Seminar 1 - Design, Pyschoanalysis and Consumerism

The Century of the Self - Part 1 'Happiness Machines'

The seminar in which we watched this documentary raised many interesting and significant points about consumerism, Sigmund Freud and Edward Bernays. Their contribution to the creative industries changed, both directly and indirectly, have changed the way we create and view.
Some important points made during the documentary were - 

• Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew) was integral to the developments in modern consumerist society. Using Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theories about the unconscious mind, he was able to manipulate the masses into buying, based on their unconscious desires. 
• Bernays became interested in the idea of being able to control the masses using propaganda after seeing the effect it had at the Peace Conference in Paris which he attended with Woodrow Wilson. He believed if you could use propaganda for war, you could use it even more effectively for peace. 
• Bernays coined the term 'public relations'. He wanted a new phrase that dispelled the negative connotations possessed by 'propaganda', thanks to Nazi Germany and the inciting of hatred using the technique. 
• Bernays was responsible for breaking the taboo of women smoking in public, by creating one his first major campaigns 'Torches of Freedom'. He developed the campaign by utilising the ideas put forward by psychoanalyst AA Brill, who theorised that the cigarette was actually a phallic symbol that represented male sexual power. Bernays was advised that challenging this idea would persuade women to smoke, as women would then have their own penises. This was the first campaign to tap into unconscious desires and emotions, because 'Torches of Freedom' was a positive, emotive phrase. 
• Bernays realised that products could be linked to their emotional desires and feelings. He engaged in linking products to an ideal, through advertising and encouraging people to aspire to a specific lifestyle. 
• 'False needs' were created by the advertising and public relations industry to combat the overproduction crisis. Bernays was at the heart of this. 
• Bernays engineered the strategy of using famous actresses to sell products to women, which is still employed to this day. By relating someone who is idolised to a specific product, you create a false sense that you can attain their lifestyle in some way.  He was also able to link products to the idea of expressing personality and inner self.
• Product placement was also pioneered by Bernays, which acted as a way of synergising the separate products and clients he was representing, again creating a specific lifestyle which was to be aspired to by the common man.
• Sigmund Freud was introduced to America by his nephew, who began to promote and capitalise on his writings, which aided Freud for a time, until Bernays suggested that Freud write an article for Cosmopolitan, which he thought to be an abominable idea, which I'm sure he felt compromised his ethics.
• Freud discovered that our unconscious, aggressive and primal instincts could be so easily triggered when in crowds, developing the idea of a 'mob mentality'. Freud was incredibly pessimistic about humans and society. This led to leading psychologists developing techniques that were designed to guide against our aggressive and primal instincts surfacing, thus technically creating a safe democracy and a stable society, which became known as the 'engineering of consent'.   

The theories put forward about advertising and the unconscious are probably best displayed through cigarette advertising. 

Benson and Hedges Cigarette Advertising

(Where do you even begin with an advert like this, so laden with suggestiveness that it borders on the ridiculous.)

To begin with, the primary image we see is a glamorous couple. The female has her gaze fixed on the male, whilst the male looks into the camera with a possibly smug expression. His hands are placed carefully on the female's back. Several things are connoted by this image, without the anchorage of text.  The first is that of the aspirational lifestyle, which is linked to the idea of appealing to the unconscious desires of the viewer. Someone who sees this advert are being forced, whether they realise it or not, to link the idea of glamour to smoking cigarettes.
I assume that the key demographic for Benson and Hedges is male, as it is a man who plays the active role in this advert, whilst the female is blonde, slim and attractive, but passive. She appears enamoured by the male, and her facial expression suggests that the male holds a sexual power over her. Again, this links to the unconscious desires. In reality, this man and woman would be in two different leagues in terms of attractiveness, which suggests a number of things in this advert. One is that any man who buys a pack of Benson and Hedges will become irresistible to a desirable female, but on a more primal level, the male holds a sexual power over the female, both in this advert and in everyday life. It also reinforces the idea that the cigarette is a symbol of the phallus, and of male sexual power.
The use of the words 'hard' and 'soft' in the advert are designed to be playful and suggestive in a manner that is more obvious to the viewer. The phrasing though, also links to another level of the advert.
Thanks to some research into this ad, I discovered that the use of this phrasing, and a certain other part of the image, is actually designed to play into the unconscious fears of a male.
The phrase 'if you got crushed in the clinch with your soft pack, try a hard pack' in fact refers in some way to sexual/performance anxiety. Looking closely at the female's back, and the careful placement of the male's hand, the way the lighting has been retouched creates a phallus that the male is holding.
The man's seemingly smug expression can also be challenged here. Instead of communicating his pride, he is in fact communicating a level of nervousness about the current situation. The phrasing further anchors this unconscious anxiety, suggesting that man is 'soft', failing to become erect. As a man views this advert, and becomes anxious, he believes irrationally that smoking a 'hard' pack of cigarettes will prevent the situation being alluded to. It also works on the premise that cigarettes were marketed as a way to relieve stress and anxiety, so by creating this particular sense of anxiety which is deeply entrenched in the male psyche, it boosts the sales by enhancing this false need for a relaxant.

This subliminal messaging has become rife in modern adverts, and more often than not can be linked to unconscious sexual desires.