Table Of ContentHyperconsumption
Diving deep into the world of corporate marketing, this incisive and eye-
opening work shows how, in the hands of the corporation, business has
become manipulative, divisive, and disastrously at odds with the needs of
the natural world. It calls on us to rethink and rebel.
The corporate marketing blitz is driven by a crass economic truth: profits
depend on demand always exceeding supply. A multi- billion- dollar
global industry has therefore been created with the sole aim of turning us
into devout consumers. Gerard Hastings invites us to explore alternatives
to a system that is threatening our survival. He explores what it is to be
human, how marketing can be used to do good rather than harm, and
the potential of alternative models that empower us to be citizens, not
just consumers.
Professionals and students in the business, marketing, public health,
environmental and political sectors – as well as concerned citizens who
know that business as usual is not an option – will value this accessible
guide to what is going wrong with our current business models and how
these failings can be addressed.
Gerard Hastings is Professor Emeritus at Stirling University, UK. For the
last four decades, he has studied the damaging impacts that commercial
marketing has on our health and wellbeing, publishing his findings widely
in both academic and non- academic outlets. He is a sought- after keynote
speaker, and his work has attracted both the attention of the media and
the ire of some multinationals. He continues to act as an expert witness
in litigation against the corporate sector in the UK and overseas.
Hyperconsumption
Corporate Marketing vs. the Planet
Gerard Hastings
Cover image ‘New York’ by Alain Flesch
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Gerard Hastings
The right of Gerard Hastings to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Hastings, Gerard (Professor) author.
Title: Hyperconsumption : corporate marketing vs. the planet / Gerard Hastings.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2022. | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021051843 | ISBN 9781032214702 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781032214641 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003268567 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Consumption (Economics)–Environmental aspects. |
Industrial marketing. | Branding (Marketing)
Classification: LCC HC79.C6 H37 2022 | DDC 381/.1–dc23/eng/20211228
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051843
ISBN: 978-1-03-221470-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-03-221464-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-00-326856-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003268567
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Contents
Introduction: Human Beings Not Customers 1
PART I
The Corporate Marketing Machine 7
1 Original Sin: The Spawning of Corporate Marketing 9
2 Advertising and the Art of Organised Lying 20
3 The Machinery of Marketing 33
4 Grooming the Next Generation 44
5 Surveillance Capitalism 56
6 Marketing, Power, and the Demise of Democracy 69
PART II
We Shall Overcome 81
7 Deep in My Heart 83
8 We’ll Walk Hand in Hand 93
9 The Whole Wide World Around 107
Notes 117
Index 126
Introduction
Human Beings Not Customers
Look inward, to your origins. For brutish ignorance your mettle was
not made; you were made human to follow after wisdom and virtue.
(Dante Alighieri)1
Section 1: The Corporate Marketing Machine
Marketing in its modern form emerged just over a century ago in
response to two forces, which started in the US but swiftly globalised.
First, commerce, which had until then been dominated by lots of small
businesses, began to coalesce into a much smaller number of bigger com-
panies. Capital became concentrated in fewer hands and the modern
business corporation came of age. Hand in glove with this, mass produc-
tion methods were developed which vastly increased the availability of
consumer goods. Cars, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners could be
produced in unprecedented numbers at much reduced cost. For us in the
rich north of the planet, it was the dawn of an age of plenty.
The emerging corporations were, from the outset, acutely aware of the
danger of supply exceeding demand and a parallel industry was therefore
spawned to turn us into eager customers. It began with advertising, a
tool as old as human commerce, but now taken to an industrial scale and
informed by the latest social science. Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s
nephew, was a leading light, and his book, called simply “Propaganda”,
published in 1928, provided the road map. The aim was to wage “on
behalf of the producers and sellers of consumer goods, a relentless war
against saving and in favour of consumption”.2 The importance of this
work to keeping the economic show on the road was appreciated way
beyond the business community: Bernays became an establishment figure
and was toasted on Capitol Hill and in the corridors of academe as well
as Wall Street. He had worked out not just how to turn us into customers,
but into biddable and needy ones.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003268567-1
