According to figures published in the September 1992 issue of the Journal of Advertising, in the early 1990s in the United States more than $130 billion, or roughly 2% of the gross national product, was spent annually on advertising (p. ... When one considers that an ever larger amount of money is also spent on de-sign, packaging, marketing, and product display, one sees just what is squandered on advertising and marketing. ... Advertising commands a tremendous amount of resources and talent and is a crucial component of the capitalist economic system.
The expansion of marketing and advertising was originally the result of mass production. ... The assembly line, scientific management of the labor process, and the emergence of the moderncorporation revolutionized production and made possible the creation of new mass consumer goods. New modes of advertising, marketing, packaging, and design helped produce the mass consumption necessary for the purchase of all these new commodities. By the 1920s, corporations, advertising agencies, and market research organizations began planning ways to “produce” consumers (see Gandy, Chapter 11) and to promote consumption as a way of life in the United States (Ewen, 1976, 1988). ...
Previously, puritan work and savings ethics and a morality of delayed gratifica-tion prevailed, so advertising had to convince individuals that consumption was now a morally acceptable route to happiness and satisfaction. Advertising also attempted to create problems and fears to which commodities were a solution; thus, for in-stance, unless individuals bought products to combat their bad breath or body odor, they would not be socially acceptable. ... Advertising tells us that new commodities will make us happier, more popular, and successful. Fashion in turn provides the constant cycle of new products, styles, and images that keep consumer demand at a high level. ... Advertising and fashion also promote a worldview complete with ethics, politics, gender role models, and a sense of appropriate and inappropriate daily social behavior.
These two industries thus have crucial economic and socializing functions in cre-ating consumer demand, shaping behavior, and inducing people to participate in and thus reproduce consumer society. In this chapter I will examine some “mainstream” approaches to advertising as information and then present critical theories of adver-tising and fashion that provide more complete analysis as to how these two proc-esses function to produce consumers and to integrate individuals within the con-sumer society. I will show how broader social values can be “read” from advertis-ing content, and conclude with some criticisms of consumer culture and some pro-posals concerning how to minimize manipulation by the advertising and fashion in-dustries.
Advertising: Information or Persuasion?
Mainstream writers essentially defend the institutions, lifestyles, and values of consumer capitalism, and apologists for the advertising industry interpret it as a form of information that provides consumers with up-to-date news concerning commodities and the impetus necessary to maintain a high level of production and affluence (Konig, 1973, P. ... Likewise, defenders of the fashion industry claim that it, too, merely provides a constant turnover of new products and styles that meet consumer needs for novelty, change, and desire for style. ...
In most standard textbooks and theories, fashion and advertising are therefore presented as beneficial aspects of an innovative and dynamic consumer society that provides individuals with the goods and styles that they themselves desire. Thus in “A Statement of Advertising Principles” defined by the Advertising Federation of America, one reads, “Good advertising aims to inform the consumer and help him to buy more intelligently” (Ulanoff, 1977, p. ... Another defender of the industry takes the same position: “Advertising is an integral part of business. ... In the words of one mainstream theorist, whereas informative advertising aims to appeal to reason and provides “reasons why” indi-viduals should purchase products, by contrast, “advertising that addresses itself chiefly to the emotions, rather than to reason or intellect, is called human interest copy. This kind of advertising is based on appeals to . ... Little advertising is purely “informative. ... Advertising is persuasive, relying on emo-tional appeals, dramatic or comic images, and manipulation of basic fears and de-sire.
Michael Schudson (1984) has compiled a great deal of evidence indicating that advertising has limited effects, and he cites a large number of unsuccessful advertis-ing campaigns. Deeply suspicious of the view that advertising automatically has an impact on people, Schudson claims that ads have “only the most happenstance and eclectic theoretical foundation; they are not based on any serious understanding of peoples attitudes about worldly goods” (p. ... He claims that few people actually believe in advertising and that there is little compelling evidence that it actually per-suades or manipulates consumers into buying.
Recent empirical research into advertising effectiveness tends to confirm Schud-sons suspicions: According to statistics published in the September 1992 issue of the Journal of Advertising, advertising produced an increase in sales in less than half of the cases studied; indeed, advertising had little or no effect on product sales in more than three-quarters of the cases studied. Yet such dismissal of the effects of advertising covers over the fact that there is evidence that much advertising does work and that, moreover, advertising is part of a climate that promotes consumption, along with marketing, promotion telecommunications, packaging and display, and an environment of stores, malls, and shopping.
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