A central element to remember in any marketing endeavor is the culture in which one plans to conduct business. Consumerism is essentially the general belief that the purchase of products will lead inevitably to a sense of happiness and fulfillment in life. According to Kanner, “It’s the meta-message that you can solve all of life’s problems by purchasing the right products” (Kersting, 2004). The concept of the consumer culture is built on the idea that the buyer defines herself through the things she buys at the same time that the things she buys help to shape and determine what will be made available in the future. Within this culture, more emphasis is placed on the common ideal than on individual likes and dislikes. When products don’t satisfy cravings for fulfillment or acceptance, those subscribing to the consumer culture run out to purchase more items to fill the gap. “Objects are now carrying the status weight that blood and religion and pigment used to carry.” This is to say that [consumers] not only ‘buy up’ but wear their wealth on their sleeve — or chest … labels no longer hid discreetly inside the collar. Today, Tommy Hilfiger’s prized name can take up most of the shirt” (Kulman, 2004). Marketing efforts can be increased tremendously when one understands some of these basic concepts.
It is through the philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure that we have the term ‘binary oppositions,’ which became a major component of the Structuralist movement and frequently directs advertising efforts in the West. According to Saussure, we define each unit or idea not necessarily by what it is, but instead in terms of what it is not (Saussure, 2006). “Essentially, the concept of the binary opposition is engendered by the Western propensity to organize everything into a hierarchical structure; terms and concepts are related to positives or negatives, with no apparent latitude for deviation” (Fogarty, 2005). In addition to allowing no middle ground between terms, binary oppositions tend to elevate one term over the other, such that one becomes the desirable while the other becomes the opposite and undesirable. However, it is largely through these binary oppositions that the viewer/reader is ‘positioned’ in the text to take a specific perspective and that serves to reinforce or break down existing stereotypes. Although sometimes these binary opposites are presented plainly, such as in the simple slogan ‘rich or poor’, they can also be presented in very subtle ways within our entertainment programming. “What will not be so immediately obvious at this stage is what this understanding means at a deeper level, for not just meaning but feeling – emotion – that becomes involved in the generation of meaning. In the case of poverty and wealth, you will recognize that we tend to judge a poor person negatively simply because they are not wealthy; we might well feel sympathy for that person, but in very real ways, we will hold to our deeply conditioned negative response to the idea of poverty and transfer this negativity to the poor person” (Campsell, 2006). When marketing in the East, it is important to remember that while these same sort of oppositions seem to be in place, they may not be as clearly delineated from each other as they are in the West. For example, women may be considered less than men, but they may be considered to have other value not typically considered in the West. Understanding these cultural differences can make the difference between a successful campaign and a tremendous failure.
Within this particular field, it is also helpful to know some of the concepts behind Orientalism. Orientalism is a term used to define the way in which the English-speaking world sought to contain images of the Eastern nations within a single, non-threatening image (Said, 1979). However, when people actually started traveling to the Orient, they found not a simple backward mono-cultured people, but instead a wide variety of ‘orientals’ with vast differences in lifestyles from one region to another that were sometimes not so different from their own and at other times much more advanced. Bruce Bawer (2002) illustrates how the concept of the ‘other’ existed within the general culture as it concerned those who lived within it as well as those who lived without it. “Ultimately, Said’s thesis [in Orientalism] amounts to a truism: that people look at the ‘other’ through their own eyes, and tend to judge alien cultures by their own culture’s standards” (621). Marshall Berman then applies these ideas to the modern human: “they are moved at once by a will to change – to transform both themselves and their world – and by a terror of disorientation and disintegration, of life falling apart” (Berman, 1982), indicating that it is a process of tearing apart. Anne McClintock (1995) argues in her book that imperialism invented the concept of the other as a necessary means of self-definition. “The invention of race in the urban metropoles … became central not only to the self-definition of the middle class but also to the policing of the ‘dangerous classes’: the working class, the Irish, Jews, prostitutes, feminists, gays and lesbians, criminals, the militant crowd and so on” (5). Thus, the other is the mysterious element that exists in every other person we meet as well as within ourselves and we are never able to escape the self enough to gain a pure understanding of it.
Finally, when making the appeal to the consumer, it is necessary to know something about semiotics. This refers to the process of analyzing the ‘signs’ of a given culture for indications of meaning at varying levels. “Semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification” (Barthes, 1964). Semiotics are delivered through the primary elements of signifiers, signified and sign. The sign is the compound element formed by the signifier and the signified. The signifier is “the form which the sign takes” while the signified is “the concept it represents” (Chandler, 2006). Thus, for every image and every word, there is some further meaning, the form of which is interpreted based upon its use in combination with other symbols forming a denotation and connotation. These elements combine to suggest a deeper ideological myth. “Barthes’ notion of myth is that of a socially constructed reality that is passed off as natural. Myth is a mode of signification in which the signifier is stripped of its history, the form is stripped of its substance, and then it is adorned with a substance that is artificial, but which appears entirely natural” (Ryder, 2004). Through the use of semiotics, advertisements quickly identify who is supposed to pay attention to an ad and who is excluded thus delineating the other and making a direct appeal to the consumer who wants to belong.
References
Barthes, Roland. (1964). Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang.
Bawer, Bruce. (2002). “Edward W. Said, Intellectual.” The Hudson Review. Vol. 5, N. 4, pp. 620-634.
Berman, Marshall. (1982). All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Penguin Books.
Campsell, Steve. (2006). “Binary Opposition.” English Biz. Web.
Chandler, Daniel. (2006). Semiotics for Beginners. Wales: The University of Wales.
Fogarty, Sorcha. (2005). “Binary Oppositions.” Literary Encyclopedia. France: University College Cork.
Kerstings, Karen. (2004). “Driving Teen Egos — And Buying — Through Branding.”APA Online.
Kulman, Linda. (2004). “Our Consuming Interest.” U.S. News and World Report. Vol. 136, N. 23: 58.
McClintock, Anne. (1995). Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York and London: Routledge.
Ryder, Martin. (2004). “Semiotics: Language and Culture.” Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics. New York: Macmillan Reference. Web.
Said, Edward. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Saussure, Ferdinand. (2006). Writings in General Linguistics. Oxford University Press.