Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising's Impact on American Character and Society

277 Pages·2015·4.017 MB·English

by  Arthur Asa Berger

Ads, Fads, and
Consumer Culture
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Ads, Fads, and
Consumer Culture
Advertising’s Impact on
American Character and Society
FIFTH EDITION
Arthur Asa Berger
With illustrations by the author
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
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Published by Rowman & Littlefi eld
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2015 by Rowman & Littlefi eld
First edition 2000. Second edition 2004. Third edition 2007. Fourth edition 2011.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berger, Arthur Asa, 1933–
Ads, fads, and consumer culture : advertising’s impact on American character and society /
Arthur Asa Berger. — Fifth edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-4124-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-4125-1 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-4126-8 (electronic) 1. Advertising—United States. 2. Popular
culture—United States. 3. Consumer education—United States. I. Title.
HF5823.B438 2015
659.1'0420973—dc23
2014030143
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Some measure of greed exists unconsciously in everyone. It represents an
aspect of the desire to live, one which is mingled and fused at the outset
of life with the impulse to turn aggression and destructiveness outside
ourselves against others, and as such it persists unconsciously throughout
life. By its very nature it is endless and never assuaged; and being a form
of the impulse to live, it ceases only with death.
The longing or greed for good things can relate to any and every imagin-
able kind of good—material possessions, bodily or mental gifts, advantages
and privileges; but, beside the actual gratifi cations they may bring, in the
depths of our minds they ultimately signify one thing. They stand as proofs
to us, if we get them, that we are ourselves good, and full of good, and so are
worthy of love, or respect and honour, in return. Thus they serve as proofs
and insurances against our fears of emptiness inside ourselves, or of our evil
impulses which make us feel bad and full of badness to ourselves and others.
—Joan Riviere, “Hate, Greed and Aggression”
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Fred S. Goldberg xi
Preface to the Fifth Edition xv
Acknowledgments xxiii
1 Advertising in American Society 1
Advertising as a Puzzlement 1
Defi ning Advertising 5
Advertising Agencies 7
Max Weber on Religion and Consumer Cultures 9
Advertising and Politics 10
A Psycho-Cultural Perspective on Advertising 12
Running It Up a Flagpole to See If Anyone Salutes 13
Commercials as Mini-Dramas and Works of Art 15
Teleculture and the Internet 23
The Super Bowl 27
The Global Nature of Advertising Agencies 28
Conclusion 29
2 Consumer Cultures 33
A Cultural Critique of Advertising 33
Consumer Cultures Defi ned 34
Taste Cultures and Advertising 37
The Postmodern Perspective 38
The Problem of Emotions Overcoming Rationality 43
Consumer Culture and Privatism 44
Neiman Marcus and “Couthifi cation” 45
Needs Are Finite, Desires Are Infi nite 47
Are There Four Consumer Cultures, Not Just One? 49
National Character and Consumer Cultures 55
vii
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viii Contents
3 Advertising and the Communication Process 59
The Lasswell Formula 59
Focal Points and the Study of Media 61
Roman Jakobson’s Model of the Communication Process 62
Run It Up a Flagpole 64
Metaphor and Metonymy 65
Myth and Marketing 67
Integrated Marketing Communication 69
4 Running It Up a Flagpole to See If Anyone Salutes 73
Lisa’s Morning: A Fiction 73
Lisa Greatgal’s and Johnny Q. Public’s Daily Media Diet 74
Television Viewing and Exposure to Commercials 75
A Note on “Hauls” 77
The Price We Pay for “Free” Television 77
The Illusion of Control 78
Being a “Branded” Individual 82
Selling Oneself 87
Selling One’s Body for Brands 89
The Problem of Self-Alienation 90
We Can Choose as We Please, but Can We Please as We Please? 91
The Agony of Choice 93
Nonadvertising Forms of Advertising 94
5 Sexuality and Gender in Advertising 99
Sex and Gender in Advertising 100
Sex in Advertising 101
Sexploitation and Anxiety 107
The Peach That Became a Prune: A Cautionary Fable 111
The Pseudopoetic Appeal to the Illiterati 114
Sex Appeal and Gender Appeal 116
Sex and the Problem of Clutter 118
6 Political Advertising 125
The Cost of Presidential Campaigns 129
The Cost of the 2012 Presidential Election 130
Questions Raised by the Election Campaigns 131
A Note on the California Campaign for Governor in 2010 132
The Code of the Commercial (and Other Political Advertising) 133
The Emotional Basis of Partisan Politics 134
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Contents ix
7 The Marketing Society 139
Statistics on Advertising 139
More Comments on the Illusion of Freedom 140
The Marketing View 142
The VALS 1 Typology 144
Using the VALS 1 Typology: A Case Study 147
VALS 2: A Revision of the VALS 1 Typology 147
ZIP Codes and Kinds of Consumers 149
The Claritas Typology 151
Magazine Choice as an Indicator of Consumer Taste 153
Types of Teenage Consumers 155
Blogs and Marketing 158
A Typology for Everyone in the World 159
A Comparison of the Different Typologies 161
A Conclusion to This Discussion in the Form of a Question 163
8 Analyzing Print Advertisements or: Six Ways of Looking
at a Fidji Perfume Advertisement 167
Lotman’s Contributions to Understanding Texts 167
What’s There to Analyze in an Advertisement? 168
Analyzing the Fidji Ad 169
A Semiotic Interpretation of the Fidji Advertisement 171
A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Fidji Advertisement 173
A Sociological Interpretation of the Fidji Advertisement 176
A Marxist Interpretation of the Fidji Advertisement 177
The Myth Model and the Fidji Advertisement 178
A Feminist Interpretation of the Fidji Advertisement 179
Conclusion 180
9 Analyzing Television Commercials 183
The Macintosh “1984” Commercial 183
A Synopsis of the Text 185
The Background 186
Testing the “1984” Macintosh Commercial 186
George Orwell’s 1984 and Ridley Scott’s “1984” 188
The Image of the Total Institution 189
The Prisoners’ Boots 189
The Blond as a Symbol 190
The Brainwashing Scenario 190
The Big Brother Figure 191
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