“as most theoreticians of advertising tell us, this expansion has become possible to the extent that commodities are now marketed first and foremost as ‘symbolic’ goods and only secondary as utilitarian objects”
When you think of the logistics behind this quote it is pretty hard to fathom coming from a consumerist’s perspective, but in actuality this is nothing other that the truth. This may be a conscious or subconscious action on our behalf, but essentially what all post-industrial humans value is an image. When it comes to consumerism we primarily consider what a product will do for our personal ego, rather than the functionality in which it will provide. For instance, last week I read an extremely interesting article about Apples’ recent triumph in terms of their marketing/ branding tools, which has foremost become the strategy behind their success. Now this is more of a topic for last week’s discussion on post-industrialism, but I wanted to make reference to a statement that was made in terms of ‘symbolic goods’ and their value to our society. It was suggested that the white headphones that we are so familiar with have developed into a signature for i-pods around the world. Police reports over the past year have actually stated that thief’s target people sporting i-pods over any other mp3 players. So basically what the article says is that people are going to the extent of buying white head phones to disguise their miscellaneous players in order to create a particular image of oneself that is essentially deprived the values of today’s established society. Although we may chose to deny the power of consumerism and symbolic commodities, but our actions tend to speak louder than words.
When you think of the logistics behind this quote it is pretty hard to fathom coming from a consumerist’s perspective, but in actuality this is nothing other that the truth. This may be a conscious or subconscious action on our behalf, but essentially what all post-industrial humans value is an image. When it comes to consumerism we primarily consider what a product will do for our personal ego, rather than the functionality in which it will provide. For instance, last week I read an extremely interesting article about Apples’ recent triumph in terms of their marketing/ branding tools, which has foremost become the strategy behind their success. Now this is more of a topic for last week’s discussion on post-industrialism, but I wanted to make reference to a statement that was made in terms of ‘symbolic goods’ and their value to our society. It was suggested that the white headphones that we are so familiar with have developed into a signature for i-pods around the world. Police reports over the past year have actually stated that thief’s target people sporting i-pods over any other mp3 players. So basically what the article says is that people are going to the extent of buying white head phones to disguise their miscellaneous players in order to create a particular image of oneself that is essentially deprived the values of today’s established society. Although we may chose to deny the power of consumerism and symbolic commodities, but our actions tend to speak louder than words.
1 comment:
my first attempt. did this work???
Post a Comment