For the dissertation project, I knew that I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do but I knew that I would need some more of a depth and breadth of broad knowledge.
Originally, I had the idea of looking at how the shopping experience is paramount to the creation of desire as well as how private labels are used to look like leading brand products even though stores have their own brand identities to get people to trust them and spend (See COP 3 Blog Post). I was inspired for this due to the fact that I work at a supermarket so I experience some of this stuff first hand but I don't know about why people make the decisions that they do. However, I felt like this wasn't focused enough and I wasn't sure how I would be able to make a practical project out of it so there was some strong doubt as to the strength of the project.
I wanted to focus on psychology of consumerism as this is something that we had looked at in second year and is something that has always fascinated me (See COP 2 Blog Posts on Consumerism). I find the decisions and choices as to why people do things interesting and is something that I try to implement within my own work. From this, I decided to change the direction I was going in so that it was more psychological thinking as well as the shopping aspect of it.
To start with, I found a documentary series that discusses the effect on consumerism within our society called 'The Men Who Made Us Spend'. For each episode I will produce notes on the content of the documentary.
Originally, I had the idea of looking at how the shopping experience is paramount to the creation of desire as well as how private labels are used to look like leading brand products even though stores have their own brand identities to get people to trust them and spend (See COP 3 Blog Post). I was inspired for this due to the fact that I work at a supermarket so I experience some of this stuff first hand but I don't know about why people make the decisions that they do. However, I felt like this wasn't focused enough and I wasn't sure how I would be able to make a practical project out of it so there was some strong doubt as to the strength of the project.
I wanted to focus on psychology of consumerism as this is something that we had looked at in second year and is something that has always fascinated me (See COP 2 Blog Posts on Consumerism). I find the decisions and choices as to why people do things interesting and is something that I try to implement within my own work. From this, I decided to change the direction I was going in so that it was more psychological thinking as well as the shopping aspect of it.
To start with, I found a documentary series that discusses the effect on consumerism within our society called 'The Men Who Made Us Spend'. For each episode I will produce notes on the content of the documentary.
The first documentary was focusing on the backstory as to how our society has been constructed by companies to continually strive for the next best thing due to the manipulation of product lifespans and constant upgrades.
‘The Men Who Made Us Spend’ (2014) Jacques Peretti [Film Series] BBC Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1
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| Promotional Event for Xbox |
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| Promotional Events at Apple |
- People queueing outside venues to get the latest upgrade at orchestrated product launches
- On Apple iPhone: 'The rate that they change, they change so quickly you don't want to get left behind'
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| Desired Items become obsolete automatically |
- Yesterday's desired item becomes unwanted and immediately obsolete
- Some items are bought n the purpose of being thrown away
- Psychically shows the cycle of spending money and throwing away
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| Phoebus Cartel and Planned Obsolescence |
- Planned Obsolescence is the making of a product with the intention and purpose of the item is to break due to the manufacturer shortening its lifespan
- Started with the lightbulb and became the template of how we live today
- The ability to control and standardise manufacturing making maximum profits
- The Phoebus Cartel was a group of production companies who would adhere to this settlement to make the most money
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| Demonstrating Planned Obsolescence |
- 'Planned Obsolescence is an open secret. When I'm talking to professional management on planned Obsolescence, they say 'well, we all know this'- Stefan Schilder at Berlin Technical Uni
- Example: Printer Cartridge- timer will count down to stop working despite having ink
- Products deemed to have a limited lifespan and we accept it- continual spending is 'our duty to consume'
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| The Man in The White Suit Film Stills |
- 1951 comedy film 'The Man in The White Suite' satirised the public being duped by Obsolescence as it is based on what it would be like if a product was invented that never broke.
- 'Some fool has invented an indestructible cloth, right?' 'Yes' ' But it will knock the bottom out of everything. Right down to the primary producers!'
- The film was built on an era (50's) where the economy was built on an awareness of consumer obsolesce and not naive towards spending culture as first believed.
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| General Motors and the Organised Creation of Dissatisfaction |
- 'Pessimism has no place in the American scheme of things. I am the greatest possible optimist on the future of America and our whole system' -Alfred P Saoane, General Motors
- By offering a car for each income bracket, he could reach a larger audience
- The Organised Creation of Dissatisfaction was the wanting of customers to buy a new model every year which would be based on what add ons were on the car rather than the reliability
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| Ikea Brand in Fight Club |
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| Ikea Advertisements |
- The film Fight Club singled out the brand as being the one that the anti-hero wanted to fill his home with showing how consumerism had took over his life
- Adverts got the British public to buy into the home style revolution using the connection we get emotionally to objects and making us challenge it to change their home
- Took something that you would see as a big ticket purchase and made it essentially the same as purchasing a packet of crisps
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| Hysteria surrounding Consumerism |
- The targeted goods highlights the goods which are the most important
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| iPhone Hysteria |
- Since the introduction of the first iPhone, there has been 7 generations
- The pressure to upgrade intensifies with each new launch, making our current Apple product out of date and obsolete
- Is it great design or relentless desire for profit that drives an upgrade?
- 'If you look at each one, there isn't anything different about each one' - Dan Crowe, Apple Product Designer- Guilty of making us want to change the product even though we dont need to
- Apple adverts for iPod using the silhouettes made it universally appeal
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| War against Apple |
- Apple's Dirty Secret campaign- statement of Apple batteries not lasting more than 18 months
- i- Fix it Collective- tear apart technology in order to learn how to fix it themselves
- ' As a consumer, you shouldn't have to know why the product is better' - Bret Adams, Apple tech analyst
- We have reached the pinnacle of mobile phone obsolesce
- As technology develops, upgrading will become the norm
- Technology must keep changing to fulfil demand
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| Notes on Documentary |
The second documentary focused on the ways that companies will use subtle ways to exploit our fears and insecurities to get us to spend.
‘The Men Who Made Us Spend’ (2014) Jacques Peretti [Film Series] BBC Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-2
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| Electrodes in the Brain Measuring Activity |
- 'I relieve the fear. I relieve the anxiety. I open the door to a new life. A better life.' -Dr. David Sister
- Tactic to see cosmetic surgery- tap into the fear and provide a solution
- psychologists experiment with measuring brain activity when watching advertisements
- People are motivated by the loss of something rather than the gain of something- The anxiety of feeling high consequence of not taking action
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| Creating a story in Adverts |
- Dr. Catherine Rapai, psychologist to brands for 30 years, has turned fear into a lucrative business
- Believes that a primal drive always dictates our choices. Clients get him to dictate which would be the best way of targeting
- 'Advertising is based on happiness and happiness is freedom of fear'
- You create anxiety in the audience, tell them something they don't know that isn't good and provide a magic solution
- Google Chrome ads- moral of the story, you wont be safe from the fear unless you have this product in your life
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| Pharmaceutical application of psychology |
- Stanley Ressle taught professionals how to add psychology to adverts
- First applied theories to mouthwash snd the social connection of having bad breath as a social killer
- Henry Gladstone didn't like the fact that he could only sell to the sick
- Needed to get us all into thinking we are chronically ill and in need of the relief they provided
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| Fear of being sub-standard |
- People are afraid of being less than normal or sub-standard
- Hearing a name for a condition open up a channel of communication with the doctor and medication takes away the terror
- Statins for Heart Disease with lower cholesterol- fear mentality is making it being over prescribed
- Bob Airlik was behind powerful Lipitor campaign- cholesterol was seen as something that customers needed to try and lower. The more educated they are, the more likely they will take action
- Customers only remember one thing about an advert so it needs to be hard hitting and emotive
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| Anxiety of Hygiene |
- Henry Gladstone wanted to sell the anxiety of hygiene as no one is immune from risk
- Use of the word anti-bacterial to get rid of the word germ
- Carex targeted to create a climate of hygiene fear which evolves the need to stay clean and healthy
- Appeals to the natural human emotion of disgust and need for purification
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| Vitamin Water |
- Food industry wanted to provide us with a additional commodities rather than just a balanced diet
- Vitamin Water brand- carefully coloured packaging and carefully name product flavours to appeal to good health
- A product people will reach out to everyday and feel that they are protecting themselves from illness
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| Praying of life anxieties |
- Brain Training Game- Plays on the need to keep your wits and brain usage when older by adopting the need to stimulate and keep you young
- Ant Aging Industry trades in the fear of death- a seductive and lucrative business by playing on our anxiety
- Spending is not rooted in aspiration but rooted in fear
- Always will be new anxieties for us to buy solutions
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| Notes on Documentary |
The third documentary looks at how children and how they go onto targeting adults, either through the children themselves or through appealing to our inner child.
‘The Men Who Made Us Spend’ (2014) Jacques Peretti [Film Series] BBC Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-3
- Open to selling and impulsive to buying, children have unique access to the family purse so businesses have learnt to sell through fun and play
- Key to creating a character to appeal to the very young which you can sell thousands of products of
- Dr. Alison Bryne says how vital for the industry to target brands for children
- Characters increase the price on something by 50% known as licensing which can 'make or break a product'
- This was first done by Barbie where parents were persuaded to buy for the children
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| Star Wars |
- Star Wars helped turn children into consumers- there had never been a successfully franchised movie until then
- Created a toy franchise before the film was produced
- Small scale toys were sold cheaply so that children wanted the large scale model for ships and machines to play with. Marketing for dolls was to 'collect them all'
- Through Star Wars, they learnt they could sell merchandise to adults as well as children
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| Licensing of Characters |
- Invention of the colour TV- Professor Benjamin Barber saw the TV as a gateway of getting directly to children
- Toy makers wanted to make a toy and then add a story to sell them, like Star Wars did
- 'We trained a generation of children to think 'There's got to be product, there's got to be toys'- Paul Kernit
- Backstory would be produced to give the toys real purpose due to the toy lines fixed nature
- Licensing became a necessity to feed demand
Mattel created He Man, a 65 seires animation to accompany toys which was 'hugely commercial'
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| Nickelodeon |
- Through children- specific TV channels- there was a way to get through to children with volume and frequency
- Research by Nickelodeon found that children tended to watch TV alone and that they influenced everything that thier parents bought
- Children seen as a Trojen horse to get to the parent and manufacturers started designing for children's wants
- Childs market had untold influence and was an untapped source of martketing
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| Channeling the Inner Child |
- Early 90's, businesses started to consumers to channel thier inner child by having fun and spending money
- Child and adult were swapping places as seen in the movie 'Big'
- We are encouraged o indulge the inner child in us
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| Comic Con |
- Comic Con- manufacturers see an opportunity to make profits from play
- ' In every man, there is still a boy left as a man never truely grows up'
- Bounderies seperating children and adults are invisible and both get pleasure from the same purchases- now children and adults want the same thing
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| The Gaming Industry |
- Gaming was once seen as something just children did but now adults do it too
- The gaming industry has had to find material for games that will appeal to all ages and audiences
- Consoles have been developed to become more darker and violent, such as first person shooters instead of the traditional cartoon style games but more tailored towards males
- Nintendo Wii was made with lots of activities, easy to use and put the console back in the living room as it can be used by all ages whatever gender
- Neopets- simple yet compulsive game which created 'Stickiness' where people need to spend all of their time or stay on the site
- Brands will advertise on their website through Immersive Advertising- making mini games or including product placement
- Developers soon realised that they would get people playing for longer by including challenges to get rewards
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| Gamification |
- Use of Intrinsic Reinforcement- when your brain is challenged and you achieve what you want released dopamine so people want to do it more
- 'If they could apply this to shopping, using rewards and achievements then we could spend more' -Gabe Zickermann
- Example: McDonalds Monopoly promotion which makes 3% more sales in the US alone
-The trouble with adult consumers is that they think too much'- Gabe Zickermann
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| Purchasing |
- The greatest enabler of instant gratification is 'the magic bullet' the credit card
- We feel discomfort when we hand over cash so we are more likely to think of what we spend whereas we are likely to spend 100% more money by paying with card
- Film 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' reflects how our spending habits are out of control
- Plays to the tendency that our future will be fine
- Our attitude has infantised our approach to money- Birth of Paypal- speedy and secure way of spending money at any time of day which 'takes away any phases where there may be any doubt about the purchase'
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| Notes on Documentary |
At the end of the documentaries, there was a website suggestion which would show the different ways in which businesses would influence and target our spending. It took 5 different shopping scenarios and showed the ways in which each one would target different aspects of our psyche to benefit them and make us want to spend money.
Open University (2014) 'The Shops that Make us Buy' [Internet] 14th April Available from http://www.open.edu/openlearn/people-politics-law/politics-policy-people/sociology/the-shops-make-us-buy
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| Supermarket |
The use of the senses is strong in the supermarket, by venting smells so that it follows us and tempts us throughout the store, especially stuff that is seen as fresh, like produce and bread. By naming some of their products after place names, it give the impression that the food is natural and organic so we don't feel guilty buying it despite the fact that this is not probably the case. The way that the store is laid out makes an impression onto spending power, with smaller low-cost impulse buys at the till points at eye level to encourage children influence whilst having staple food stuff, like milk and bread, near the back of the store so you have to walk all the way through the shop seeing the rest of the items. By putting offers and deals at the front of the store, they are used to entice you inside and will use signs to catch the eye of the consumer. Signs make us more likely to impulse buy rather than allow us to think about the purchase before doing it. Moving around the shop using a large trolley makes it look like we haven't purchased many items so we are more likely to add more and more items as you go. By using music within the store, it gives an atmosphere of being relaxed and calming so the consumer lets their guard down.
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| Clothing Boutique |
The connection between the shopper and the shop comes into contact through shop assistants, talking to the consumer and discussing the product knowledge and spending time with the consumer, making them feel like they are investing themselves with the consumers product choice with them. Not just this, but the way that shop assistants present themselves by wearing the clothing available in the store gives a clear message as to the shops brand. The atmosphere of the shop gives the boutique a personality of which to sell the product, such as being dressed in comfy furniture that gives the impression of having a relaxing atmosphere. Natural lighting will be used in the changing rooms to give a flattering, natural tone and low volume music to target the consumer demographic.
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| Coffee Shop |
Coffee shops want to give the feel like they are a home from home, somewhere where the customer can relax with soft coach style seating and an intimate setting whilst including harder seating to get a faster turn over of people into the shop. Consumers are encouraged to stay loyal to the brand through loyalty cards and schemes and, by giving your information for this feature, you can be bombarded to get special offers, keeping the brand in the forefront of the consumers mind. Coffee Shops are seen as a place of work when away from home or out of the office with table space and internet access. The smells of the shop wafting out into the street and the constant noise of people coming and going gives the impression of the coffee shop being 'the place to be' with classical music giving a sophisticated appeal. Through the selling of the shop itself, you can brand the shop through details and selling the shops own products so that you can continue to connect to the brand from home.
Looking at these different shops, I liked the sound of how atmospherics is used to encourage and influence our spending. In particular, I found the coffee shop interesting because I frequent these often as well as the supermarket from personal experience of me working in a supermarket.
Looking into atmospherics, I looked into a book about shopping which discussed many varying aspects about the merchandising and retail space design.
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| Creating Atmospherics Danziger, P. M. (2006) ‘Shopping: Why we love it and how retailers can create the ultimate customer experience’ USA: Kaplan Publishing |
In Danziger's book, she gives detailed comments on how shops lay out their stores and the way it reaches out to customers in the retails tore setting to encourage spending. Also, it gave examples of different stores and how they present their service to the public, such as Apple and the genius bar.
I found the application and the way that atmospherics are cleverly used against us to be very fascinating and should be something that I include when talking about consumer desire.
To look more into coffee shops, I remembered watching a documentary a few months previously on coffee shops in the UK.
NEIHUFLYER (2014) 'BBC Business Boomers Coffee Shop Hot Shots Documentary' [Youtube] 4th May Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LcpwexhiU
This documentary talks about the industry of coffee shops, looking at Starbucks, Costa and Cafe Nero as the main 3 in the UK. It discusses the brand identities, the store layouts and atmospheres as well as how they advertise themselves in the UK and how our spending habits and attitude to coffee shops have changed from their introduction into our society.
I really liked the insight that the documentary gives on the branding side of the business and how they know what they are trying to appeal to psychologically to the consumer. I felt this would be really interesting to try and implement as a practical project.
At this point, we had to give another presentation as to the direction we had taken for the dissertation (See COP Blog Post). After the presentation, I was suggested to watch the documentaries 'The Great Movie Ever Sold' and 'The Century of the Self' as part of my research.
I couldn't find a full version of 'The Great Movie Ever Sold' but I did manage to find a TED talk by Morgan Spurlock on the film concept itself. During his talk, I made notes on what he was talking about.
Spurlock,
M. (2011, March) ‘Morgan Spurlock: The Greatest TED Talk Ever Sold’ [Video
File] Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/morgan_spurlock_the_greatest_ted_talk_ever_sold
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| TED Talk Screenshots |
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| TED Talk Notes |
I felt that the talk was interesting as it showed the importance and emphasis brands and businesses put onto their connection with the consumer and the price of their reputation. This, I felt would be an interesting direction to look at in the future.
The second documentary I was told to look at was Century of the Self series yet I felt like the whole series wouldn't be completely relevant due to the content of the documentaries. The one that stood out for me was the first episode as it looked to the origins of the transformation of our spending habits.
‘Century of the Self’ (2002) Richard Curtis
[Film Series] BBC Available from
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17b3j5_the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-1_news
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| Bernays Torches of Freedom Freud Theory Application |
- Bernays was part of the team for president Woodrow Wilson for his winning brand during World War One and felt that propaganda could be used in peace times as well as war
- Applied the theories of uncle Freud to a cigarette brand Lucky Strike, organising a mass promotional march of women smoking
- Targeted a new audience of smokers and made the amount of money rise
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| Endorsements and Promotion of products |
- Instead of buying stuff because you need them, companies encouraged people to buy to explore there own identity
- The inclusion of celebrity endorsements and promotional events for products in store as well as in publications
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| Political Application |
- Went into politics- badly represented president needed better publicity
- Bernays treated it like a product- got 34 different celebrities to visit the White House and ended up on the front page of every newspaper
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| Unconscious Primitive Desires in Groups |
- Bernays published Freud books in America as being controversial which were soon accepted theories
- Offering to publish an article in Cosmopolitan magazine about women's place at home and this disgusted him
- Began to become jaded by humans and started focusing on group behaviours
- Discussed the hidden primitive desires of groups and how this could overthrow democracy- there needed to be a new elite who could control 'the bewildered herd'
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| Need to control the Masses |
- He wrote a series of books in order to promote himself whilst doing this and called it the engineering of consent
- President Hoover agreed that consumerism had become the central motor of American life- calling the change in people constantly moving 'Happiness Machines'
- Needed to create a society which was happy and docile so that they could control the masses
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| Stock Exchange Crash |
- Stock Exchange of 1929 crash means that everyone tried to sell furiously, creating a disastrous effect on the economy and stopped the Consumer Desire spending boom.
- Freud writes Civilisation and its Discontents- the ideal of individual freedom was impossible. - Humans could never truly express themselves because it was too dangerous so they will always be discontent.
- Nazism disagreed with the selfish need for democracy and said in their policies that they would get rid of it due to the greed it led to.
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| Controlled Desires by Nazism |
- Nazis did not see this at autocratic but a new alternative to democracy where desires would be controlled in a new way which would bring the nation together
- Organising the massive rallies which had been influenced by Bernays writings in America
- Nazism became the epitome of the irrational forces taking hold
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| How to control the masses |
- George Gallagher, social analysts, looked at getting people to take part in his experiments
- Asking people's opinions by asking strictly factual questions and believed people could be trusted to know what they wanted without manipulating their emotions
- Businesses wanted to fight back and get the power back into public relations
- General Motors and Bernays The Worlds Fair exhibition housing the 'Democracity Dome' showing how it was the businesses and not the politicians that had brought the country prosperity in the first place and how it would again
- A capitalist society which could achieve anything. Consumerism and Capitalism went together, appealing to peoples desires how politicians couldn't.
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| Notes on the Documentary |
Freud's book 'Civilisation and its Discontents' was mentioned in the documentary and I felt this would be a great place to look for some more context.
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| Freud Discontent of the Masses Freud, S. (1930) ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’ 2nd ed., London: Penguin Books |
Having read the original theories, I decided to read Bernays Propaganda book to see how he talks about, in his own words, the way he targets and applies his work.
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| Bernays Talking about Audience Bernays, E. (2005) ‘Propaganda’, 3rd ed., New York: Ig Publishing |
From the second tutorial, I was told to look more at branding and I found the book by Wally Olins on branding.
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| Olins on Brands Relationship with Consumers Olins, W. (2004) ‘On Brands’, 2nd ed., London: Thames & Hudson |
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| Naomi Klein's comments of Identity and Brand Klein, N. (2005) ‘No Logo’ London: Harper Perennial |
From the third tutorial, I felt it was a good idea to work on expanding on the comments of talking about the ego and the id and Freud's theories on the two separate entities of the mind.
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| Freud Ego and Id Freud, S. (1920) ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’ London: Penguin Books |
From the last crit, It was recommended that, if I am talking about desire, I should include some Lacan.
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| Lacan on Desire Lemaire, A (1977) ‘Jacques Lacan’ London: Routledge |
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