Reflection on The Persuaders

As I watched the The Persuaders, I was absolutely engrossed. The ways in which advertising has become so integrated and assimilated into our culture is startling. I was so fascinated with how ads are marketed to people. There is such an amazing depth in which advertisers try and sell a product. Advertisers capture the very essence of people, they get under their skin, and never before have I seen human emotions and interaction analyzed in such a way. For me,  it is a shame to find out so much about people, and only use that information to sell something. One thing that really surprised me, was the role that brands and brand loyalty play in peoples’ lives and also how advertising is integrated into entertainment. Not only are there commercials, but the advertising is also inside of the entertainment that we watch.

I'm more than a car, I'm a Chevy. That means something to you, right?

In order to create brand loyalty, advertisers in The Persuaders actually studied cults in order to know how to create a deep, loyal following to their own brand. How crazy is that? And even crazier, it worked. Brand loyalty plays on the human and societal need to belong. The brands just don’t try to sell a product they try to sell meaning. Brands provide a ready made identity and provide people with a transference of feelings from the emotions about an idea to the product. One advertiser went as far as to create a lovemark, or a brand with loyalty beyond reason. These lovemarks create emotional connections, and move from a brand to an experience.  This was one of the methods used by the airline company Song.

Song’s advertising would have exploded today, I believe that Song was on the right track with using the brand as an adjective, as an inner state of mind, but with the advent of Facebook and apps and the whole social media / app sensation, I think that Song would have had more of a chance to become big. Today,  I think that Song would need more, as hard as they have worked, as much as they have researched, and as good as what they campaign is, I don’t think that in 2012, 8 years later, that it would suffice. Airlines are increasing in price, and I don’t know if Song could maintain their promises and advertising in today’s world.  Though there are so much more advertising opportunities (social media/ hyper façades), they have to do it first.

The integration of advertising in entertainment also shocked me. I think that for advertising, that it is BRILLANT.  Yes, it is product placement, but in movies such as Cast Away (Fed-Ex) and I Am Sam (Starbucks), The Persuaders argue that we grow to see brands as heroes and characters, they take on human traits and we care about them as we would other humans. We have that transference of feelings and emotions. As we personify our pets and our cars, we personify other products and through that we give them significance.

Advertising, I have to disagree with the movie by saying that it does not destroy our society, but it defines us.  Some people may view that as a bad thing, but I see it for what it is. These products are no longer just products, they are a part of us, we give them meaning. It doesn’t matter that the meaning is fabricated, or that it is intended to appeal to us in the first place. It only matter how people see it, products have no inherent emotional qualities, but now they are a part of who we. It is not a surprise to anyone that to be American, is to be in a consumeristic society. But is it? Just because ads aim to sell, or are fabricated, doesn’t mean that the ideas they carry or the concepts they try to sell aren’t real. 

In Summary....

The article that we read, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is just an extension of what we learned in Codes of Gender, which are both laced with the ideas of Erving Goffman.  In the article, it is mentioned that The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life describes social actions in relationship to how actors perform on a stage.

In relation to the Codes of Gender video, I think that out of the main concepts that Goffman describes in his article that manner and appearance encompass the ideas presented in Codes of Gender.

The concept of Appearance portrays the to the audience the social statuses of the performer. He says that appearance also tells us that dress and props serve to communicate gender, status, occupation, age, and personal commitments.  Appearance was often a focal point in Codes of Gender, because props and dress identify actors in the ads to us. Therefore we recognize the appearances attributed to each gender and how they are used to marker ads to a particular audience or are made to make the audience relate/ feel emotions about the advertisements. Even more so, I think that even Appearance can go even further in the direction of not only dress and props, but even inherent physical traits as well.  In stage and screen acting, actors who often look naturally like the part that the appearance is being ascribed to often are more accepted to the audience. The more that a person fills out a social role ( especially that of appearnce) the more there are accepted in any society.

In the article, Goffman presents the idea of Manner, or how an individual play the role and functions to warn the audience of how the performer will act or seek to act in a role. As example, Goffman says that adjectives like dominant, aggressive, receptive. Goffman also says that Manner can have inconsistencies and can be contradictory, when one does not present him or her self or behave in accordance to his social status or position. This was projected in the video when the ads of men in women’s usual advertising positions seemed to us as weird or unnatural.  Goffman also says that our appearance and manners are often contradictory, when was also apparent in the film, when the clip from the video showed the different ways in which the man was walking.  Even though the man performed the ultra masculine walk of John Wayne, he still was in controversy with his appearance with his already perceived femininity.

Walking Like John Wayne




The Birdcage

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