Consumer Cultures

1. Consumer Cultures Chapter 2 Text: “Ads, Fads, & Consumer Culture” Course: Critical Perspectives in Advertising

2. Scholarly Studies of Advertising • Advertising has been of interest to scholars in many disciplines because these scholars see advertising as one of the central institutions in America • Keep in mind that Americans are exposed to more advertising than people in any other society • This is because of the amount of time we spend watching TV and listening to the radio • And because our media institutions are mostly private, for-profit ones– public TV and radio attract relatively small (though generally highly influential) audiences in America

3. Shaping Our Values • In his 1954 book “People of Plenty” David Potter observed that advertising not only has economic consequences, but it also shapes our values • Potter wrote: “If the economic effect is to make the purchaser like what he buys, the social effect is, in a parallel but broader sense, to make the individual like what he gets- to enforce already existing attitudes, to diminish the range and variety of choices, and in terms of abundance, to exalt the materialistic virtues of consumption.”

4. Defining a Consumer Culture • As defined by our text’s author, “consumer cultures” are those in which there has been a great expansion (even an explosion) of commodity production • This leads to societies full of consumer goods and services and places where these consumer goods can be purchased • In consumer cultures, the “game” people play is “get as much as you can” • Success is defined as being the person “who has the most toys” • This leads to a “lust” for consuming products– and conspicuously displaying them- as a means of demonstrating that one is a success and, ultimately, that one is worthy

5. Consumption Lifestyle • Mike Featherstone wrote in 2007’s “Consumer Culture and Postmodernism” that “the new heroes of consumer culture make lifestyle a life project and display their individuality and sense of style in…the assemblage of goods, clothes, practices, experiences, appearances and bodily dispositions they design together into a lifestyle” • Featherstone says the consumer culturalist “speaks not only with his clothes, but also with his home, furnishings, decoration, car and other activities which are to be read and classified in terms of the presence and absence of taste.” • And, of course, it is advertising that “teaches” us about the world of consumer goods- what is fashionable, hot, cool, in and…out • See movie trailer: “The Joneses”

6. Taste Cultures in America • Sociologist Herbert Ganssuggested that in the U.S. we have five taste cultures: high culture, upper-middle culture, lower-middle culture, low culture, and quasi-folk culture • Each taste culture has its own art, literature, music, etc which differ mainly in that they express different aesthetic standards • Advertising agencies have to figure out how to direct messages that will resonate with the various taste cultures • One way is to determine who will most likely be watching a certain television program

7. The Neiman Marcus Example • People may feel a great deal of pressure to show taste and discrimination, suitable to their socioeconomic status, in the products and services they consume • In the U.S. Southwest, especially Texas, the Neiman Marcus stores played to this by appealing to oil millionaires who had plenty of money “but no sense of style adequate to their financial resources.” • NM’s catalogs “with their absurdly expensive ‘his’ and ‘her’ gifts generated lots of publicity for the store and also generated a “halo” effect for items purchased there • Anything purchased at NM became by definition stylish and in good taste • Our book’s author describes what Neiman Marcus did as “couthification” (“couth” defined: good manners, refinement, cultured)

8. Consumer Culture Negatives • People become too caught up in consuming things as a means of validating themselves and proving their worth • In consumer cultures, people all too often don’t think about what they have but only concern themselves with what they don’t have • Needs are finite but desires are infinite • As soon as our needs have been taken care of, we become obsessed with what we don’t have but want • Or what advertising tells us we should want!

9. Manufacturing Desire • What advertising does, among other things, is manufacture desire and shape it, and thus create people who are insatiable and who have been conditioned to continually lust for more things • “Retail anthropologist” Paco Underhill who studies shoppers, describes shopping as a “transforming experience, a method of becoming a newer, perhaps even slightly improved person.” • He says the products you buy “turn you into that other, idealized version of yourself. That dress makes you beautiful, this lipstick makes you kissable, that lamp turns your house into an elegant showplace.” ###