The Century Of The Self + Psychoanalysis task

Full documentary above

Important points raised in "Happiness Machines", the first half our of the documentary 

• Primitive and sexual forces hidden deep inside our unconscious and repressed minds of all human beings. If not controlled lead individuals and societies to chaos and destruction
• Those in power using Freud's theories to try and control mass crowds in an age of democracy
• Bernay's was at the forefront of selling consumers things they didn't need. Linking products to their unconscious desires.
• Making the masses happy and docile.
• Vienna, Austria. Repressed feelings of the masses, afraid to show their feelings. Freud was Australian. His studies were never really accepted, maybe out of fear.
• Psychoanalysis - analysing dreams. Unearthed powerful sexual forces. Feelings we repressed as they were too dangerous. A barrier within our mind which prevents these forces from emerging.
• Examples of unleashed primitive forces in human beings - the wars.
• Propaganda displayed Woodrow Wilson as a liberator of the people. A hero. Bernays wondered if they could do the same time of mass persuasion, but in peacetime. "If you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace." Propaganda got to be a bad word. So he invented the word - Public Relations.
• Bernays' most popular experiment was to persuade women to smoke. At the time it was a taboo. One of his clients was president of American Taboo Association, said he was losing half of his market. Asked Bernays. Studied what cigarettes mean to women through psychoanalysis - told cigarettes were a symbol of the penis, male sexual power. If women smoked, they'd feel independent and have their own penis. Bernays persuaded debutants to hide cigs under their clothes, he then called them "Torches of Freedom". Cigarettes became socially acceptable, sales rose. Sold the idea of a woman being more powerful if she smoked. Idea that smoking made women more free was irrational  but it made them FEEL free. Products became a powerful way of manipulating how you're seen by others
• You don't need this car or piece of clothing, but you will feel better after you do. Bernays' arguably originated this notion of advertising. This fascinated America's corporations. Industrialisation and danger of overproduction and people stop buying. The majority of products were for necessities, shoes, cars. Were promoted for their durability, just their practical features nothing more.
• Transition from American workers and citizens, to American consumers.
• Glamourised American women magazines, created product placements of his clients. Product placements in movies. Dressed stars at premieres with clothes and jewellery of other clients. Sold cars as male sexual power symbols. Fashion shows at department stores. Buying things to express your inner self to others.
• Mrs Stillman - Psychology of dress. Wearing the same hats and the same coats, looking at you in the street you all look so much the same. "Express yourself better, in your dress" Women wearing clothes to be sexual and attractive, desires.
• Bernays' persuaded 34 film stars to visit the White House. Politics became involved with public relations. 
• Freud became pessimistic about human beings, moved to the Alps in the 20's. Started to write about group behaviour. Aggressive forces in human beings being triggered in crowds. Believed human beings were far more dangerous than he originally thought.
• Tapping into peoples deepest desires or fears. President Hoover realised consumerism had become a central fabric of America. Transformed people into constantly moving "happiness machines" machines critical to democratic progress. Made the economy work, stable society and happy and docile.

Psychoanalysis applied to some examples of mass media advertising:

Joop! Poster campaign, 2010-2011

I think this is a good example of selling a product through desires, instead of needs. Something such as mens perfume isn't an essential product or a necessity, but instead a luxury or something you'd perhaps gift to someone or treat yourself with. In the simplest sense, perfume is a scent. On paper, it's not directly linked to sex and pleasure but through this Joop poster campaign the connection is made. When a consumer buys this product, they are unconcsciously buying it to also live the lifestyle sold in the posters. To be attractive, to attract attractive women and to be intimate and sexual. 

The colour pink itself is an interesting choice for mens perfume. It's almost challenging previous perceptions and tempting men to buy the product to almost be proud and powerful, to be a real men even if you buy something that's pink and 'feminine'. In the same sense I think these ads are also targeted for women too, using the male body to attract females attention and to in a way, maybe to gain their male partners attention by buying them this product as a gift.

SKYY

The male in this scene for SKYY Vodka shows the man being dominant and fully dressed while the female is semi naked and almost vulnerable. I think theories of penise envy or the castration complex can be applied to this to portray the woman as the gender that is lacking or kind of envious of the fact that the man has a penis. The composition of the ad directly focuses on the mans penis, along with the woman almost looking towards the area in surprise, as if she's pulled her shades up to get a better view. I think the idea of the gaze can also be applied to this poster, we can see the woman and see her in a vulnerable state, although the man is pretty mysterious and hidden. Look but not be looked upon. This is especially evident in another poster in the SKYY poster series...

There's usually a pattern in adverts of masculinity and femininity with the male's being assertive while the female's tend to be passive throughout history. The man is in seated in the cup-like chair, we can't see him yet we can see the attractive woman in a revealing outfit perfectly placed for us to see. "The pleasure of looking" Gazing but not being gazed upon. The composition too, the way the woman has her legs kind of open, and the mans assumed line of sight point to sexual desires. It also sells a lifestyle of living the high life and male dominance, if you buy this vodka. The woman is serving the man the alcohol with the shaker, so she's serving the man, almost seeking his approval.

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Psychoanalysis & Subliminal advertising

Here are some examples I've found which are pretty interesting and definitely eye-opening. Some are more blatant than otheres, for example the Lucky Strike cigarette ads from the 40s and 50s when there was a boom for cigarette sales to women, mainly because of Edward Bernays making cigarettes socially acceptable for women. There are others which are subtle and more subjective such as the Silk Cut stuff by Saatchi & Saatchi with Paul Arden often the creative director. Some of them also touch upon the rise of consumerism, especially in America.

Don't be what you want to be, buy what you want to be!

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The Birth of Mad Men: Ernest Dichter by Laura Massey

Another pretty interesting article, there's loads out there! Some points I took note of:

• Dichter’s message to advertisers was: figure out the personality of a product, and you will understand how to market it - The Economist
• The advertising revolution that led companies away from spots extolling their product’s obvious uses to a new style targeting consumers’ unspoken desires.
• Soap isn’t just for mundane hygiene issues, it’s associated with sensuality and should be marketed as sexy and refreshing. Cigarettes aren’t just commodities, they’re rewards for a job well done, or a break from a stressful work day. Car makers should promote their brands with convertibles because men associate them with freedom and the fantasy of having a mistress, even if they end up buying a sedan when they take their wife back to the dealership.
• Dichter offered consumers moral permission to embrace sex and consumption, and forged a philosophy of corporate hedonism, which he thought would make people immune to dangerous totalitarian ideas
• He wrote his first book for the general public. The Psychology of Everyday Living, published in 1947
• The chapter on cigarettes argues that those who try to abstain from smoking are wrong to feel guilty about the habit.  - "Efforts to reduce the amount of smoking signify a willingness to sacrifice pleasure in order to assuage their feeling of guilt… Guilt feelings may cause harmful physical effects not at all caused by the cigarettes used, which may be extremely mild."
• Automobiles, according to Dichter, aren’t simply for running errands or getting to work. They’re about freedom, personal identity, youthful self-assertion, and, of course, sex.

What we've learnt here ladies and gentleman is, sex sells.

Original article ~

The Birth of Mad Men: Ernest Dichter, Psychoanalysis and Consumerism

by Laura Massey on May 28, 2012

First edition of The Psychology of Everyday Living by Ernest Dichter (1947).

Mid twentieth-century America. In a corporate board room, hazy with tobacco smoke and whiskey fumes, a man pitches innovative new advertising ideas. Soap isn’t just for mundane hygiene issues, it’s associated with sensuality and should be marketed as sexy and refreshing. Cigarettes aren’t just commodities, they’re rewards for a job well done, or a break from a stressful work day. Car makers should promote their brands with convertibles because men associate them with freedom and the fantasy of having a mistress, even if they end up buying a sedan when they take their wife back to the dealership.

Mad Men's Don Draper.

Don Draper, right? Now in its fifth season, Mad Men has reintroduced the American public to the advertising revolution that led companies away from spots extolling their product’s obvious uses to a new style targeting consumers’ unspoken desires. But the instigator of this movement was not a mysterious and dangerously sexy ad executive like Don Draper. He was a much more interesting figure who forever changed American consumerism.

Ernest Dichter (1907–91).

Ernest Dichter was born in Vienna in 1907 and following a severely impoverished childhood was employed in his uncle’s department store. Working as a window dresser, he became interested in marketing and introduced new American ideas into the shop, such as the use of music to soothe customers.

In 1938, following university training in psychology and informal training in psychoanalysis, he moved to New York with his wife and only $100 to his name. Dichter worked for a time with a traditional market-research firm, but in 1939 he sent a letter to six corporations in which he offered his understanding of psychoanalysis as a way to radically improve their marketing strategies. Four responded, and his first contract was for Ivory Soap. Using in-depth consumer interviews, he learned that when shoppers picked a particular brand,

“it wasn’t exactly the smell or price or look or feel of the soap, but all that and something else besides—that is, the gestalt or ‘personality’ of the soap.

This was a big idea. Dichter understood that every product has an image, even a ‘soul’, and is bought not merely for the purpose it serves but for the values it seems to embody. Our possessions are extensions of our own personalities, which serve as a ‘kind of mirror which reflects our own image’. Dichter’s message to advertisers was: figure out the personality of a product, and you will understand how to market it” (The Economist).

Dichter’s belief in good marketing went beyond creating successful ads; it became a total philosophy. Profoundly affected by the turmoil he had experienced as a young man in Europe, he believed that consumerism was the only bulwark against totalitarianism. The public, he argued, must learn to stop feeling guilty. They must accept and fulfill their unconscious desires, or risk falling under the spell of communism or fascism.

In light of this, he wrote his first book for the general public. The Psychology of Everyday Living, published in 1947, was

“designed as an accessible self-help manual to help Americans ‘accept the morality of the good life’… As America entered the 1950s, the decade of heightened commodity fetishism, Dichter offered consumers moral permission to embrace sex and consumption, and forged a philosophy of corporate hedonism, which he thought would make people immune to dangerous totalitarian ideas” (Cabinet Magazine, issue 44, p. 30).

Chapters such as “The Magic of Soap”, “What Bread Means to You”, “How to Be Happy While Cooking”, and “The Psychology of Buying” purported to solve the problems of everyday life, but largely encouraged a positive attitude to consumption by stressing the good feelings associated with a new purchase or the use of a specific commodity.

The book is extensively illustrated, with images that promote consumerism even more blatantly than the text does. A photograph of a woman applying makeup is captioned “Cosmetics provide psychological therapy”, and another of a man trying on a hat reads, “The right kind of hat gives us dignity”.

In chapter after chapter, Dichter posits that consumer products can help us express our individuality, engage with the world in new ways, or simply provide a self-esteem boost:

The chapter on cigarettes argues that those who try to abstain from smoking are wrong to feel guilty about the habit. Dichter writes that,

“Efforts to reduce the amount of smoking signify a willingness to sacrifice pleasure in order to assuage their feeling of guilt… Guilt feelings may cause harmful physical effects not at all caused by the cigarettes used, which may be extremely mild. Such guilt feelings alone may be the real cause of the injurious consequences”.

One of the photographs used in this chapter has a decidedly sexual subtext:

Automobiles, according to Dichter, aren’t simply for running errands or getting to work. They’re about freedom, personal identity, youthful self-assertion, and, of course, sex.

Probably the best illustration is “What is bought depends on what the woman says”:

Though Dichter faced scrutiny from those who were wary of the corporate hold on Americans’ psyches, criticism only seemed to generate more converts. But his method did have faults, and executives in the early 60s began to feel that his ideas were sometimes too strange to be practical. Like Don Draper dismissing the psychoanalyst in the first episode of Mad Men, the director of a Pepsi campaign fired Dichter when he was told that ice shouldn’t be used in advertisements because it reminded consumers of death. At the the same time, the advent of accessible computing meant that firms were able to return to more scientific methods of researching consumer behaviour.  But Dichter remains the most important figure of twentieth-century advertising. Glance at the television or pass a billboard and you’ll recognise that the concepts he pioneered still dominate the advertising that surrounds us.

Resources:

• For an excellent piece on Dichter’s attempts to convert the American public to his philosophy of consumerism, see the Winter 2011/2012 issue of Cabinet Magazine.
• The Economist also has an extensive article that’s available online: Retail Therapy. How Ernest Dichter, an Acolyte of Sigmund Freud, Revolutionsed Marketing.
• Duke University’s John W. Hartmann Center for  Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History has digitised a huge range of twentieth-century advertising, including both print ads and television commercials. In many cases you can see the difference between pre and post-Dichter advertising strategies.
• For more Mad Men goodness, try the blog The Rolodex, and also see the Slate TV club’s discussions of each episode.

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