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Essay: Layers and features of advertising

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This dissertation will examine the layers of advertising; involving its structure, its effects but also its influences on society and humanity. As an advertising student I am very much interested in understanding the complex world of advertising and its power. As I believe it inevitably structures the ideologies of this world. To understand something is the master it. Therefore, to engage with the subject, this dissertation will be structured into three main chapters. First before most we must define advertising itself.
Being described as “the greatest art form of the 20th century” by Marshall McLuhan (McLuhan, 2019), advertising is an institution of various dimensions and roles. A force to be reckoned with certainly within society. August Comte, “saw society as a social organism possessing harmony of structure and function” (Mahendra Salunke, 2009). Karl Marx’s believed that the natural order of societies is through social change (Social Inequality , n.d.). There is an idea that advertising could be an agent of change, this could lead us to believe that it would be a necessity to society.
As for advertising, it is a form of communication, with the purpose to fix the attention of a targeted consumer, user, user or voter (etc.) to encourage him to adopt a desired behaviour. This could be the purchase of a product, election of a political personality or even perhaps incentive to save energy. Whatever our feelings towards advertising could be, it cannot leave us feeling indifferent. As it is everywhere and dresses our daily lives populating the imagination of consumers. The link between society and advertising is ubiquitous. Advertising is everywhere and influences society continually.
Religion used to be the opium of the people whereas now it is consumerism. Consumerism being the motor of our society and advertising the mechanic. Walter D. Scott refers to advertising as “the nervous system of the business world” thereby which “our nervous system is constructed to give us all the possible sensations from objects” (Scott, 1904). Thus the purpose of advertising is to correctly inform its clientele of products that could benefit to their needs.
Although, there is an art to selling something to an individual. Edward Bernays understood this concept all too well. During the 1920’s, the cigarette market was unstable, following a rapid consummation of tobacco during the First World War and in the early post-war years. By selling billions of cigarettes to the American army, tobacco companies had taken a decisive step of transforming the image of the cigarette. Whereas before the world war, cigars dominated the market. From the beginning of the twenties, the cigarette went from being the tobacco for cowards to the symbol of a virile America. Now cigarette companies wanted women to smoke as well, however it wasn’t considered ladylike for a woman to smoke at that time. So, they entrusted the mission to Bernays.
He analysed the situation and talked about his observations to a psychiatrist in New York who confirmed his suspicions: that a cigarette is for woman a phallic symbol which represents the power of man. Edward Bernays explained: “Cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and of male sexual power…Women would smoke because it was then that they’d have their own penises.” (Torches of freedom: Women and smoking propaganda – sociological images, 2012). Ergo in order to make women smoke, it was first necessary to make them symbolically conquer positions occupied by men. Bernays then decided to hire women to light up cigarettes during the Easter Sunday parade of 1929, which was a great marketing ploy which influenced women to smoke and broke down the social barriers for women smokers.
In 1957, in his book Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard uncovered just how influential psychology and behavioural science were becoming to advertising agencies. In a review of Packard’s book, the New York Times explains that, by using lessons from wartime propaganda as a launch pad, advertisers “were trying to puzzle out the reasons for impulsive and even self-destructive purchasing, then tailor images and packaging accordingly.” (Packard, 1957)
During this dissertation we will be analysing the selected quote into three parts creating 3 main chapters. The first will be discussing the use of psychology in advertising, the second exploring the perspectives of advertising as an institution and in a final part we will conduct a case study on luxury brands and to be precise a study on the Fyre Festival that took place in 2017.
Chapter 1: The use of Psychology in Advertising
“Advertising is psychologically intrusive; it aims to make people want a particular product. Advertising must be considered as one of the most influential institutions of twentieth century America.” (Baumeister, 1986)
To introduce this part, we must firstly define psychology itself. The Cambridge dictionary defines psychology as “the scientific study of the way the human mind works and how it influences behaviour, or the influence of a particular person’s character on their behaviour” (Dictionary). However how could this apply during the creation of advertisements?
We could invoke Freud’s definition. As a great founding father of psychoanalysis, he determines a model of the psyche composed of the “Id”, “Ego”, and the “Superego” (Stey, 2011).
These are supposedly the three main components that would make up an individual’s personality. As such the “Id”, could be described as the little devil that would try to persuade you from right and wrong. Specifically, it would represent Freud’s ‘Pleasure Principle’. The part of an individual’s personality that is composed of our unborn biological urges, which seeks out immediate gratification regardless of social values or consequences (Stey, 2011). This could immensely appeal to advertisers as it seeks to avoid pain and increase pleasure at any cost.
The other two segments, being the “superego” and the “ego”, are engaged in the art of decision making. The “superego” acting as the ‘moral police’ and the “ego” acting as the executive of the team (Stey, 2011). We analyse this concept more, later on in the chapter.
Now that we have identified which parts of the subconscious of the mind can be manipulated. How is it done? This would be through the art of persuasion.
There are many forms of persuasion techniques. Carl Hovland’s learning model of persuasion may be considered as one of the most important and influential (Elliot, 1991). This learning process is divided into 4 stages:
1. The message must attract the recipient’s attention.
2. The arguments in the message must be understood and comprehended.
3. The recipient must learn the arguments contained in the message and come to accept them as true.
4. We act on this learned knowledge and beliefs when there is an incentive to do so.
This learning model has proved itself useful in the design of effective communications. Leading into the 20th century, the major changes in social behaviour was due to the massive growth in mass communication. It consumed the western world making it evolve into the known consumer society of today.
Acknowledging the high development of communication, how could the learning model inevitably evolve? The model transformed as research continued to develop it, into the Yale model of communication (Banyard, Controversies in Psychology , 2003). Within the study of persuasive messages but also their effects on attitudes, five key factors are identified. Which would be:
• The source of the message: are they credible?
• The features of the message: how it is composed? (colourful? Clear and direct?)
• The medium used to put over the message: personal or through media?
• The target of the message: who is the recipient?
• The situation that the message is received in: where will the message be received?
This is all rather impersonal towards the consumer. However, from the observation of consumer behaviour (instead of theory), we can distinguish four features of the relationship between psychology and consumers. The first being developing a need, secondly noticing the product which is followed by its purchase, then the behaviour of the individual after the purchase. So, what would be the factors that influence us into buying products?
Digging into the reasoning of why we buy products would lead us all the way back to the second world war. According to Erik Barnouw, this would be after the Second World War as we enter a “consciousness industry”. This is where the idea that the consumption of products will solve every problem: “products seemed the key to success in business, romance, community status and the well-being of the nation. Problems ranging from headaches to loneliness to obesity to personal failure to dangerous addictions were solved by products” (Barnouw, 1999). This is essentially the main feature of contemporary consumer capitalism.
The consumer culture was introduced by America and was also possible thanks to what the French described as “les trentes glorieuses” which was a period of strong economic growth; a time of prosperity after the second world war. This economic system of the time sometimes referred to as Fordism guaranteed benefits for the consumer society.
Baudrillad examined the idea of consumption and put together a different aspect that the consumption of products had become a means of differentiation, not satisfaction. (Baudrillad, 1970). This is what Veblen refers to as “conspicuous consumption” meaning that the practice of consumption is not irrational but has purpose: social differentiation (Veblen, 1899).
This argument would back up the fact that there is now a difference between authentic needs and artificial needs. Products have added themselves to the ‘hierarchy of needs’. This theory of a hierarchy was one created by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” (Maslow, 1943). He represents this theory as a pyramid with 5 levels:
– Self-actualization – includes morality, creativity, problem solving, etc.
– Esteem – includes confidence, self-esteem, achievement, respect, etc.
– Belongingness – includes love, friendship, intimacy, family, etc.
– Safety – includes security of environment, employment, resources, health, property, etc.
– Physiological – includes air, food, water, sex, sleep, other factors towards homeostasis, etc.
The idea is that you work up the pyramid in stages to obtain ‘happiness’. We could say that products have added themselves to the sphere of belongingness in society. However how would this creation of necessity be explained?
Pierre Bordieu argues that it is taste and what he describes as habitus that explains the importance of consumption. Habitus, which are in fact habits, so a combination of taste, of ways of perceiving, of acting and of saying, and this will guide the choices of the individuals. Thus meaning the individual makes in a sense an unconscious act towards class distinction (Bourdieu, 1992). As the individual will make choices of products and taste will bring together individuals, creating a sense of belongingness. This means that nowadays the attachment to objects/products is in a way to create a sense of community. Inclusion.
On the other hand, it could be argued that the attachment we have today for example with our phones is one that a child would have with a teddy bear, this idea was arisen during a philosophy class during my education. So another factor would be for comfort and security. Continuing on the idea of phones, the IPhone when first coming out was defined as in a sense something that wasn’t truly needed. So how would it become the most needed necessity in society? That would be as a result to its promotion through advertising.
Bringing us back to the idea on how advertising would employ psychology, what would be the underlining theme on what makes us essentially buy products? That would be fear. This fear would be incorporated in ads themselves, this is also the exploitation of a basic human emotion: one to belong.
Vance Packard wrote in his popular expose entitled The Hidden Persuaders in 1957, that the producers of ads would engage in finding hidden meanings of things and what they would mean to the unconscious mind. Once the deepest motivations of an individual are uncovered an advertiser can create a campaign that would be quite powerful in the terms of persuasion.
Martin Lindstrom discovered that fear essentially overrides any other purchasing tool. “Contextual advertising, placing banners or click-bait that feed off recent user tracking, helps marketers stoke a sense of fear by creating urgency” (Tytyk, October).
According to Impact of Colour on Marketing, 90 percent of immediate judgments on products are determined by colour, colour can also be used in an attempt to elicit a specific emotional response from the viewer. Ads capitalize on the colour red and its ability to elicit urgency and an appetite (Tytyk, October).
This idea of creating urgency could be to do with the fact that we all have fears and anxieties that can be exploited, this is an underlining aspect of psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is the creation of Sigmund Freud. Its birth was brought by submitting himself to self-analysis. Through-which its definition was subjected to three things (freudfile.org, n.d.):
1. A method of investigating the mind and especially the unconscious mind;
2. A therapy of neurosis inspired by the above method;
3. A new self-standing discipline based on the knowledge gained from the application of the investigation method and clinical experiments.
Inlying in this theory is the concept that people live generally in conflict not just with others but with themselves. Such conflicts (anxieties, etc.) would arise during the developmental process during infancy, early fantasies and anxieties would be managed within the family setting but also with the start of subtle consumption. For example, in a childhood setting breast-feeding could perhaps be the first material form of consumption. This concept plays a part in what Freud described as the “Oedipus complex”, being the name of a Greek hero whom killed his father and slept with his mother.
Advertising in the future will become the mediator of where anxiety and desire play out. Conflict inherent in a healthy person will be present but “coped with”. This could be described as the art of life, in which a person will learn to manage conflict, by learning how to acknowledge on what we could describe as “good” (for instance, satisfying and meaningful – consumption).
On the other hand, for an unhealthy person, conflict and loss are not managed. Hence, resulting in the person substituting with what they perceive as “good” with addiction, greed, delusion or perhaps narcissism.
The difficulty would arise on what exactly would be classed as “good”. This is where the role of advertising becomes involved. Although, it is unclear as to whether advertising has in fact aided consumers towards “good” consumption. It is said that psychoanalysis is often described as the “key” to understanding and dealing with the hidden/’unconscious’ conflicts and motivations of an individual. Yet, a good deal is probably lost between the consumers’ motivation, the advertisers and even the consultants. We discover that the most dramatic compromises are due to, different ‘interior impulses’. Which would essentially be the creative effort or struggle to condense and resolve competing impulses in a symbolic manner. Advertising hence makes it easier to think goods into experiences.
What makes advertising most likely the most powerful institution in the world is not by its net worth but rather the way society and people bend in its constructed path. Nonetheless, this complex system seems to be faulty or perhaps became faulty as we aren’t fully aware of what the consequences of the consumer society may be. With the digital age on the rise, who’s truly in control of the influence made on consumers or better yet what would be their responsibilities.
Chapter 2: Perspectives on Advertising as an Institution
“By mid-century the country was spending more on advertising than on education or religion. Unlike other major social institutions like education and religion, advertising has a nearly complete “lack of institutional responsibility” – that is, it has “no motivation to seek the improvement of the individual or to impart qualities of social usefulness” (Baumeister, 1986)
An institution would be defined as representing a convention, an arrangement, or an answer to a problem considered important by the society. To start this part, we will firstly define advertising as an institution by using various definitions of it being so by multiple authors. This will thus give us a greater understanding of the various dimensions of advertising in the contemporary society.
According to David Potter, advertising would be “the distinctive institution of abundance, training people to act as consumers in an abundant economy, but without social responsibility to counter social control” (C H & Fryburger, 1960). Whereas Vincent Norris would suggest he saw “advertising emerging as an institution in the late nineteenth century with the rise of national advertising in an attempt to avoid price competition and seize market power from the dominant wholesalers” (Kim B. Rotzoll, 1996, p. 86).
This brings up the question whether advertising is purely an economical institution or something deeper – as something that would structure society with a complete lack of social and institutional responsibility.
Richard Holly & Morris Holbrook would address the vexing question as to what extent advertising mirrors or shapes our society. Pollay enlisted the “conventional wisdom” of major scholars to characterize advertising as a “distorted mirror” with troubling images. Holbrook found that advertising practices leads towards diversity, with relatively small consequences and produces an image of reasonable fidelity. (Kim B. Rotzoll, 1996, p. 86).
On a deeper level advertising would be questioned as being either a mirror of society or an agent of change. To answer this question, we’d need to better comprehend the ethics of the institution of advertising.
For starters, because of the pure nature of advertising it attracts criticism and controversies. People would suggest that advertising at its core is completely unethical due to its tactics to sell. These tactics would thus have consequences according to Pollay (1986), “due to its pervasiveness, stereotypical portrayals, manipulative and persuasive nature, preoccupation with materialism and consumption, frequent use of sex appeal and lack of information” (Taewon, 1999).
Benefits and limitations go hand in hand, which is the same in the case of advertising. Winston Fletcher depicts in his book “advertising, advertising” (Fletcher, 1999) that there are benefits produced by advertising, which he lists as such:
• It provides stimulating information.
• It facilitates choice and helps the consumer overcome the “information mountain”
• It increases the user’s satisfaction in using the product.
• It fosters competition and, thereby, reduces prices.
• It subsidies the media.
• It creates demand, which creates sales, which creates employment.
• It creates brands which provide the consumer with an assurance of quality, thereby justifying their price premium.
• It often makes a contribution to societal well-being – encouraging charitable donations, more careful driving, etc.
We perceive that these benefits are mainly to do with the economy, whereas from a societal stand-point Kotler argues that what consumers desire may not necessarily be good for them and that the long-term consequence may be that both consumers and society will suffer (Philip, 1972).
Shimp (1997) points out in several areas where advertising could be cause of negative effects in society itself. They are as follows (Yeshin, 2005, p. 13):
• Advertising is untruthful and deceptive, manipulative, offensive and in bad taste.
• It creates and perpetuates stereotypes.
• It encourages people to buy things they don’t really need.
• It plays upon fears and insecurities
This however doesn’t answer our question on what the core ethics of advertising would be as an institution. William Frankena (Yeshin, 2005, p. 17), defined ethics being a set of moral principles directed at enhancing societal well-being. More precisely two moral principles: beneficence – which concerns doing a good job; and justice – which is the practice of being fair.
Thanks to our findings on what effects advertising practices may have, we create an understanding that these practices have potentially harmful results for society. Zinkhan (1994) would suggest that actions that involve harmful effects would present a difficult set of moral choices (Yeshin, 2005, p. 17).
Nonetheless, how advertising would be evaluated should be measured within an understanding of our history. For example, when advertising was used more as a form of propaganda during the second world war with the wanting outcome for people to sign up or promote firearms.
As such we’d evaluate in context, with the now. A world of capitalism and thus it’s ever wanting desire to grow. The powerhouse’s potential goal could essentially be to actually reinforce materialism, cynicism, irrationality, selfishness and other undesirable outcomes. These results of advertising’s powerful and intrusive means of communication and persuasion promotes its capitalistic goals. We could hence describe advertising as the nervous system of the business world or “advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money out of it” (Stephen leacock) (Jennings, 2014, p. 447).
However, to do with analysing advertising in time context, would its evolution reflect as in mirror society at the time or be the cause of the evolution hence denominating itself as an agent of change.
Shimp (1997) claims ‘advertising reflects the rest of society and any indictment of advertising probably applies to society at large’ (Shimp, 2006, p. 64). This would mean that all the problems associated with advertising, the industry itself wouldn’t be to blame. It would actually be us. We would be to blame because if we don’t like an ad it would be as simple as not buying into it. If we were to respond (let’s say to a sexy ad) on the other hand, then that shows that advertising is only going in the direction it is because it would be what we want.
You could say that this is a supplementary function to advertising. Its cultural and ideological aspect to it. Meaning under the pretext of attracting sympathy by an allusion to the news, advertising preaches the ideology of the consumer society: progress, abundance, comfort, security, facility, credit, novelty, prestige, leisure, youth, femininity, eroticism, health, happiness…
This commercial instrument has become a cultural regulator. It is at the same time a mirror of society and its engine. In a polarized world of consumption, advertising is the manager of a collective pedagogy and engenders a popular culture. It always gives the illusion of a world without asperities. Its strength comes from what it does, the illusion of something more true than nature. It normalizes everything insidiously. It does not force anything, it seduces and captivates, by a gentle maternal manipulation. The strategy of desire is to fight the mentality of scarcity and guilt, that there are barriers to consumption. In a universe dedicated to consumption, advertising has become a social regulator.
Advertising has become the dominant discourse. It has taken the place of religion and public school. It dominates the press, politics and education. This conclusion creates the image that advertising is as slick as a snake. However, is it the grand manipulator that we think. What would be the consequences of “bad advertising”?
Chapter 3: Luxury Brands – Fyre Festival
“Thus advertising is an enormously powerful institution that is largely indifferent to its effects on humanity and society, except for its concern to get people to buy more things.” (Baumeister, 1986)
During this part, we will be conducting a case study on luxury brands. After doing a general analysis of luxury brands and their origin, we will explore a case study about a self-advertised luxury brand, so known as the ‘Fyre Festival’ by the brand Fyre, who exploited their clientele in an attempt to produce more finances.
The art of luxury consumption has existed throughout the centuries. This idea of possessing a luxury product somewhat boosts the prestige of the individual. Nowadays, the fact that people have more access to higher incomes, especially in the even higher social classes, have given birth to the possibility of mass luxury consumption. Current consumers are willing to offer considerably higher amounts of money for luxury products.
As we have already stated the idea of luxury and prestige go hand in hand. To more understand this concept of luxury we must firstly define all key terms. Deeter-Schmelz, Moore, and Goebel (2000) defined prestige preference as “an individual’s preference for shopping in clothing stores where the combination of patron status, store type and atmosphere, merchandise price, quality, branding, and fashion combine to create a particular prestige level” (Dr. Melika Husic, 2010 , p. 2). Zola explained the “democratization of luxury” (Barth, 1982, p. 115) with the large expansion of department stores. This is the phenomena of changes in society associated with increasing financial capability of households and changes in attitudes towards life. The trend of democratization of luxury is an opportunity for a large number of less affluent consumers to purchase goods considered as prestigious. Therefore, in essence what would be the features of a product of prestige?
On the basis of intercultural studies Dubois et al. (2001) were identified six facets of luxury:
1. Excellent quality –unique ingredients, components, finesse, crafts.
2. Very high price – expensive, elite.
3. Scarcity and uniqueness – restricted distribution, tailor-made.
4. Aesthetics and poly-sensuality –work of art, beauty.
5. Ancestral heritage and personal history – long history, tradition.
6. Superfluousness – uselessness, non-functionality
The origin of luxury goes way back as a means of differentiation between social classes. Thus also a means of social exclusion. A club, in which you purchase to join. If there is an inability to buy, individuals could hence be labelled as inferior or someone of little merit.
However how did this idea of luxury arise? Apart from the basic idea of taste, the figurative definition being the faculty of a human being able to distinguish something as being ugly or beautiful. “Taste” as a terminology has evolved in many ways, it’s hard to give it a specific definition within its sphere. As before it would be simply associated to the 5 senses. It has now become a whole concept. However, it has been argued that the reason for luxury consumption arises from a universal tendency to employ signalling traits that might increase status.
This desire of more expensive over cheaper products has been described as conspicuous consumption by Thorstein Veblen (1899/1994). Theoretically, this term firstly for Veblen was a means for Americans to express their culture and values. As an abstract definition, conspicuous consumption would be the portrayal of the consumers actual and aspirational statuses through the consumption of goods (Fitzmaurice, 2015). Therefore, luxury consumption, in an unconscious sense, has a purpose of image creation of an individual.
What other aspects would be appealing but also beneficial for consumers? On an emotive basis, according to psychology today (Murray, n.d.), there would be two benefits on the emotional end. One being the confirmation of “who I am” and the second being “how I feel”. These two benefits belong to the sphere of self-esteem but also produce a means of confidence.
To summarise the reasons/effects of luxury consumption, Vigneron and Johnson (1999) associate the values (in essence what the consumer intends to take from ‘luxury products’) of luxury purchasing and their effects (Husic & Cicic, Luxury consumption factors, 2009). Which are the following:
• The Veblen effect – perceived conspicuous value: Veblenian consumers attach greater importance to price as an indicator of prestige, because their primary objective is to impress others.
• The snob effect – perceived unique value: Snob consumers perceive price as an indicator of exclusivity, and avoid using popular brands to experiment with inner-directed consumption.
• The bandwagon effect – perceived social value: Relative to snob consumers, bandwagon consumers attach less importance to price as an indicator of prestige, but will place greater emphasis on the effect they make on others while consuming prestige brands.
• The hedonic effect – perceived emotional value: Hedonist consumers are more interested in their own thoughts and feelings, and thus will place less emphasis on price as an indicator of prestige.
• The perfectionism effect – perceived quality value: Perfectionist consumers rely on their own perception of the product’s quality, and may use price as further evidence of quality.
In an era of “show and tell”, with platforms such as Instagram and snapchat, it’s important for users to understand and show in essence what their personal brand/image is. To do this, they will make a selective process on which luxury brand to invest in. Just like normal brands or average brands, there are a range of core values that luxury brands reside with. Firstly, how would a luxury brand be defined.
The reflection in what a luxury brand should be, according to Phau and Prendergast (2001), would “evoke exclusivity, have a well-known brand identity, enjoy high brand awareness and perceived quality, and retain sales levels and customer loyalty” (Husic, Luxury consumption factors, 1996, pp. 231-245). To give us a further understanding, Beverland (2004) created a luxury brand model with the following dimensions: (Husic, Luxury consumption factors, 1996, pp. 231-245)
• product integrity;
• value-driven emergence;
• culture;
• history;
• marketing; and
• endorsement.
Continuing on with the idea of product integrity, for any brand it is important to reflect a positive image of their product to upkeep that integrity. Therefore, within luxury it is important to have a strong brand image to sell. Brand image would characterize itself as the general impression of a product by real or potential consumers.
Nowadays, we are experiencing an altercation between quality and brand image. Whereas in the past the quality of the product was highlighted, it is now the brand image (symbolism) which has taken over. This would be due to the rise of materialism. Materialism would be defined as the belief that having money and possessions would be the most important things in life. Materialism is a dominant characteristic in the consumer society as it would be the main focus for individuals to buy more products.
Therefore, the power of symbolism of a brand has become an important advocate for businesses. The symbolism of the brand deferring also to an unconscious act in how individuals would want to present themselves. Studies have been made in how the choice of a clothing brand an individual would wear would give off certain perceptions about their character. Within “Evolution and Human Behavior” (Evolution and human behaviour , 2011, pp. 343-355), an article involving a study about the social benefits of luxury helps us distinguish 5 perceptions made about a person’s clothing, them being: status, wealth, attractiveness, kindness and trustworthiness.
Luxury is not only classified to only objects per say. With the evolution of transport, the world is an access for all. The term luxury tourism comes to mind. Like clothing, this aids the individual with transforming their dedicated image. The habit of the consumption of tourists is associated with high material access, manifested by orientation toward expensive holidays, to express social status they have managed to achieve, to offer them unique experiences and help to their presentation in the society as successful people, with a high level of life.
This leads us onto our case study which will show the power of advertising and also its potential endangerments when it comes to false advertising at the expense of its customers.
The Fyre Festival was named as “the greatest party that never happened” in a recent Netflix documentary (2019) (Fyre Festval: the greatest party that never happened, 2019). The event took place back in 2017, when dozens of would-be festival goers had been left stranded in the much anticipated Fyre Festival, as it shortly descended into chaos.
With their headliners dropping by the second (as they quickly realised the infrastructures at the festival were inadequate) along with guests are struggling to leave the island, amid reports of a myriad of other issues including “mountains of rubbish”, short supplies of food, drink and electricity, and ‘cabanas’ that are “actually disaster relief tents” (O’Connor, 2017).
Fyre Festival was thought up by tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, as an “exotic” alternative to Coachella. Whom are now being sued for millions.
McFarland is the main schemer, however whom is the real villain in this fiasco? We would have to look into the social forces that facilitated the disaster. This would take into account the Instagram influencers and the employees of Jerry Media. To increase the awarness of the event, Instagram influencers were paid to post an orange square on their feed. This created a sense of mystery within their fan-bases. This played in tune with the fear of missing out on a celebrity based campaign.
Bringing it back to Jerry Media, they were the ones whom orchestrated the advertising media content. Content being: the festival’s own Instagram page, websites, promotional videos, etc. The key factor that boosted and inevitably brought on the disaster was their famous promotional video.
This ad portrayed a completely different atmosphere than the one that was delivered at the festival. Showing a paradise island, pristine white beaches and clear blue water, models frolicking in the water, yachts, private jets, live music, and more models frolicking. A fairly pretentious advertisement, but it essentially fooled its whole clientele.
The concept of luxury holidays has been on the increase, during a study conducted in August 2013, we learnt that the consumption of luxury tourism products had increased significantly by 62% over the last five years (Valeria POPESCU, 2014, p. 322). The reason behind such increase could quite possibly be by the actual definition of a luxury holiday.
Described as transformational, how would a luxury holiday be defined. The Transformational Travel Council describes transformational travel as a travel experience that offers people the opportunity to make meaningful and lasting changes in their lives. Through personal reflection and the stimulation of the body and mind, the transformational journey is an opportunity to discover oneself and to face physical and psychological challenges outside one’s comfort zone.
Indeed, a so-called “transformational” journey is characterized by:
• A radical change of scenery
• A thirst for discovery;
• Contact with the local population and culture;
• Stimulating physical, cultural and / or spiritual experiences;
• Enriching conversations
• Personal reflection (writing, meditation / prayer, etc.)
Thus in tourism, the definition of “luxury” has changed due to the values of consumers and their perceptions. Hence this figurative sense of self-realization has become the determining factor in the creation of luxury. Luxury’s new synonym could therefore be “personal fulfilment”. Meaning the value of the tourist is based on the endless possibilities on whom they aspire to be.
This concept may be explained by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, if you were to place “fulfilment” at the top of the pyramid placing esteem and belonging below it. To follow this reasoning, it would mean the transformational journey is a natural evolution towards the last level of human needs.
With this in mind we can see how the advertisement itself for the fyre festival was successful. As it illustrated itself as “two transformative weekend” or “an immersive festival” (Butler, 2017). Essentially experiencing the full VIP experience.
The other reasoning as to why this advertisement was a success in its own way was due to the amount of celebrity presence. To be exact supermodels including Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski, and Bella Hadid and others. Why did these individuals play such a big role in the hoax?
In advertising there is a concept known as celebrity branding, this is a marketing strategy where brands use celebrity imagery to reinforce perhaps the brands values or used purely for their social status to promote a product. The effects of celebrities within advertisements are the following (Suttle, 2019):
• They create awarness of the product
• Influence the credibility of the product
• Create a sense of reputation
• Push brand recall
• Increase sales
All these factors create advantages for the brand such as: influencing customer purchases; building brand awarness; positioning of the brand within a market place; attracting new users and possibly breathing life into a new or failing brand. Alas, how did the Fyre Festival use these features to their advantage?
In a nutshell, they used celebrities for all these purposes but more essentially exploited the sense of trust between customer and celebrity. They did this by employing a marketing ploy called “eclipsing” (Keel & Nataraajan, 2012). Eclipsing presents itself when the celebrity promoting the brand ends up overshadowing the brand. Within the realm of eclipsing, two levels exist: the first being “high-eclipsing”, this is when the celebrity is the focus, and then “low-eclipsing”, this consists of when both the celebrity and brand are emphasized (Webster, 2014, pp. 1040-1050).
By using very high profiled celebrities in the Fyre campaign, the majority of consumers would have strong celebrity attachment and inevitably creating their only biased on their attachment. In result of there being an incredible lack of information on the actual event. By establishing high eclipsing there is the high potential of disregard by the consumer on whether or not the celebrity and brand match or mismatch.
This one advertisement allowed the manipulation between brand and consumer for them to spend more money when the festival was failing before it even began. With tickets costing up to 100,000$ and after-which wrist bands to top up with cash to create a “money-free” experience.
What does this teach us? It proves how consumers should be more vigilant to do with advertising. The world has become a huge competition with so many new products and as such advertising can’t necessarily be to blame for false pretences. As the expression goes “don’t shoot the messenger”.
Conclusion
In this dissertation, we set off to discover what would be the features of advertising. We found what were its psychological implications, through-which we uncovered how advertising possesses the aspects of a cultural regulator. Putting that into perspective we understood that therefore advertising could be considered as an institution. With exploring its responsibilities as one, we brought a light on one of its main concerns: making money. This perfectly illustrates it as a tool (of manipulation) involved in the consumer society.
This breaches the idea of how advertising at its core has influenced people. We can put our findings in correlation with a BBC series named “the century of the self” (Curtis, 2002). This series entails the rise of the all-Consuming self and the Influence of the Freud Dynasty. Freud depicts people as irrational and are governed by their subconscious fears and desires. From which by advertisers, these sentiments would be guided into consumption.
During the second part of the programme, we encounter Ernest Dichter who realized the origins of individuals’ desires were often unconscious making decision making difficult. By creating focus groups, he was able to make a better understanding of the wariness of buying certain products. As within these groups they were able to talk freely about the products. One of his greatest achievements was discovering why instant cakes were faulty in sales. The realisation was that housewives felt guilty for not having to work. The solution was simple, by getting women to add their own eggs. Thus creating a boom in sales.

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