Merchants of Cool and the Happiness Machine: shaping a consumer society

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Marketing is like fire, Robert Cialdini says in his book, “Inside Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion.” Whether you believe in it or know how to use it or not, fire can cook your dinner or burn your fingers.

Cialdini reminds readers that he intends people to use the principles he describes in an ethical way, and that we need to learn about them in order to protect ourselves from those who use them unethically.

FreeDocumentaries.org is a new site still in beta that lists a number of interesting documentaries about a range of topics, including several that explore the origins of public relations and market research, and how they are used by corporations and governments to sell products and control the masses.

Happiness Machines

Happiness Machines is a BBC production that examines the life of Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud who is credited with inventing the public relations profession in the 1920s.

Edward Bernays used Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. From celebrity endorsements and outrageous PR stunts to eroticizing the motorcar, Bernays was the architect of many techniques of mass-consumer persuasion. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence, ‘torches of freedom.’

Bernays’ ability to influence people by engaging their personal desires and motivations was more than just a great way to sell consumer goods – it was a new political idea of how to control the masses. Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels was a fan of Bernays’ ideas, as was the CIA.

According to his daughter Ann, Bernays thought the masses were stupid. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

You can watch Happiness Machines free online at FreeDocumentaries.Org. The entire 58 minute episode streamed in smoothly over my cable connection.

Merchants of Cool

Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation of teens America has ever seen–larger, even, than the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom generation. Last year, America’s teens spent $100 billion, while influencing their parents’ spending to the tune of another $50 billion.

But marketing to teens isn’t as easy as it sounds. Marketers have to find a way to seem real: true to the lives and attitudes of teenagers; in short, to become cool themselves. To that end, they search out the next cool thing and have adopted an almost anthropological approach to studying teens and analyzing their every move as if they were animals in the wild.

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GAIA GRAPHICS & ASSOCIATES
…creative by nature
www.gaiagraphics.com
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