Barbelith Underground > Head Shop > Investigating Advertising

I think that, yes, it’s important to be aware of the distinction between advertising and consumerism. Moreover, I don’t really think that anyone has said that “advertising = consumerism.” However, if you feel differently, Shoelaces, it would be helpful if you quoted where this is said or implied. On the other hand, it seems rather short sighted to say that there is no intimate relationship between ads and the consumer milieu or that examining the place and role of ads with respect to the individual is unimportant.

It seems that without a consumer driven society ads would not be the same nor would they be as ubiquitous. Moreover, with contemporary ads and the modern notion of “public media space,” I think it seems naïve to feel that advertising plays no role in the production and maintenance of our consumerist attitudes. The very idea that there is a public media space in which sub-spaces can be purchased with the aim of baiting people to recognize a certain product or service shows the connection between ads and consumerism: public space is being consumed with the intent of provoking more consumption—the device is advertising.

So while obviously “…advertising does not create the values and characteristics of consumerist society,” it seems reasonable to assert that there is a feedback loop between the characteristics of a consumerist society and advertising. Thus, even though a consumer milieu creates ads, advertising itself appears to perpetuate and reinforce that milieu. Put differently, while I don’t think anyone here is so simplistic as to feel that getting rid of all the ads would remedy the ills of the “underlying structure and economics of our society,” I think it is readily apparent, if you are willing to look at it, that advertising aids and abets that structure.

I do think there is something important in the idea of “a product and choice rich environment” contributing to some of the problems that are associated with our consumerist society; however, clearly if advertising functions to make a company and its products or services visible, then advertising is necessarily related to that product and choice rich environment. In other words, the ills of consumerism seem apparent in, and glorified by, advertisement. The ailment becomes the cure and the symptoms are cleared up not by their actual remedy, but by our ignorant submission or our willful hypnosis to another glossy spin and a catchy jingle. This is to say (much less flowery), it seems to me that to feel that advertising plays no part in driving an increasingly product and choice rich environment to further excess is to look at advertising with a narrow and limited view of what it is.

Moreover, Shoelaces, you avoid the entire issue about ads and the role they play in creating psychological distress. You can’t tell me that a fourteen year old girl who has a weight problem and bad skin isn’t in anyway adversely affected by ad after ad of skinny, beautiful women in every teen and fashion magazine that she sees?

To reply to Haus’ question about “Does it also mean that I am being mind-controlled into buying Levis?” we can turn to a quote from the Negativland page:

“But as long as your criterion for "influence" is that ads lure you into stores mouthing like some Frankenstein monster, "I-must-have-a-Ca-dil-lac-Ca-ter-a", then you have your eye on the wrong ball.”

In other words, the influence of ads is not so much about direct mind control to buy product X; rather, it is about the influence of advertising in general. Again, to quote from the review at Negativland:

“While we assume that ads can't make us buy a particular product, advertising is busily influencing us on broader, more subtle fronts. Asking us to believe that products in general really can bring us romance, success and happiness. Ads encourage us to feel anxiety about our looks, our bodies, our attitudes, our sense of self; preferring style over substance, babes over brains, promotion over probing, and wealth over wisdom.”

Put differently, I think that on this deal the Haus is bust.

Also, while it seems that Mu has some very interesting things to say about the creative process that is involved in the making of advertisements and the benefits thereof, I don’t think this is really so much what I’m concerned with here. While I think that technique and method in advertising is a part of what we’re talking about, I’m looking more at uncovering the shadowy side of ads (apologies if I was a little unclear—the abstract is vague—the initial post pretty much frames the discussion though).

I’m not entirely adverse to ads. I agree that there are good ads and that they can be entertaining. I don’t really care so much about that, though. An entertaining ad seems a rarity among the plethora of waste and the entertainment value of an ad, I feel, is merely a small part of its overall function. Does the benefit of entertainment outweigh the bane of advertising? Doubtful.

“the "lack" that >0< talks about seems to be a critique, as Laces noted, of consumerism rather than advertising per se”

I think that I’ve addressed this above. The lack, while stemming from consumerism, is flaunted, perpetuated, and maintained by advertisement (but not ads alone, obviously!). In other words, when Haus urges us to think about “how…advertising, capitalism and consumerism interrelate,” I’d say that’s an aspect of the angle I’m coming from. Also, I think that issues about non-consumerist ads and ads in non-capitalist environments are interesting: ties into ideas regarding challenging, changing, or otherwise recontextualizing advertising.

The points that Haus makes towards a differentiation between branding and advertising are interesting. My feeling about this is that there was a time, in those good old days, when maybe branding actually stood for the pride that a manufacture had in the product, in its quality, reliability, etc. Certainly, I think that this idea of branding helps the consumer make purchasing decisions. However, I think that this sort of “pure” (so to speak) idea of branding is short of the mark. I mean, I don’t need to have little stickers and images on the components to know what kind of computer this is nor to tell me who to phone when it needs fixing (as well, this line of argument leads nowhere when it comes to shoes, shirts, track pants, jeans, etc.). Moreover, I don’t think that it is possible to maintain a very stable distinction between brand and ad. Both are connected with jingles, slogans, images, feelings, etc..

And yes, I am broadcasting the ad on the mousepad. The point was about the ubiquity of ads—look, there’s an ad. The fact that it was part of a transaction does not exclude it from being an ad.

Q & A time:

“Are we not intelligent enough to understand what advertising is all about?”

I don’t think it’s so much a function of intelligence, but more a function of awareness and habitual desensitization. I’m not sure who you are referring to by “we” here.

“ Ah... it's not us that's the problem, is it? It's that group of people who frequently get branded here on Barbelith with the term 'the masses'. Are we saying that The Masses are less intelligent than us and less able to unpack the dynamics of advertising?”

No, quite frankly the problem is us and our laisez-faire or apathetic approach to actually trying to institute change in the consumer driven society that we find ourselves in. I don’t think anyone has mentioned these so-called “masses” other than yourself. However, I do tend to feel that the “average person” (so to speak, ya’ see?) pays little or no attention to advertising or its possible effects. I would say that many people don’t really give advertising much thought. This is to say that some individuals are largely unaware of it. If you read my initial post and perhaps take a look at the links, then this unawareness is part of what gives advertising its power.

“Do they (The Masses) rush out to buy Nike trainers and Gap hoodies and Kentucky Fried Chicken the minute they see it on the TV?”

I would bet that much more often than not, the answer is no. But this question entirely misses the point. I spoke to this in reply to Haus above.

“Would they buy these products anyway without advertising?”

I don’t know. Above I ask a variation of this question myself.

“Would they care one way or another if there was no advertising?”

I can certainly say that I’d like to see at least a reduction in the amount of advertising, but I’d also like to see a change in its methods and techniques.

“When we say they do we really mean we?”

Umm, it seems to me that you are the one who is talking about “them.”

“still not really convinced that advertising is the culprit though...”

Again, I don’t think I am looking to do a finger pointing, witch burning with respect to advertising. I mean, I don’t think I am saying that advertising is directly responsible for “[a] society where identity is defined through possessions and where more and more you are (to some) what you own.” I feel that I’m trying to say that some advertising clearly is an aid and enabler of this sort of thinking. I do think that some advertising can be responsible for certain harm that is beyond merely perpetuating and assisting the attitudes and practices of a consumer society: I think it can be, in some instances, responsible for direct trauma on the individual (see the example above about the teen girl).

“So I guess human desire and the ease with which it is manipulated and stimulated (nakedness and sexuality seems to do the trick every time…) are to blame.”

I think that this is a little quick to shift the blame from advertising to some so-called “automatic response” provided in our genes! I mean, I think you’ve a point that it is often easy to manipulate people’s desires—it’s sometimes simple to push the right buttons based on common human traits: especially with (near) nakedness and sexuality. However, there seems to be a double concession to temptation here; that is, many humans can be tempted by manipulating specific desires and sometimes advertisers are tempted to use this against the audience—so they do (and then we do). I feel that this further illustrates how certain methods and techniques of advertising can exploit and abuse the general public.

“ Well, presumably because firstly we removed religion from its dominant position in our lives sometime in the last few hundred years and secondly because there is now so much money floating around in our society that it has become realistic for people to desire more and more material possessions.”

I think that your second point is very interesting, but I wonder if it is true for most people or only a few people? I’m not so sure if I agree with your first point or not. There has been some argument (by I can’t remember who) towards the idea that the Capitalist mindset stems from the book keeping of sins and penitence in a certain form of Christianity (I can’t recall which one at the mo’).

“Companies make money by selling products. Any product exists in a market which will naturally settle around the lowest price point and highest quality product that can be profitably manufactured. Manufacturers will seek to innovate in order to produce their product more cheaply than the competition and thusly gather a larger share of the market and make more money. This is textbook economics.”

Yes, but precisely since it is, as you say, “text book economics” we can bet that this gets distorted and is not the case in the real world—Communism looks great in a text book, after all.

“…companies who advertise can persuade the consumer that their product is better than it 'actually' is”

Exactly! Doesn’t this seem sort of offensive? I mean, if I had persuaded you that this X I had was better than it actually was and you believed me, but later, after more time to spend with X, you realized I had lied to you, then haven’t I caused you unnecessary, or at least unprovoked, grief and anguish?

“Either the stupid masses have been conned by the advertisers because they believe everything they see on tv, OR the advertising is actually giving them something they are willing to pay for.”

I see your point clearly here and agree—I do think that advertising is obviously somewhat effective in getting people to buy certain products. And certainly, the product, because it gets purchased, must be doing something for the consumers who continue to buy it. However, again, I am more questioning some of the tactics used in advertising (see above) and also the unnecessary amount of advertising. There is a great little essay in Negativland’s dispepsi album on how both Coke and Pepsi could run half as many ads—thus saving half as much money & subjecting us to half the amount of advertising we might be exposed to on a regular basis—and they would likely not see any noticeable loss in sales.

“I personally believe that in the horrifically crowded urban environment we find ourselves in, people NEED ways to make their environment more stimulating.”

I agree with this, but with some reservations. First, this brings in a problem about overpopulation in urban environments—something that is somewhat outside the domain of this discussion. Second, some stimulation is good to break up the monotony; however, repeated stimulation along specific lines and over-stimulation lead to numbness and desensitization.

Yes, advertising clearly has the ability to attach packets of meaning to things—this is part of what I find to be a potentially—and in some cases actually—a negative trait of advertising. Exactly what images are getting attached to what products or services, and do these images serve to debase, delude, or dim the intelligence and emotions of some individuals? Why can’t people be more free to create their own meanings and attach their own images to their clothing or whatever?

When you say, “I can infer things about the thousands of people I see in the street every day,” I really don’t think you can infer all that much about a person from the fact that he or she is wearing a Nike hoodie or something. I don’t think it is a very effective form of communicating something about ourselves and I don’t feel that people will understand me if I have Nike shoes. So while I agree that “…a shared language of value…is necessary for the operation of society,” I don’t particularly see how advertising creates anything more than superficial value and shallow meanings.

Moreover, to follow up on the example of Nike, we can see further abuse of people. First, it’s clear that a company like Nike is going to use the global economy to find the cheapest way to manufacture its product. This might include exploitation of “third world” economies or maybe not, but it will still be manufacturing its products at a substantially lower cost than the consumer will end up paying for the product. Now, while this has very little if anything to do with advertising in and of itself, we can ask ourselves where does some of this money go after it’s been picked from our pockets. Well in Nike’s case, some of this money—like a wheelbarrow full of it—will go to some superstar whose already got several wheelbarrows heaped with cash. While this might make it realistic for a select few “…people to desire more and more material possessions,” I don’t see how this assists me, you, or the wageslaves who are being exploited in some shitty factory job—you know, the majority of people who likely will only see wheelbarrows full of cash in their fantasies as they desperately clutch their ticket for this Friday’s lotto.

“People choose not to buy advertised goods, and even to stridently reject advertising. This position is untenable without the advertised goods to reject and the mainstream to rail against. It is advertised through 'underground' media, and publicised by 'alternative' celebrities. It is an absolute mirror of the culture it purports to reject.

I entirely agree with you here. I figured out awhile ago that the so-called “counter-culture” has no existence without the culture to run counter to! Yes, the “underground” has its own heroes, and yes, it is a mirror of the culture it desires to reject. It seems to me that the ideas we are discussing are not necessarily about supporting counter-culture, nor to being completely opposed advertising. It’s more about recognizing harmful effects that certain methods and techniques of some advertising can have, looking at possible ways to minimize or negate this, and seeing to what extent it would be possible to alter the advertising milieu—perhaps so as to not be so ubiquitous.

To close, I don’t think we need to entirely replace consumerism, nor do we need to usurp its prevalence in our lives with religion. However, I do feel that we need to be more aware of the environment we live in and what effect it can have on us if we are unaware of potential influence. And yes, I’d like to think that “…there is always the potential for creating new ways of operating in the world,” and I have hope that perhaps we can find an alternative that is better and not worse!