Transcript (edit with pics)

Film notes
Mental Environment
Are ads trivial?
 The average person in North America
sees 1500 per day. (We have to get the
fish out of the water).
 Ads are so effective because no one
believes it affects them—propaganda
that is not seen as propaganda.
 Advertising is a form of education—so
what does it teach us?

The three messages in ads:
1) Happiness can be bought
2) Instant solutions exist to our problems
3) Products can fulfill us
Happiness can be bought
2) Instant
solution
exist to
our
problems
Products can fulfill us
In the beginning
Before 1920 ads were informational.
They assumed people were rational,
and therefore made claims based on
reason.
 This shoe polished gets your shoes
cleaner than that one. You were
expected to judge the claims being
made.

Psychology



With the advent of WW1 (1914-1918) people began
to study how people could be persuaded. At the
same time, psychologists like Freud were
demonstrating that people were influenced by
unconscious parts of their minds.
People were no longer seen as being only
rational. The best way to persuade them to do
something (join the army, shoot people, buy
hairspray, etc.) is to appeal to their unconscious
desires, beliefs, values, etc.
As a result, starting in the 1920s ads began to
speak less about products and more about the lives
of the consumer.
The Image



This means that it doesn't matter if you tune things
out—you're still being influenced. It is not about
whether what the ad claims is true or false; it is about
the image or the aura your brain associates with the
ad. This is why images (more direct and less rational
than words) are so important.
The Marlboro ad, for instance, does not make
any claims about cigarettes at all; instead it uses the
symbols of the cowboy so that you will associate a
mythology of freedom, independence, and autonomy
with those cigarettes.
• What information do ads leave out? What do they
expect us to simply accept?
• Mass Production:

With the advent of mass production,
more products could be produced than
there was demand for. By the 1950s
this meant that there was not too little
being produced, but too little being
consumed. As a result companies
began to work to produce consumers.
We have more cheese than people who
want to buy it, so…
The purpose of Advertising
To manufacture discontent: The
function of advertisements is to produce
discontent in people. Ads tell you that
you are not okay, that you need help.
Ads create a problem, and then offer a
solution.
 This is the opposite of therapy, as you
are always a few steps (products) away
from happiness. You are conditioned to
feel like a failure.

Beauty



There has always been an ideal of beauty.
The Greeks for instance created beautiful
statues honouring male and female beauty.
There are two differences though:
1) Those images were not mass produced and
shot around the world. Essentially, there is
only one image of beauty now that people are
told to strive for.
2) The sole purpose of the modern ideal of
beauty is to sell products. This is achieved by
making us feel that although we are not the
ideal, by buying that skin cream, we will be
closer.
Pavlov

if you ring a bell the dog will salivate—
association. We are the dogs which the
ads make salivate.
Objectification
Ads work to turn people into objects. Think
of women in beer commercials, deodorant
ads, etc. Once you begin to think of
something as an object (something not fully
human) it is easier to do violence to it. The
more we come in contact with objectified
representations of people (on ads for
instance) the less we value human life.
 • The image becomes the dominant force
because it is more direct, and less filtered.
As humans we think in symbols. These
symbols are always related to power.

What we really want:
1) Good social, family, and romantic
lives, 2)Leisure time, 3) Work we can
enjoy
 Individual autonomy (freedom)
• Can you buy any of these things?
• Ads inject values into objects (pop,
sneakers, jeans, etc.) so that we
associate something we really want with
that object. This is where symbolism in
ads is used.

Consumption
One of the key things ads teach is that it
is beautiful (and good) to consume. All
ads tell us this on some level.
 The problem is that if the entire world
consumed the same way we did human
civilization would rapidly collapse. Our
way of life is not sustainable or
accessible to the whole planet.
