment of information was the basis of a recent project by Selfridges, named ‘No Noise Campaign’ were they de-branded various iconic products in an attempt to remove all the noise from the current economy. It is a very interesting concept that explores the how instantly and easily recognisable certain brands and products actually are. The fact that the majority of people are still able to decipher each brand shows how much impact these seemingly small parts of our society really have on our lives. This emphasises how hard it is to escape the sensory overload that has become of the advertising industry in which, even without realising, people are exposed to the same imagery so often that it becomes seared into our minds.

 

“Persuasion is becoming more important in advertising. A major reason is that competition is finding it easier to erode any functional or price advantage attached to a product.” (O’Shaughnessy, J. & O’Shaughnessy, N.J. 2004:1)

‘The key word was manipulate. In Packard’s book, consumers were being reduced to mindless slaves of consumerism, exposed to invisible psycho-seductive techniques which impelled them to spend money they didn’t have on goods they didn’t want.’ (Bullmore, J. 1998:13 quoting Packard, V. 1957)

Advertising itself doesn’t sell things, it does however definitely contribute to the changing of the societies thoughts, feelings and desires. Used as a tool of persuasion, it is a constant bombardment of imagery designed specifically to attempt to manipulate and persuade the consumer, tricking them into purchasing products that they might not actually want or need. Although there are exceptions within advertising were it is used for a good cause, the vast majority of advertising is manipulative and on the most part deceiving.

Bibliography:

Bullmore, J. (1998). Advertising and it's Audience. Available: http://www.wpp.com/NR/rdonlyres/ED5FD8FF-F951-4C77-8ADA-FB5E61C85587/0/advertising_and_its_audience.pdf. Last accessed 26th Jan 2013.

Berger, J (1972). Ways of Seeing. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Penguin Books. p129-154.

O’Shaughnessy, J. & N.J. O’Shaughnessy (2004). Persuasion in Advertising. London: Routledge. p1.

Marcuse, H. (1964). One Dimensional Man. America: Beacon Press. N/A.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, 2011. Documentary. Directed by Morgan SPURLOCK. USA: Universal Studios.

Selfridges, (2013), No Noise Campaign [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.viralblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/selfridges_no_noise_01-500x267.jpg [Accessed 26 January 13].

Adbusters, (2009), Nike Spoof Ad [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.adbusters.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/adbusters_nike_running.jpg [Accessed 26 January 13].