For my last blog post I would like to talk about consumer culture and how trends affect the way our lives basically are run through commodity activism.
One of our assignments covered this topic really thoroughly so I want to draw off of those ideas and add on more that I had not been able to prior.
“We live in a society where market values spread without limit, in which we are branding and selling ourselves along with everything else, including public office.”
“Consumer culture is a form of capitalism in which the economy is focused on the selling of consumer goods and the spending of consumer money. Most economists agree that the United States is a consumer culture. A significant part of consumer culture is an emphasis on lifestyle and using material goods to attain happiness and satisfaction. Businesses large and small can capitalize by focusing their marketing on this culture”
Sarah Banet-Weiser wrote a book called Branding Consumer Citizens: Gender and the Emergence of Brand Culture. It is really important to dig deep into the Dove Real Beauty campaign because it displays one of the best examples of commodity activism.
“Commodity activism reshapes and reimagines forms and practices of social (and political) activism into marketable commodities and takes specific form within brand culture”( Banet-Weiser, 16).
At first I was kind of confused on what could be an example of this until I read further into the article and reading other examples I found online. The thing I love about taking these kinds of classes through my major is because it forces me (in a good way) to understand how marketers work and target us. Social movements are a HUGE money bringer to companies, if people see you are supporting a good cause or trying to support a type of change that has a big number of followers you are set. It is kind of like when all that stuff with United Airlines was happening, other airlines were so quick to jump on it. Like for example Southwest had a slogan for a little while saying “We beat our competitors’ prices, not you.” Which got a lot of publicity and people were so supportive and called them bold and the better brand.
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Same with Uber, a lot of backlash with them has been happening recently about their policies and how they do not really care about the safety of their passengers, or have a good enough background check, so a lot of people have dropped them and have gone to taking Lyft instead.
This Dove campaign, whether they firmly believe what they say or not, bashing stereotypes and putting up the idea that people are beautiful no matter what they look like makes consumer believe they are this company with a high regard for their customers and people.
“Commodity activism takes shape within the logic and language of branding and is a compelling example of the ambivalence that structures brand culture. This kind of activism not only illustrates the contradictions, contingencies, and paradoxes shaping consumer capital today but also exemplifies the connections—sometimes smooth, sometimes contradictory—between merchandising, political ideologies, and consumer citizenship”(Banet-Weiss, 17).
“The Persuaders” examined a lot of important topics regarding the different marketing practices that have been influencing our culture and politics. It was really interesting to think about how advertisers used to only focus on what the product or item did but now it focuses on not only that but also what it means and believes in. Products have to have a moral standard now or else people wouldn’t necessarily want to purchase that anymore. This documentary focus on the bottom line that marketing agents encourage us to buy not necessarily an item but an identity. It ends the documentary with a discussion about politics and how there are strategies geared towards that in their own way.
Commodity activism is always going to be something in our lives and will only continue to be used to get consumers to buy things as times go on.
Visual Representation 