Consumer Culture Quotes

“Recent works on the organization of advertising agencies in Britain and the US show that advertisers' self-understanding, expertise and practices are geared to the agencies' imperative for self-promotion in competitive markets (Cronin 2004; Soar 2000). Drawing on Bourdieu's observations on `cultural intermediaries', Matthew Soar's (2000) research also shows that the first audience which advertising `creatives' have in mind is themselves (see also Nixon 2003).”
― Roberta Sassatelli, Consumer culture: history, theory and politics

“As Marshall McLuhan (1967) suggests, the tendency in the development of advertising has been to show the product as an integral part of wider social and cultural processes. In this way advertising has moved from a referential form, focused principally on the product, to a contextual one in which the product is symbolically charged and inserted in wider lifestyles (Hennion and Meadel 1989; Leiss et al. 1991).”
― Roberta Sassatelli, Consumer culture: history, theory and politics

“it is precisely in the chaotic and overcrowded metropolis that more and more people need to dress themselves in clothes which signal their identity to others, both as a members of a group and as individuals. Fashion appears to Simmel to be an excellent means of achieving both these effects. In his well-known work Fashion, the German scholar presents this phenomenon as the typical outcome of two fundamental principles of social logic: the need for cohesion or union and the need for differentiation or isolation (Simmel 1971b, orig. 1904) (see also Chapter 1). In following fashion we align ourselves with some people and differentiate ourselves from others, but at the same time we can enjoy expressing ourselves in a common language that is widely understood.”
― Roberta Sassatelli, Consumer culture: history, theory and politics

“The Veblen effect comes into play when the function of consuming an object is to demonstrate the acquisitive power of the consumer so that - in open opposition to the utilitarian logic and the minimization of cost - the higher the cost of a product, the greater its display value.”
― Roberta Sassatelli, Consumer culture: history, theory and politics