Vance Packard explores the large scale use of psychiatry and social sciences to channel the consumers thinking and purchase decision.
The appeals used a “Hidden”. This in-depth approach is used to affect the consumers’ daily acts of consumption. More than two – thirds of advertising is based on motivation analysis. Motivation research gives starting explanations for so many of our daily habits, why consumers behave the way they do. The hidden weaknesses of consumers are probed and these are manipulated to influence behavior. Advertisers see consumer as a bundle of daydreams, hidden yearnings, guilt complexes, irrational emotional blockages. Advertisers are symbol manipulators and see consumers as docile in responding to this manipulation of symbols and stir consumers into action.
Advertisers are able to manipulate consumer by using psychiatrists and social scientists as consultants and by motivation research. Motivation research seeks to learn what motivates people in making choices. It uses techniques to reach the unconscious or subconscious mind because preferences are determined by factors of which the consumer is not conscious. Housewives buy cosmetics for ‘hope’, consumers buy car for prestige, consumers buy oranges for vitality.
The average consumer has more spending money. People have usable durables. Waiting for these to wear out and be obsolete will lead to unsold stocks. Marketing conventions tried to find out how best to stimulate consumers more and more. Ad men began talking of the desirability of creating psychological obsolescence. So ad men created dissatisfaction with the old and outmoded. Again, what is making ad men to use powerful tools of persuasion (Motivation Research) is increased standardization. Brands are all more or less the same. The differences are trivial or non-existent. This rapid diminishing product difference resulted in more and more penetrating persuasion technique, consumer-catching techniques.
The appeals used a “Hidden”. This in-depth approach is used to affect the consumers’ daily acts of consumption. More than two – thirds of advertising is based on motivation analysis. Motivation research gives starting explanations for so many of our daily habits, why consumers behave the way they do. The hidden weaknesses of consumers are probed and these are manipulated to influence behavior. Advertisers see consumer as a bundle of daydreams, hidden yearnings, guilt complexes, irrational emotional blockages. Advertisers are symbol manipulators and see consumers as docile in responding to this manipulation of symbols and stir consumers into action.
Advertisers are able to manipulate consumer by using psychiatrists and social scientists as consultants and by motivation research. Motivation research seeks to learn what motivates people in making choices. It uses techniques to reach the unconscious or subconscious mind because preferences are determined by factors of which the consumer is not conscious. Housewives buy cosmetics for ‘hope’, consumers buy car for prestige, consumers buy oranges for vitality.
The average consumer has more spending money. People have usable durables. Waiting for these to wear out and be obsolete will lead to unsold stocks. Marketing conventions tried to find out how best to stimulate consumers more and more. Ad men began talking of the desirability of creating psychological obsolescence. So ad men created dissatisfaction with the old and outmoded. Again, what is making ad men to use powerful tools of persuasion (Motivation Research) is increased standardization. Brands are all more or less the same. The differences are trivial or non-existent. This rapid diminishing product difference resulted in more and more penetrating persuasion technique, consumer-catching techniques.