Advertisement & Consumption: Modern Day Ritual?

As time has passed, our focus has shifted from religion to consumption. Towns used to be centered around churches as the largest building-- now churches are centered around us, and massive office buildings dominate cityscapes. Religion has become more centered to our convenience than in the past and plays a lesser role. Is consumption/advertisement in some ways like a modern day secular ritual for Americans?

The purpose of religious rituals from an evolutionary standpoint was to help hold members of a group together. According to costly signaling theory, a ritual requires a set of costly behaviors that demonstrate the person has, essentially, genuinely bought in to the religion. The act of an individual performing ritual actions sends signals to other members about their adherence to the group, and their following of societal values. Rituals also re-enact a religion's mythologies, reinforcing the strength of the shared myth on the whole of the group.

How similar do you think consumption might be to ritual from this perspective?

Child-targeted ads build the foundation for consumption early in life, enforcing consumption as a set behavior and societal value. Not necessarily unlike religious instruction that would raise a person to live their lives in a socially-cohesive way. Also, buying a brand is like buying in to a set of mythology, as what may be what makes one product different from another (ex: Coke vs. Pepsi). Additionally, the costs of purchasing one type of product sends signals about themselves compared to others, as well.

While it appears advertisement/consumption has many similarities to religion, what do you think might be the comparison's limits? Do you think the difference between advertisement/consumption and religion might be degree, or is there something fundamentally different? Is religion especially distinct, or are all things just ideas?

Whose health do we compromise on?

Maeli wrote an interesting blog about cigarette marketing and it reminded me of the ban on flavored tobacco in 2009.

In 2009, the FDA called for a ban on flavored cigarettes, such as candy- and clove-flavored cigarettes, as they can be more attractive to teenaged users. Specifically excluded from the category of flavored tobacco were menthol (mint-flavored) cigarettes. They are still legal today, despite them being far more popular among teenagers than other flavors, including 80% of smoking African-American teenagers (and 23% of whites). African-American youth are also the targets of more aggressive tobacco advertisement.

The results of a Harvard study concluded that tobacco companies carefully manipulate the amount of menthol in their cigarettes according to age group they wish to attract. The minty flavor also makes the smoke easier to inhale deeper, increasing its addictiveness. Given this information, it seems odd that menthols wouldn't be banned.



The exclusion of Menthol cigarettes from the ban was intended to garner the support of company Philip Morris, which produces Menthol Marlboro, and without its support the bill might not have had the political power to pass.

However, others have argued the exclusion is somewhat racist. After all, the purpose of the "flavor ban" was to prevent America's youth from smoking, and African Americans not only prefer menthol but also disproportionately suffer from lung cancer.

Why are those with the most need the ones we're making political compromises on?

Selling Ideas

The human mind is a resource, and the exchange of all ideas (including religion, scientific ideas, social norms, concern over a current event, pop culture, etc.) resembles product distribution (and natural selection). The difference between a long-lasting idea and a passing fad relies on a lot of things. A lasting idea needs to reach a lot of people, be repeated, seem useful and beneficial to the host of the idea, be self-perpetuating, be self-reinforcing, be easy to remember, and be clear and memorable enough to spread by word of mouth or through other common interpersonal communication. [link] (Memetic Evolution)

Advertisement exemplifies the "ideal" long-lasting idea: it is broadcast on tv at many times, which reaches a lot of people and repeats; it changes the way we develop and think about products in relation to our identity and worth, which makes them seem more useful; it is often unfulfilling after the purchase or we think it fulfills us, making the purchase of products self-perpetuating; there are creations of new and updated products all the time, which further self-perpetuates consumption; and it utilizes catchy and humorous phrases and imagery, making it easy to remember and spread by word of mouth.

We've all grown up with advertisements ourselves, so we may not think much of the fact that children watch so much tv and advertisement annually. But considering how advertisements are given to people in a way ideal for hammering ideas in to them, their consequences are overlooked far too much.

How can parents stand a chance against advertising businesses if these businesses are, at the root of it, communicating with children more effectively than most other people/mediums can? If the average American child watches 6 hours of tv a day while their parents are busy doing work, perhaps they probably spend more time with the tv than they do talking to their parents. Even if parents don't buy their kids every toy, their kids are still growing up in a society that unhealthily associates success with consumption, and as a result, kids' minds are still being shaped to value the same things to a large extent.

"Nominalization"

In one sense, sales and marketing is about getting people what they want and need. After all, in order to be a successful businessperson, it's best to be flexible to your client's desires. However, I see psychologically manipulative advertisement as a very bad thing, because for the children watching it, associating toys and accessories with social acceptance, fun, and coolness, we create false needs for pointless material items. Increasing the 'nag factor' is essentially the same thing as making children perceive that they need an item so much that they have to nag their parents for it. The greater the need, the more nagging.

As a society, we tend to spend a lot of times on material items, which can be excessive and unfulfilling, instead of more important matters. We also tend to focus more on destinations and outcomes than processes, even though processes and paths are often a lot more important and enjoyable than the results of things. Processes make up the vast majority of life, not outcomes.

A 'nominalization' is a type of word that is made when turning an adjective or verb in to a noun. This conversion has the effect of simplifying a complex process (like "to educate" or "to become happy") in to a single word (like "education" or "happiness"), and as a result leaves a lot of information out.

This isn't a bad thing for words-- it's just a useful function of language. But I think that when we value destinations, objects, and outcomes-- be it through being manipulated in to thinking we need a product as if it will build our identity, or through evaluating the process of education with arbitrary standardized tests, we "nominalize" entire, important processes in our lives. Happiness is simplified to the outcome of consumption, and education is simplified to arbitrary numerical outcomes that don't evaluate the actual processes of learning, but rather discourage good processes of learning.

And as we've talked about in class, we've increased focus on destinations also in a more literal/physical sense-- the amount of walking we do in a week is shocking because we have to drive to a destination and remain there more than ever. This is a result of increased convenience and changed technology-- you don't have to go far to get what you need. Overall, the shift towards the importance of endpoints is interesting.

What do you do after you reach an endpoint (product, wealth, goal, score)? All of a sudden, you need a new endpoint (more product, more wealth, another goal, next year's round of scores). And if you don't reach an endpoint, how do you feel? How much value do you give endpoint-oriented success/failure? If you give it too much value, you may just end up miserable and less productive.