For the past century
the consumer has been predominantly shaped, not through their demand
for goods, but from the supply of goods. The Ford Motor Company's
assembly line in 1913, and the subsequent popularization of mass
production and planned obsolescence in the 1910s and 1920s, created a
potential over-supply of goods in a frugal post war market. Enter
Edward Bernays, known as the 'Father of Public Relations', started
his 'Public Relations Council' in 1919 to manipulate public opinion,
for the good of businesses' and governments' power and profit.
Barbara Kruger "I shop therefore I am" (1987)
“We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” Propaganda (Bernays,1928)
In order to gain public
attention and sway opinion he used his Uncle's (Sigmund Freud's)
theories of how people's irrational unconscious controlled their
thinking, conduct, desires and idea of 'themselves'. As opposed to a
person's basic conscious needs (including physiological needs,
personal and financial security, health and well-being) people have
higher hopes dreams and desires for themselves. During the boom time
of the 1920s, the middle class's idea of 'Self' wanted: woman's
rights, a bourgeois lifestyle, good health, freedom etc. By focusing
people's attention on their desires (e.g. for Woman's rights and
freedom) Bernays could supply the desire with a product or idea (e.g.
smoking cigarettes).
“(Bernays) knew that the Self, once owned, would prove very expensive of attention... it needed to express itself - and one day it might want to express itself in one way, and the next it might want to do it in another. It was fickle, the Self, a follower of whim and fashion, and its only constant seemed to be that urgent aggressive fact of wanting.”
“You didn't choose a pair of running shoes for comfort or practicality; you did so because somewhere deep inside you, you felt they might liberate you to 'Just Do It'”
Today's consumer has a
different idea of 'Self', because of issues like: globalisation, the
recession, being in an information age, being part of highly
connective social networks, instant peer to peer acceptance or
disapproval, multiculturalism, postmodernism, feminism, sustainable
consumption, cultural and political revolution, mass democracy etc.
Today's consumer is confronted by PR and advertising more than ever,
but they are more savvy than ever, they want to be seen as informed
and knowledgeable about idea's and product's: longevity,
sustainability, added value, competition, critical consumer opinion,
social benefits, history, production, it's higher meaning, utility
value, and intrinsic value. The platforms through which consumers
seek information and are informed, are changing; the internet
provides free, easy and less bias information from customers and
suppliers. Using a supplier's website, forums, facebook etc.,
consumers are capable of making well informed, considered, 'rational'
decisions, and choose to pass on 'evangelise' or condemn a business,
brand or product. Today's consumer has ever increasing power and
influence in the marketplace.
Today's consumer
culture has changed dramatically - what Consumers' desire to be, how
they are informed about commodities, how they are informed about and
express 'themselves' is changing at the speed of the internet. What
will stay constant is the Consumers' need to 'consume their selves'.