Ewen, Lears and Marchand:

Ewen discusses American advertising as a power relationship that resulted from the emergence of mass production and industrial capitalism. Beginning with Henry Ford's automobile assembly line, industry took a turn towards mass production, that soon generated a surplus of commodities on the market. Before mass production, goods were directed mainly towards an elite group of consumers; however, the 'massification' of production also called for a mass market of consumers. Whereas the emphasis had previously been placed on the worker/producer, capitalism called for a revamping of consumption ethics. The worker needed to be transformed into a consumer. That is to say, the consumer market had to be expanded and readdressed. The work ethic had to be re-evaluated -- a new consumer ethic needed to take its place.

American advertising emerged as one element of a solution and response to the growing commodity consumer market. Shifts in advertising that focused on the twin demons of Desire and Anxiety/Fear were related to corporate strategies that raised wages with an eye to generating a more consistent and "better" consumer. Furthermore, workers gained shorter working hours and more leisure time. Leisure was closely linked to consumption. Advertising agents played on the anomic state of American social life; the transition from a work environment to a consumption environment left many people floating and confused. The creation, maintenance, manipulation and exacerbation of the combination of "desire" and "fear" by the advertising men contributed to an increasingly popular ideology of fulfillment through commodity relations. "Modern advertising is a direct response to the needs of mass industrial capitalism" (Ewen: 31).

Hence there came about a new sense of self in the American public: the commodity self. Advertisers alluded to "the good life" through the consumption of more and more commodities, preying on social fears and hyper-self-consciousness. The masses were repeatedly positioned to be dissatisfied with their lives, and then offered "solutions" through commodity consumption. The commodity self was pushed by advertisements that implied that certain products would lead to a better, fuller and truer self. It was no longer that commodities simply enhanced the self, but rather that they created and constituted the self. In this manner, consumption was no longer confined to an elite; it was no longer just a luxury, but a necessity of social relations and interactions.

Consumption and the new consumer culture soon became linked to notions of freedom, democracy, culture and nationalism. Advertising offered "a vision of consumption as a 'new school of freedom' " (Ewen: 30) that had never before existed, or so it was claimed. In the new consumer culture, an illusion of freedom of choice was sketched out, disguising the hegemonic nature of capitalism. The rhetoric of freedom was touted, even though advertising was, in reality, coercive and manipulative. "Through advertising, then, consumption took on a clearly cultural tone. Within governmental and business rhetoric, consumption assumed an ideological veil of nationalism and democratic lingo" (Ewen: 42). Modernity and 'civilization' were equated with the new consumption ethic.

Lears critiques Ewen for seeing "nothing but power relations" (Lears: 3). He writes, "To him the consumer is the product of a conspiracy hatched by corporate executives in the bowels of the Ministry of Truth, then imposed with diabolical cleverness on a passive population" (Lears: 3). Lears thinks this is a myopic vision of advertising -- one that simply passes over the other ideological, cultural, religious, institutional and psychological factors of advertising. Following his idea that "advertising cannot be considered in isolation," (Lears: 3) Lears argues that advertising was not simply a result of a conspiratorial plan. Rather, the new consumer culture came about in combination with a number of other social and cultural shifts. Though advertising is indeed manipulative, it does not exist by working on a purely passive audience. "To thrive and spread, a consumer culture required more than a national apparatus of marketing and distribution; it also needed a favorable moral climate" (Lears: 4). The hegemonic nature of advertising is concealed, maintains Lears, through the use of what he calls the 'therapeutic ethos.'

Prior to mass industrialization and production, the Protestant work ethic had a stronghold on the American people. This ethic stressed "salvation through self-denial" (Lears: 4), and this simply did not coincide with the consumption mandated by the capitalist structure. Therefore, the new ethic -- one of consumption -- was "a muddle of calculated self-control and spontaneous gratification" (Lears: 3). The focus shifted away from the producer to the consumer. Yet this was a difficult transition -- whereas religion had once provided a framework of meaning and action, the new consumption-oriented ideology left people in a state of anomie (Lears: 10). It was necessary for the 'therapeutic ethos' of advertising to take form. Drawing on the insecurities and fears of people about their lives and their relations to others, advertising pushed the concept of gratification, fulfillment and peace-of-mind through the consumption of commodities. This ideology -- the therapeutic ethos -- of advertising allowed for, and created, an environment in which consumption was not only acceptable and necessary, but also good.

Marchand, on the other hand, writes that advertising aided the transition from traditional life to modern life. He argues that advertising in the 1920s-1940s pushed modernist ideology by focusing intently on issues of reality/non reality through a distorting mirror he calls a Zerrspiegel. Rather than seeing ads as a reflection of actual social realities, Marchand saw ads as a manifestation of fantasy and desire. ". . . ad creators tried to reflect public aspirations rather than contemporary circumstances, to mirror popular fantasies rather than social realities" (Marchand: xvii). Ads presented a kind of vicariousness through which the consumers could imagine how their lives could be. It is in this way, argues Marchand, that ads can be read as social texts that point to the hopes, aspirations and dreams of American consumers. His idea of the social tableaux is one in which advertisements serve to resocialize the American public. In a state of anomie in the 1920s, the American people needed to be socialized to the new consumer culture. "The social tableaux depicted an ideal modern life - one to which the consumers presumably aspired, but also one specifically discerned by the eyes of ad creators" (Marchand: 167). Relationships in modern consumer culture were idealized, reflecting the transition from a traditional culture to a modern one.

Ads drew heavily on, and actually enacted, the American dream ideology; that is to say, "American advertising portrayed the ideals and aspirations of the system more accurately than its reality. They dramatized the American dream" (Marchand: xviii). Marchand calls the "American advertising man . . . the most modern of men" (1); in fact, he goes so far as to call them "apostles of modernity." These were the members of society who were always at the fore, always had the newest, best, improved -- modern -- products at hand. They embodied what it meant to be modern -- they were symbols and vessels of progress, and they "preach[ed] a gospel of modernity" (Marchand: 2). These advertising men, then, equated modernity with the good life in America; in fact, says Marchand, "[i]f modernity implied youthfulness, mobility, optimism, and a tolerance for diversity and speed of change, most advertising leaders immediately recognized such qualities in their self-portraits" (Marchand: 2-3). The American buying public were the least predictable element of the economic system (Marchand: 2) because they were not yet used to the new consumer culture. To acclimate the public to a consumption oriented lifestyle, the advertising men focused on the social fears of alienation. They found potential consumers were more and more willing to experiment with products because they feared being left behind in the wave of modernity. But the advertisers did not stop with simply selling products; they began to actually shape the collective mind of the buying public by concentrating on people's desires rather than simply their needs.