OUGD501 : Context of Practice 2 - Consumerism Seminar

Our second seminar of the Context of Practice 2 module, focused upon the topics and themes which we discussed in the Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture lecture.

We began the seminar by discussing the main topics within the lecture.

• Desire - False need vs. real need
• Greed
• Manufacturing desire
• Social control vs. freedom
• Stratification, inequality - disguised
• Paliative
• Mass Production - advertising and branding
• Freud - Irrational desires and animal instincts, 'pleasure principle'
• Bernays - P.R.

Using our knowledge of these themes we were then given the text 'Ways of Seeing' By John Berger in which we were asked to -in groups of five- analysing the main points of the pages we were given and find examples of advertising which demonstrate these points.

Pages 132 - 135

• " The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that to him." - Publicity can't be linked too strongly to the product. 
• "The Envy of others"
• "Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy"
• "They look out over the looks of envy which sustain them"
• "She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for other others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself" - By buying a product you are hoping to see yourself as an object of envy which justifies the means
• "The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.
• "Art is a sign of affluence; it belongs to the good life; it is part of the furnishing which the world gives to the rich and the beautiful" - Oil paintings were a way of seeing affluence, which designers have exploited in advertising
• "Publicity has in fact understood the tradition of the oil painting more throughly than most art historians."

Task:
An critical analysis of one advertisement in terms of the themes of consumerism discussed in the seminar and lecture, using quotes from John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' to back up your analysis.

The advertising campaigns for Lynx grooming products are a key example of the use of consumerist themes and theories within advertising. In order to appeal to their male demographic, the advertisements tend to sell the 'alpha male' lifestyle which men will supposedly achieve by buying the product rather than selling the actual product itself.

A more specific example of this is the 2013 'Deep Space: Shower Like A Hero' campaign. In his text, 'Ways Of Seeing' John Berger discusses these techniques which have been employed in the Lynx advertisement, explaining that we not only buy into the product but also the lifestyle that product represents in the hope that we will achieve it "it proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more." This is evident in the 'Deep Space' campaign which depicts a man with a beautiful woman in his bed, living what men see as the 'heroic' lifestyle they themselves want to live.

The concept created by Lynx where in buying their you will become a 'hero' links in with the theme of 'envy' which according to Berger is a major theme of consumerism. Berger explains that the prospective buyer can justify buying the product as they believe it will not only transform their lifestyle but also them self into someone who everyone envies and secretly wants to be "is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself". For example, in the Lynx advertisement, they show their target audience that they can justify buying their product as they will become this figure of envy, a hero, someone every man wants to be, living a 'dream' lifestyle all because of the product.

Another technique discussed by Berger, which is used within advertisements in order to aide consumption is the theme of sexuality, which links into the Freudian theory that we all have hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts which need controlling. Berger argues that advertisements exploit these hidden desires by using them to sell the product, making the audience believe that if they buy the product they too will become the object of desire "publicity increasingly uses sexuality to sell any product or service... with this you will become desirable". Within the Lynx advertisement, the male is portrayed as a sexual figure, a hero and someone women want to sleep with, thereby promising the target audience that by purchasing the product they too will become a hero and the object of desire to women.