Video
The video today was a great example of how advertising is based on feeling. Freud was the driving force, developing the notion that humans were driven by their natural impulses. Freud claimed that humans are naturally aggressive and have natural sexual drives. He believed that they came from our animal background. This fueled Bernay’s advertising experiment, which ended up very successful.
Bernay’s looked at impulses and appeals, and used them to become a big time advertiser. It started out with his vision of smoking. Seen as something only men did, Bernays wanted to take it and make it somehting that women could as well. So he ended up playing to passion, and using impulses as a way of pulling people in. I thought it was interesting how the advertisment world transformed so long ago, and now it is basically run by sex, violence and other sorts of natural impulses. this is how modern day products are pitched, and its clearly effective.
In terms of todays media, it is evident that this philosophy, developed a long time ago, is used to a greater extent. For example, the Calvin Klein add we have looked at so much in class is clearly an example of how we advertise today, based on these principles of drives, desires, urges and impulses. the ad is purely based on sexual content and displaying women in power. it plays towards our sex drive, and our natural drive for power, just taking hte idea Bernays developed and fine tuning it. And now, sex, violence and a so called “cool” are the driving forces in the advertising world
4 years ago • Notes