Books/Hyperconsumption

Book cover

Subtitle: Corporate Marketing vs. the Planet

Author: Gerard Hastings

The author is a retired professor of marketing. I personally don't believe that corporate marketing is as effective as the author claims it to be.

Introduction

Marketing became necessary due to an abundance created by efficiency of manufacturing processes. Demand had to be stimulated for this increase in supply. Marketing is not just limited to advertising, but has come to dominate all aspects of the product lifecycle. There are two indicators to marketing's success in the last century - the exponential growth of corporations and the woeful state of our planet. Humans are already producing more stuff each year than the combined biomass of the planet. But there are small businesses that are not corporations. Advertisers haven't reduced people into mere consumers yet. The insane notion of perpetual growth on a finite planet needs to be questioned.

Part 1: The Corporate Marketing Machine

Let us begin by understanding the methods and tools of the corporate marketer.

Human beings depend on each other to survive. Business is a manifestation of this interdependence. Corporate monopolies create an imbalance of power in this interaction, with their psychopathic (irresponsible, manipulative, superficial, lacking in empathy, asocial and shameless) pursuit of profit. Their fiduciary responsibility is only to their shareholders. They are part of nobody's community. They use their financial power to lobby governments and evade taxes, thus getting more powerful.

Advertising originally served the purpose of businesses informing people of their goods and services (like a baker putting up a sign about fresh baked bread). In 1928, Edward Barnays, nephew of Sigmund Freud wrote "Propaganda", a book about grabbing power by manipulating public opinion. His ideas were wildly popular with corporations who applied them in their marketing campaigns. Business isn't about just satisfying needs of the people, but every whim and want, even creating new ones. Barnays said that the manipulators of public opinion become the invisible government of the country. There were books to counter this - "Silent Spring", "Small is Beautiful" and "Hidden Persuaders", but they didn't have a similar impact.

Advertising is a form of organized lying. They are lying to consumers all the time, without even bothering to hide the fact. According to the philosopher Hannah Arendt, being constantly lied to deprives us of our ability to make informed decisions leading us down the path of hyperconsumption. For the lies to be effective, advertisers need to know their consumers intimately. They are always studying consumer behavior whether or not it has any real impact in the effectiveness of their campaigns. (Surveillance Capitalism is similar, but automated and at a large scale.) Advertising has long lost its main purpose of informing the public about the offerings of a business. It is now mostly about creating want for an unnecessary thing. Incremental improvements (think Apple products) and minor differences between products are exaggerated. Many product advertisements are detached from the product being sold (cigarette and alcohol ads) and try to create an association of the brand with some kind of desirable feeling in the consumer's mind, like prestige, luxury, freedom etc. One thing that strongly resonates with me as someone whose personal computers nearing a decade old is this example from the book - "tech firms sell us computing capacity we can never begin to grasp, let alone harness". This deception takes many forms - direct advertisements, sponsored posts, product placements in movies and TV, reviews and content from brand ambassadors or influencers.

Marketers get the best returns for their efforts by targeting not the people in the most need for their product, but the ones who can be the easiest to convince and willing to pay. Customer segmentation is done because there are only so many products but an infinite diversity of people. This explains why there is an overabundance of products in rich countries while people in poorer countries struggle to have their needs met. They are not worth targeting. This also implicitly sends the message that having money justifies over-consumption. There are 4Ps in the "marketing mix" - Product, Price, Place and Promotion. It is difficult work being a consumer in a rich country when a bewildering array of products are offered in each category (not a problem in developing countries in my experience). The packaging is the silent salesman. The "buy one get one free" promotion makes us buy more than we need and even buy a product we had no intention of buying. Prices are detached from what it really costs to make the product, even ignoring the human costs of sweatshops or conflict minerals and costs to the environment. Product displays, slotting, "frequently bought together" influence consumer behavior. The brand itself has value that is distinct from the product. As a though experiment, think about what you would pay for sneakers with no logo when you are standing at the door of a sweatshop in Bangladesh. Branding drives obsolescence too. The emotional high of using the latest product wears off much quicker than the product itself. Finally, we pay for the privilege of wearing corporate brands on our bodies, while billboard operators get paid to do so.

Children are important to marketers for several reasons - they have pocket money to spend, they can influence the decisions of their parents and they are future consumers. Inculcating brand loyalty in children can provide a lifetime of profits to a corporation. A child doesn't know the difference between a TV program and an advert. Being exposed to marketing at an early age can lead to unhealthy habits involving junk food, cigarette smoking, obsession with makeup and alcohol consumption. Children groomed by marketers turn into consumers. Their beliefs and attitudes once solidified are hard to change once they are adults. Banning tobacco advertising has seen a successful reduction in teen smoking. The author expresses hope for Greta Thunberg's generation (but she doesn't want adults to be hopeful).