Publication (142 pages).

Although advertising is more often associated with late modernity or postmodernity,
it is actually tied up in progress during the industrial era. Increasing
rates of production required higher levels of consumption, and
advertising was found to correlate with higher yields of product sales for
large companies. This was initially a response to over-production, but was
soon found to be moneymaking strategy. The ability to encourage desire for
products through public space ads was at first unknown, but soon entirely
exploited, as advertising became a part of people’s daily lives. The simple
combination of words or pictures in a place available to the public had a
bigger impact than imagined. It is in advertising that people began to notice
new products that they believed would improve their lives or increase their
status, thus making that object desirable. Due to the nature of advertising,
companies could market several items successively, suggesting each one is
better than the last. The new commodity is tied up with status, prompting
the consumer to purchase it as soon as possible. Even if the product exists
in a similar form already in possession, the idea of a new commodity and
new status emulation often convinces the consumer to make the purchase
anyway. This way, advertising can put a claim on any item that it is ‘bigger,
better, newer’, and the consumer will believe it to be a necessary item for
daily living. The power of advertising and the way big business ‘controls’
the consumer by way of marketing brings forth the concept of the cultural
‘dupe’ or ‘dope’. This is the idea that, no matter the product, whether it be
similar to other products or perhaps even useless in its design, a consumer
will buy it because an advertisement urged them to do so. This points to
an understanding of corporations controlling the purchases of the consumer,
and thus also controlling
their desire. It pegs the consumer
as an “irrational slave to trivial,
materialistic desires” allowing
for manipulation into mass conformity
as dictated by a smaller
group of more powerful people.
The idea of capitalist control is
developed in Max Horkheimer
and Theodor Adorno’s The Culture
Industry, Enlightenment as
Mass Deception. They suggest
that entertainment is only an ex-
Adevertising
tension of the working day in the name of surplus
profit. Their emphasis is that all commodities
and entertainments are made to be alike
and only give the appearance of freedom without
actually delivering it. This brings to mind
theidea of the cultural dope who is unaware of
the sameness of the commodity world. However,
Horkheimer and Adorno suggest this characterization
is false; they believe the consumer
understands their lack of freedom, but accepts
it because of the good feelings consumerism
brings. Later authors have also challenged the
idea of the dope because it takes away all agency
in consumer culture and suggests a complete
lack of freedom in society, a rather pessimistic
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