Consumerism

Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture

Week 15 
9 January - 15 January

I have found this to be the lecture that I have engaged most with so far. Writing this with Valentines Day in a week or so, with my friends asking me what to get their significant other for the upcoming consumerist driven holiday of the month.

Freud said that we are oppressed by our own desires for civilisation, rather than satiating desires. And that human instinct is essentially incompatible with the well being of the community.

Instead methods are used to suppress and distract from any real social change, creating a curtain between the people and their opportunity to be critical and question more than the trivial. Many stay safely behind the curtain. Companies can use quick and easy tag lines to magnetise customers to their products by selling the product or concept of:
Emotional security
Reassurance of worth
Ego Gratification
Creative Outlets
Love Objects
Sense of Power
Sense of Roots
Immortality

We are bombarded with images and cultural propaganda which set us in a certain routine of purchasing and obsessing and purchasing. We are sure it will make our lives richer, when it just make us poorer...
e.g. Valentines Day- selling ego gratification and emotional security- chocolate, flowers and cologne for your significant other- emotional security that your relationship is strong, balanced and following the right path, and that you have someone to buy for so you are not alone (always portrayed as a negative thing around this holiday).
Aunt Jemima's Pancake Mix- selling a creative outlet- when this product was originally released people did not take to it because they didn't want to appear as if they could not cook, it was a source of embarrassment. So the team behind it simply removed the dehydrated egg so that people would need to add in milk and eggs themselves. This implication of creativity made it sell.

Simply put, we give into consumerism with ease, and we love it. We are creatures of comfort and habit.