“Most people will tell
you that they aren’t fooled by advertising and that they don’t believe all they
read in the newspapers or see on television. We should not cynically dismiss
these claims – even when we see them continue to uncritically consume the
advertised products, read the newspapers and watch television – to do so would
be to totally misunderstand the nature of propaganda in spectacular society”.
Larry Law
Most people have a good laugh at adverts; the commercials
are just a bit of light relief from the TV programmes; you have seen the advert
where you really have to pay attention to see what is actually being promoted;
the adverts are often more interesting than the television programmes. It is
all harmless fun, providing information for the discerning consumer. Isn’t it?
The Left often seems obsessed with a political critique of
the Right when the real power has increasingly lain with culture and media. The
real high priests of capitalism are not politicians, but advertising and
cultural alchemists who can make gold from dirt. Advertisers are the government
of commodity consumption, and the PR industry is its police. Public Relations
not only rewrite history for the rich and capitalists, but it also creates what
is to be taken as the Truth regardless of how true it is. We must be clear that
the PR, marketing and advertising industry are the props of modern spectacular society.
To destroy modern society, the ad industry must be ridiculed, exposed and
annihilated.
We are convincingly sold cheap goods we do not need, so much
so that we no longer question how they have been made so cheaply and shipped
halfway round the world, why we actually need them, and the environmental and
labour exploitation involved. It is only when there is a fatal fire in a sweat
shop that there is a fleeting guilt, but that soon passes with the appalling
excuse that we are keeping people in work. We have been taught to not care, as
long as there are bargains to be had.
And yet, with very few exceptions, such as groups like
Adbusters, the marketing and publicity industry has largely escaped the wrath
of anti-capitalists. The only redeeming feature of advertisements is that they
have the potential to be detourned by radicals as a revolutionary act.
There was a post-war hard sell in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
which could simply say “Product X is best so buy it”, possibly because they
were for products that there was some semblance of need for, even if it was perceived
rather than actual, and because this was the heyday of consumerism, especially
with goods for the home. As consumers slowly started to tire of the hard sell,
spectacular marketing simply adapted by turning to a reliance on subtlety,
aspiration and technical brilliance to hypnotise and seduce the exploding
consumer population.
Commercials seduce us into believing we need the useless.
The range of goods becomes more bizarre as we become lazier – blue tooth car
phones, electric toothbrushes, interactive digital televisions, computers that
are voice interactive and a multitude of other novelties. And yet, all these
seemingly life enhancing gadgets are simply new ways to do the same things we
have always done. They simply free up more time … more time for us to consume
yet more goods, ideas and images.
This seductive advertising has coincided with a
glamorisation of the whole marketing industry, from Mad Men to the huge budgets
splashed out by producers who are desperate to find new ways to sell old
products. The resultant huge advertising, marketing and PR industry may
seemingly be creative and technically brilliant, but they will never be
original and they will always be stealing old ideas – in fact, they have
recuperated the most radical gestures and will soon move on to pushing the
boundaries of taste even further, simply because they have nothing left to
offer. The glamour of selling and marketing goods and ideas is relentless, so
that even the universities are full of dim young things queueing up for moronic
marketing courses to learn how to keep capitalist consumerism rolling. Coveting
glamorous goods makes people unhappy with their lot and aspire to established
hierarchies of taste; anyone trying to create their own style is seen as a
freak or weirdo, but if this ever extends its allure it will soon be integrated
into spectacular society.
Post Thatcher, many people in the UK are much better off
than they were before. The quiet affluence was partly based on the
privatisation of traditional goods and services, from the right to buy of
council houses to share profits of energy, transport, banking, post office etc.
sell-offs. Of course, these were resources that were not the governments to
sell as they belong to us all, but no-one will ever question “free” money.
While the reduction of state control is heartening, in reality it just enriched
and empowered the middle class to such an extent that their silent smug
complacency can confound electoral polls in the 2105 general election.
Under Thatcher this economic free for all, which saw
ostentatious instant wealth, created inflation which meant the working class poor
could not afford all these new products made available because of free trade.
Capitalism needed to develop so that EVERYONE was a passive consumer.
Ironically (or perhaps not), it was a Labour government under Blair that saw
this selfish inward looking affluence spread. Of course, we realise that all of
the political establishment, of whatever political hue, are servants of
capitalism, consumerism, the market and the mantra that growth is essential.
Our contempt for politicians is only tempered by the realisation that they are
increasingly irrelevant as international trade and individual selfishness
dominate. We now have a situation where the government is only electable if it
strives to ensure everyone has plenty of disposable income – individuals may
think this is to improve their standard of living, but it is just to buy their
subservience and, much more importantly, so that each and every person can buy
more goods.
Advertising is social control by seduction. Those in power
would rather have you occupied with the latest smart phone, interactive TV or
X-box than having time on your hands, questioning things, mixing with other
open-minded people etc. We are overwhelmed with the need to be present on a
bewildering and time eating array of social media, which exposes us to the
lucrative advertising and also distracts us from real life. The Spectacle has
successfully bought our opposition and creativity with worthless goods that we
are encouraged to work hard to obtain.
Marketing divides us into neat client groups, which the
companies can direct their products at. Of course, we remember that it was the
marketing people who created the teenager to directly sell clothes, music, cosmetics
etc. to. The young are traditionally the most anti-authoritarian age group, but
they covet the goods on offer if they work hard, study and mimic the
consumption of the rest of society. Looting and shoplifting never seemed to
satisfy the desire for goods; it was the act of shopping that provided the
allure because it was continuous. Individuality was negated by putting everyone
into a target group; yet, even this was not enough to keep capitalism happy and
ensure economic growth was sustained … marketing and advertising can now sell
ANYTHING to ANYONE, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, background, class,
race etc. They are on the verge of total victory with a huge population
increase of people who aspire to be avid consumers … only threatened by diminishing cheap /
slave labour and resources unless technology can address these problems.
In the UK we have been taught to ensure we are personally
secure by hoarding money and fearing anything that may impact on our own little
bubble of comfortable affluence (it doesn’t really matter how much that is,
just as long as there is more than enough for our traditional basic needs of
shelter, food and clothing). Advertising still urges us to buy the same TV,
video games, phones, art, computers etc. as everyone else, but we have been
seduced into thinking that we are special and unique in our consumption. We
even consume the same ideas now, especially when our choices of politicians are
almost exactly alike apart from the name. If that is all that is presented, we
believe that it all there is. At work, we fear others taking our jobs; we must
compete to climb the ladder so that we can become better consumers and the
nastiest thrive. A bland, selfish and inward looking society is created.
Intolerance inevitably follows; creativity and originality are stifled.
The marketing people can even take our fears and opposition,
and turn them into a profitable and harmless product e.g. a fear of the
destruction of the natural environment bred the green consumer, championed by
Anita Roddick et al. Advertisers play on our fears to sell a whole range of
security and surveillance products. And rebellion is also transformed into a
marketing tool, from the glamour of revolution to The Sex Pistols Virgin credit
card. This is recuperation at its finest.
Commercials also maintain our credibility in television as
most programmes have very little personal relationship with the viewers’ life …
but the goods in the advertisements do, so the viewer keeps watching as a
spectator of Spectacular society. After all, we must make sure we have the
latest products and if it is on television it must be OK.
One of the more nauseating elements of this whole circus is
the way that goods are sold by a media saying “It is a pleasure to buy, pleasure
is in buying, pleasure can be bought” or “This (mass produced) product
is for the individual” or “This product will enrich your life”. Marketing has
made pleasure into a materialistic concept; people will cling to products
rather than people, strengthening isolation. Spectacular media creates culture
in its own image – from fashion to politics. Consumer society is selling
happiness, yet increasingly it is a lonely, hollow and desperate illusion of
happiness that simply leaves us wanting more, like the addictive drug it is.
By considering each marketing ploy out of context it can
actually seem to lose some of its allure. The Emperor does have no clothes.
Beyond this, the options are up to the discerning anti-consumer – turn off the
TV, buy non brand items, refuse to consume goods that are not essential for
survival, alter the advertisements (detournement), spread doubt and disharmony
about shopping. Lambast the advertising and marketing industry because they are
even more reprehensible than even politicians and bankers. Be a happy anti-consumer!
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