Transcript Chapter 4, "Running It Up a Flagpole..." (The Importance of Branding)

Chapter 4
(aka “Running It Up a Flagpole and See If Anyone
Salutes”)
Chapter 4 Keys
 Brands we use everyday– the “Lisa Greatgal” example
 “Lisa Greatgal” and “Johnny Q. Public’s” Daily Media
Diet
 The contention that “media dominate our lives” based
on hours per year spent using various media (p. 63)
 That we may spend close to twice the amount of hours
per year consuming media (3649 hours) than we do if
we work 40 hours a week for 50 weeks (2000 hours)
 The price we pay for “free” television is being exposed
to countless commercials
Advertising Pressures?
 Exposure to so many commercials (and advertising in
general)– does it put pressure on us to purchase
things?
 Researchers contend that advertising has a much more
profound impact than we imagine on our
consciousness, our identities, our belief systems, our
private lives, and our societies and culture in general
 What are the cultural consequences of the commercial
and of the advertising industry in general?
Unconscious Influences
 Psychologists such as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud
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believed that things can be in our minds without our being
aware of them
That the unconscious determines many of our actions,
even though we are unaware that it is doing so
We have repressed much of the material in our
unconscious and thus find ourselves doing things at the
“command,” so to speak, of forces in our unconscious
Advertising agencies, some contend, use subliminal
means- means that we are not conscious of- to persuade us
to buy the products and services they are peddling
Such theories have never been proven- food for thought
See examples of ads with perceived subliminal messages
Branding- buying the “right” stuff
 Ad agencies stress the importance of “branding”- which involves
developing an emotional tie between some product or service
and individuals (brand loyalty)
 More precisely, it involves an emotional tie between individuals and
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images they have of the product
It can be said that branding- the process of differentiation- is at the
core of advertising (Cortese, p. 73)- that what distinguishes similar
products is not ingredients but packaging and brand names
Would it surprise you to know that most major shampoos are made by
two or three manufacturers?
The major thrust of advertising is to remind shoppers to seek out and
purchase a particular brand
Branding seeks to nullify or compensate for the fact that products are
otherwise fundamentally interchangeable
Which car is better?
 Tests have shown that consumers cannot distinguish between
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their own brand of soap, beer, cigarette, water, cola, shampoo,
gasoline from others
In a sense, advertising is like holding up two identical
photographs and persuading you that they are different- in fact,
that one is better than the other
Becoming attached to certain brands help us form an identity
We use brands to differentiate ourselves from other people and
to generate images of ourselves to others that we think are
positive
We become, so to speak, the sum of our brands– it is the
symbolic value of brands, not the functions of the products, that
become most important
Selling/Masking Ourselves
 In a marketing society like the U.S., we learn to market ourselves, and using brand names
gives anxiety-ridden people a sense of security that they believe will enhance the job of
selling themselves that they feel they must do
 You could say personality is the product– the term “personality” has its root in the Latin
word “persona” which means “mask”
 So our personalities are “masks” we wear to sell ourselves to others- to become popular, to
market ourselves, to find a job or a mate
 Our personalities- and the products we purchase to shape them- help us fit in, get along
and advance in the world
 But the products we use keep changing, which means our personas, to the extent that
they are intimately connected to the products we use, keep changing also
 And, sadly perhaps, our sense of ourselves- whether we are successes or failures- is tied,
we are taught by advertising, to what we can afford
 Our personalities, then, are to a considerable degree, products based on the material
culture that we make part of our lives
 And so we are doomed to constant change as we sample different styles and identities to
suit our whims
 The problem is that identity suggests some kind of coherence, and a constantly changing
identity is a contradiction in terms