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Subject: "RE: Consumer is king?" Previous topic | Next topic
Nettrice
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Wed Jun-01-05 08:15 AM

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24. "RE: Consumer is king?"
In response to In response to 23


  

          

>There is no more doubt that advertisement has changed our
>daily landscape. Everywhere we look and read, we get saturated
>with ads competing for attention, sometimes on different
>mediums. That much is obvious. Where there is disagreement is
>on how good it is.

Well films such as Super Size Me make it all too clear how ads are usually not pro-consumer. The campaign to make people consume more often has disastrous results and food is just one of several products that are pushed via ads. It usually has less to do with what a consumer wants and more to do with the product...often (not always) based on corporate interests.

For example, take the United Fruit Co. Prior to 1870, bananas were unknown in the United States. The first bananas were imported to the U.S. in 1870 and just 28 years later, Americans in the U.S. were consuming over 16 million bunches a year. If you take a look at the ads of the time, several print ads were placed all over the U.S. persuading Americans to eat bananas. There is no disputing the health benefits of eating bananas but it was not consumer demand that drove Minor Keith to construct a railroad in Costa Rica in 1871. His project cost hundreds of lives, including the lives of his family. Keith was a guy who would do anything to advance his own interests. While Keith was building the railroad in Costa Rica he was also executing a much bigger plan. As construction progressed, he planted bananas on the land easements to either side of the tracks. The bananas flourished and with the railroad completed it was possible to economically transport the bananas to eager markets in the United States and Europe.

This same scenario applies to tobacco and later food, including fast food, junk food. PR people took some of the same methods used during the 1870s to push bananas on the public, not because they were good for them but because an entreprenuer wanted to do business in South America. For more info check out: http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm

Edward Bernays was at the forefront of this kind of marketing:

"Bernays liked to cultivate an image as a supporter of feminism and other liberating ideas, but his work on behalf of the United Fruit Company had consequences just as evil and terrifying as if he'd worked directly for the Nazis. The Father of Spin sheds new and important light on the extent to which the Bernays' propaganda campaign for the United Fruit Company (today's United Brands) led directly to the CIA's overthrow of the elected government of Guatemala.

The term "banana republic" actually originated in reference to United Fruit's domination of corrupt governments in Guatemala and other Central American countries. The company brutally exploited virtual slave labor in order to produce cheap bananas for the lucrative U.S. market. When a mildly reformist Guatemala government attempted to reign in the company's power, Bernays whipped up media and political sentiment against it in the commie-crazed 1950s." - from http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html

So we go from eating bananas to anti-communism. We can see, in the case, how PR was used not only to persuade consumers to eat bananas but also to support the building of an empire and this idea spread. Many (not all) of the larger corporations that exist today were inspired by the guys who built the UFCO empire. Beginning at around the turn of the century, Americans saw the rise of the mass media and "its role in creating a "virtual public" which was "defined increasingly by its vulnerable condition of isolation and spectatorship. Readers of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines were witnesses to society, no longer within the public square, but from the sanctuary of their parlors." These "webs of communications" became "modern pipelines of persuasion," exploited first by Progressive reformers, then by corporate and government propagandists with the goal of managing an increasingly restive public." - from PR!

>The proper question, I propose, should not be "should we let
>ads continue to control us ?", but rather "what makes people
>suggestible, and some not ?". I would say that this is in no
>small part due to one's epistemic beliefs. Someone who accepts
>readily the beliefs of the people and the media surrounding
>him, will be more likely to "buy" into marketing rhetoric.
>Someone who is more rational would be more likely to see
>advertising information thru a more objective light.

So what is the education or environs that promotes such rational thinking?

>Ads exist because they profit, and they profit because people
>buy their premises. Yet they do not provide much information,
>but rather concentrate on the superficial. Why this situation
>exists is a psychological and memetic question, not a social
>question.

But it really is a social issue.

<--- Blame this lady for Nutty.

  

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more on how marketers co-opt black culture... [View all] , PulpHustler, Sun May-29-05 12:30 AM
 
Subject Author Message Date ID
love the liner note for missy elliot...
May 29th 2005
1
opt out
May 30th 2005
2
can't..
May 31st 2005
8
RE: love the liner note for missy elliot...
May 30th 2005
5
      minority marketers and advertisers everywhere feel like they're getting ...
May 31st 2005
9
dope article
May 30th 2005
3
dawg, I didn't know this was your book
May 30th 2005
4
RE: dawg, I didn't know this was your book
Jun 01st 2005
22
All I DO is shit on urban marketing goons.
May 30th 2005
6
Just added your book to my wish list on Amazon
May 30th 2005
7
could someone..
May 31st 2005
10
Because Black folks are getting the shortest end
May 31st 2005
11
RE: Because Black folks are getting the shortest end
May 31st 2005
12
      RE: Because Black folks are getting the shortest end
May 31st 2005
13
           RE: Because Black folks are getting the shortest end
May 31st 2005
15
           Consumer is king?
May 31st 2005
19
                RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 01st 2005
23
                    
                          RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 01st 2005
25
                               RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 01st 2005
26
                                    RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 01st 2005
27
                                         RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 01st 2005
30
                                              RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 02nd 2005
31
                                                   RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 02nd 2005
32
                                                        RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 02nd 2005
37
                                                             RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 03rd 2005
57
                                                                  RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 03rd 2005
58
                                                                       RE: Consumer is king?
Jun 05th 2005
60
           I agree
May 31st 2005
18
it's another form of blameshifting
May 31st 2005
14
i sorta got the vibe...
May 31st 2005
16
exactly.
May 31st 2005
17
Here's a site for you
May 31st 2005
20
reality...somehow?!?
Jun 01st 2005
21
nothing is wrong with it
Jun 01st 2005
28
      RE: nothing is wrong with it
Jun 01st 2005
29
           @ the end of the day though
Jun 02nd 2005
34
                RE: @ the end of the day though
Jun 02nd 2005
36
                RE: @ the end of the day though
Jun 02nd 2005
38
                seriously, u are in full &quot;whining&quot; mode right now
Jun 02nd 2005
39
                     RE: seriously, u are in full &quot;whining&quot; mode right now
Jun 02nd 2005
41
                     RE: seriously, u are in full &quot;whining&quot; mode right now
Jun 02nd 2005
44
                     RE: seriously, u are in full &quot;whining&quot; mode right now
Jun 02nd 2005
42
                you're right, black people wouldn't eat at McDonalds or drink Kool-Aid
Jun 02nd 2005
40
                     you are using terrible examples
Jun 02nd 2005
43
                          RE: you are using terrible examples
Jun 02nd 2005
45
                          who is"they"?
Jun 02nd 2005
48
                               RE: who is"they"?
Jun 02nd 2005
50
                                    so go respond to her
Jun 02nd 2005
52
                                    are you blind...
Jun 03rd 2005
56
                                         so why are you responding about it in me & suave's convo?
Jun 03rd 2005
59
                                    Nope
Jun 05th 2005
66
                          no, *these* are terrible examples:
Jun 02nd 2005
47
                               RE: no, *these* are terrible examples:
Jun 02nd 2005
49
                                    RE: no, *these* are terrible examples:
Jun 02nd 2005
51
                                         RE: no, *these* are terrible examples:
Jun 03rd 2005
54
                                              RE: no, *these* are terrible examples:
Jun 03rd 2005
55
                it ain't my argument, but i can't bite my lip
Jun 05th 2005
61
                     RE: it ain't my argument, but i can't bite my lip
Jun 05th 2005
63
                     RE: it ain't my argument, but i can't bite my lip
Jun 06th 2005
67
                          I'm reading
Jun 06th 2005
70
                               RE: I'm reading
Jun 07th 2005
72
                                    RE: I'm reading
Jun 07th 2005
74
                                         RE: I'm reading
Jun 10th 2005
75
                                              RE: I'm reading
Jun 10th 2005
76
                     you should have just bit that lip.
Jun 05th 2005
64
                          you're right....i should have
Jun 06th 2005
68
                               Good one
Jun 06th 2005
69
                               hopeless rant...
Jun 06th 2005
71
                               RE: you're right....i should have
Jun 07th 2005
73
RE: more on how marketers co-opt black culture...
Jun 02nd 2005
33
And there you have it.
Jun 02nd 2005
35
      My Two Cents...
Jun 02nd 2005
46
           Co-sign all of this.....
Jun 03rd 2005
53
           RE: My Two Cents...
Jun 05th 2005
62
           Co-sign on the delegation of personal responsibility!
Jun 05th 2005
65

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