Advertising, Publicity and the Media

Advertising, Publicity and the Media

• Time Square New York City
• 11,000 adverts on TV in 1990 and has trebled by now if not more
• 25 million Print adverts produced every year
• Advertising is unavoidable, it effects everyone consciously and subconsciously (bombardment)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Communist Manifesto (1848)
• Das Kapital (1867) Volume 1
• Philosopher
• Theorist of the way of the world works

(Marxism Console/own life based on)

Classic Adverts

• The Stanley Range.
• The Uncle Sam Range

Critique of Consumer/Commodity Culture

• People are identified through consumer products rather than by what they produce themselves
• Stewart Ewan- 'The commodity self'
• Marxists do not agree with the capitalist idea of personal wealth and the gain above others. They believe that you shouldn't be defined as a person by what you buy and who you have relationships with
• Judith Williamson, author of Decoding Advertisements

Symbolic associations

• People buy into the consumer market through various mechanisms of advertising.
• It perceives the idea that the consumer could make a change. An example of this is the CK1 aftershave, makes us believe that we will become like the model in the advert, playing on the needs of the consumer
• Perfume adverts - Sex appeal

How does commodity culture perpetuate false needs?

Novelty

• Advertising makes us think that we need something that is not necessary to live in the world but commodity culture tricks us into thinking that we need it.

Planned obsolescence

• Products are designed to last a few years at the most.
• This is so that the consumer has to go out and buy the same product a couple of years down the line where the product has broken or it has become obsolete.

Aesthetic innovation- the way things look, newer, more modern and sexier

Commodity Fetishism

• Advertising conceals the background 'history' of products

Reification

• this is where a product is given human associations
• Products themselves are perceived as sexy, romantic, cool, sophisticated ect

John Berger Ways of seeing- theorist, interrogates systems of advertising

Societies Views on figures

• Play on the idea of being inadequate
• Mythical goddess replaced, in modern society by glamor models

Positives

• Economy
• Subsidizing the media quality

Negatives

• Stereotyping
• Encourages addictive, obsessive and acquisitive behaviour
• It makes people unhappy with there existing material possessions
• Causes envy and inadequacy
• Seeks to make people unhappy with existing materials
• No morals in advertising

Anti-Advertising

• Subvert the adverts with mechanisms that detract the popularity
• Adbusters Absolut Vodka
• Adverts to attack adverts