Thursday, March 18, 2010
Are we all consumer whores?
So, we were talking about advertising and American Consumerism in AIS, and it got me thinking: "Have they gotten to me?" So I looked around my room and kept a running tally of everything that I had seen an ad for that I owned. Final tally: 52 that I had seen ads for out of 71 total, more than half. I found it kind of scary, especially after reading "The 6 Weapons of Influence." I think it would be interesting if perhaps everyone else in the class was to do the same. Let's see how good advertising really is!
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I think that the best example of the way that advertising can effect purchases is Apple products, especially the iPod and iPhone. Do you remember those commercials with the solid color background and the white silhouette hipster dancing with an iPod. Those ads really set the stage for apple as the hip brand. Once some people started buying iPods, other people did which is related to the "truths are us" principle. At the same time, they managed to remain exclusive (or at least appear so) fulfilling "the rule of the few." At the same time, we see celebrities who have iPods as authorities on how to be cool, thus fulfilling a third (50%) of the principles with "directed deference."
ReplyDeleteA worthwhile experiment, Batman. I guess I would love to see you augment this post with some images, especially of your own "stuff", and a specific mention of at least one of the "Weapons" of influence.
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