Sex and advertising: Retail therapy
Oct 15th, 2012 by josephluiz
I recently read an intriguing article about consumer phycology and how advertising has changed over the last century. Evidencing the historical development of advertising and how it changed in correlation to the understanding of consumer phycology. Ditcher’s believed “that marketplace decisions are driven by emotions and subconscious whims and fears, and often have little to do with the product itself.” His new ways of approaching advertising in the 50’s built his career and “was considered so successful that he was even accused of threatening America’s national well-being.”
However, the idea that I took away from this article was that products should be seen as a projection of the consumer. Meaning that the soul of the product must represent the image that each consumer is, or wants to be. It is a simple concept, but one that can make or break a product. A phone is a perfect example, it is an extension of who the consumer self image. More and more advertising is appealing to emotion, and at the time of this advertising revolution it was seen that “Americans [had] become the most manipulated people outside the Iron Curtain.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21541706