“Companies have been doing this for ages, getting customers to really internalise the brand and feel like they are involved in the 'brands vision'. All thats really happening though is we consumers become little puppets for the big brands. Ipods are a good example, consumers now think (largely because of other consumers) that buying an Ipod gives automatic entry into this super cool culture (when really it's just a portable music player), we have created a 'vision' for Ipods and now buy them because of the vision other consumers have created in combination with the marketing pumped out by Apple. To me, this signifies, not a step forward for consumers but a situation where we who want to feel like we are empowered to make our own decisions and not just be a product of marketing, have become our own worst enemy by advertising to ourselves. Now, not only can a corporation dream up a 'brand vision' and convince customers that this is true, we are so convinced we 'know' the company, we eagerly do their advertising for them. Unless consumers have the full details behind the brand (ie. that it is largely profit motivated, really wants to increase sales in a particular market segment etc etc) the 'brand vision' they create is based on marketing spin and we end up selling products we may not even like (if given the truth) to each other.” (Natalie)
This comment appeared as reaction to one of my earlier post and its critical approach made me happy. The above comment points out one important thing - the common belief that all consumers are thoughtless puppets in the hands of devil corporations. This and the overall perception of consumption open the broader discussion. The discussion is not about the international companies letting consumer to build brands visions, but this is the discussion about consumerism culture we are living in. And this culture is not nothing new.
Many centuries ago, Aristotle wrote in ‘Politics’:
“The avarice of mankind is insatiable”
Over two thousand years later Leo Tolstoy wrote in “My Religion”
"seek among men, from beggar to millionaire, one who is contented with his lot, and you will not find one such in a thousand....Today we must buy an overcoat and galoshes, tomorrow, a watch and a chain; the next day we must install ourselves in an apartment with a sofa and a bronze lamp; then we must have carpets and velvet gowns; then a house, horses and carriages, paintings and decorations."
In XIX there was also Marx who wasn’t happy with the consumption in the capitalistic society.
Capitalism fetishizes products and services; people refer to them as the object with magical power or prestige that can be transmitted to the people. Across centuries, many poets, writers, philosophers have deplored and disagreed with the desire to possess in the society.
Mankind has known and enjoyed consumption over centuries. Consumption is not just modern times phenomena, this is something that has always existed and has it is roots in the social structures; this is the part of Weber’s stratification process, where status is based on the economical status and the non economical qualities like honor and prestige.
Today’s world dominated by market, media, advertising and urgency makes everyone of us to be the consumer. We are all participating in the consumption, and the consumption brings negative associations; we tend to see the consumers as fettered, thoughtless mass that is looking only for entertainment and pleasure. We think everyone but me is the consumer. In the first place we must understand what the consumption is. According to Webster Online Dictionary , the word consumption has four meanings:
1. The process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating)
2. Involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body
3. (Economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing; "the consumption of energy has increased steadily"
4. The act of consuming something.
We consume everything every day – we consume the morning paper together with breakfast and our morning coffee, we consume TV shows, enjoying bottle of coke, we consume Mahler’s 5thSymphony and at the same time we consume wine. We consume the books, no matter if it is the latest Dan Brown’s book or James Joyce ‘Ulysses’. We consume all day long, we satisfy our needs all day long. The consumption has the central role in our lives. We work to afford consumption. We can’t avoid consumption, as the consumption is the way of fulfilling our needs. The development in the modern western societies shifted the focus up to higher needs (see Maslow needs hierarchy). We don’t need to worry about food and roof over the head, those things we just have and take them for granted, so we have a time and energy to focus on the esteem and being needs.
Every one of us has tried to have a few of those masks on. We play consumer roles, as others roles in our lives, in different disguises depending on situation, environment, ours and others expectations. We consume to tell the world who we are and where we belong. We consume to define our social position. We consume to achieve mental stimulation and to avoid boredom. Our consumption has not only the material character, nowadays the consumption of symbols and experiences is blooming.
One of the first sociologists who wrote about consumption was Thorstein Veblen, in his ‘The Theory of The Leisure Class’ he stated that we consume not to survive but to socially differentiate and achieve the higher social status and prestige. The aristocrats or higher class creates the consumption patterns and values which are copied by the lower classes. Those consumption patterns loose on their attractiveness as soon as they become available to everyone, so the higher classes have to create the new ones. The process repeats itself constantly. The same pattern we can observe nowadays, middle class members gets access to mass luxury and get the feel of participating in the high class consumption. But still the rich has to earn more to differentiate themselves from the rest of society and the poor has to earn more to catch up with the rich. As Bourdieu described it, the consumption is about establishing own preferences as superior in order to have the power. The consumption leads to social differentiation and self promotion.
So the consumption is not the problem of advertising or more precise and sophisticated methods of reaching and engaging consumers. The consumption is tightly bound in the society construction. We can’t say no to consumption. But we have a choice to choose different lifestyle or different consumption patterns. We don’t have to buy iPod or Louis Vuitton bag if we don’t want to or don’t need it, some people want to buy those products and it makes them happy, that’s their choice, not Apple’s or Vuitton’s. But we can't reverse the processes of social stratification.
Who is responsible for consumption? Everyone. Good example is the movie ‘Czech Dream’ from 2004. This is the documentary film about the hoax. The directors, Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak, created the deceitful advertising campaign for non-existent new supermarket called Czech Dream. They got plenty of people to arrive to the opening but the frantic hoard discovered that there was no supermarket, no promotion, just a cameraman filming their faces, faces filled with incredulity, anger, disappointment, auto irony and shame. Filip Remunda and Vit Klusák provoked people (consumers), revealed their primal instincts. The scene when people are running towards the supermarket shows the human's strong desire to possess. The film is the key to understanding the consumption culture: none is deceiving and none is deceived. The game rules are clear - one person wants to sell, another person wants to own, both know about it. We have to only know what we want and who we are.
That’s why I disagree with those who blame companies for misusing consumers and see around the conspiracy theory plotted by the big corporations. I guess that none grown-up has any doubts what drives Apple, Microsoft, Toyota, Snickers and others. It is obvious they want to earn the money, who doesn’t! And I think it is inspiring that consumers are being engaged to help them to earn that money, as that makes us into active and interactive consumers and it shows the companies don’t look at the consumers as puppets. It gives the hope for better visions, mores responsible visions, visions that appeal to us, visions that don’t treat us as puppets. Such a model is better than traditional model where consumer were only passive recipients of communication from corporations. The consumers has the voice now and it’s u to them how they are going to use it.
And I believe that we should worry more of other aspects of consumption – the use of resources, wastage and pollution we generate when satisfying our needs, the gap between the rich and the poor, ‘über-consumption’ we cultivate and the growing gap between Western and 3rd world countries.
We are all responsible for the society and the world we are living in. And I believe that with the new media, technologies and all opportunities they bring we do have a chance to make a difference. It is all about making the right choices and showing respect to others and to the surrounding world.
* Thorstein Veblen quote
