Of course, some people will think that "life is precious, love is more expensive", and rich needs are more important than scarce needs, but this is a special case and we will not discuss it. According to the above division, we can find that a lot of consumption in modern life is not an indispensable scarce consumption, but a rich demand induced by advertisements. In other words, in modern life, many people's needs are not spontaneous, but made. For example, people didn't think that houses must be decorated with wood, people must drive private cars and wear famous brands when traveling, and all kinds of household appliances must be beautiful and fashionable. However, due to the constant promotion and encouragement of various advertisements, people gradually think that if there is no good house, good car and high-grade clothes, is this still life? Therefore, even if you borrow money, you must buy a house and a car. Then, the question is, how does advertising turn people's "rich demand" into "scarce demand"? American scholar Jameson believes that contemporary advertisers should stimulate people's unconscious desires into consumer demand through a series of advertising images. [2] We can illustrate this problem through some specific advertising text analysis.
Twenty years ago, some advertisements often just introduced the performance of the products, and then took out several awards, saying that they were excellent in the province and the departments, and proved that their quality was reliable, and it was over. We know that most of the advertising products at that time were aimed at people's lack of demand, and people's concern about the necessities of life was actually its performance and quality, so the advertisements at that time rarely played any tricks. Nowadays, advertising is very different. Let's look at the advertisement for Sprite drinks. The picture shows a very beautiful and fashionable white-collar girl submitting her resignation report to a handsome young male boss, saying that she is going to Japan. The male boss sincerely asked her to stay, but she still left, but just arrived at the door, she came back. The male boss was surprised, but the girl only came back for a drink. She picked up the drink and shook her head smartly. For this advertising text, we can find several characteristics: first, it has a story, and the story almost covers up the intention of the advertisement; Second, the advertising image spokesperson is not only a cool man and a beautiful woman, but also a cool man and a beautiful woman with status; Third, the tone and music of the picture have a worldwide atmosphere, which is desirable. We know that when reading literary works, people often subconsciously imagine themselves as the protagonist, or imagine the protagonist as themselves, thus causing sympathy.
In fact, when people see this kind of advertising text telling stories, just like reading literary works, they often feel sympathy unconsciously, and ridiculously associate drinking with Elva Hsiao, white-collar life and urban mood in real life, so that when they are thirsty, they always hold a bottle of drink in their hands. Maybe you don't agree with this analysis, but the advertising creative person and his boss must agree with this view, otherwise, they won't spend so much money to tell this boring modern life story. In fact, the advertising images of all contemporary advertising texts will make people unconsciously associate the advertised products with the so-called modern life and modern emotions in their imagination, thus stimulating the desire for consumption. For this problem, we may be able to see it more clearly from children's consumption. As we all know, Japanese animation production is world-class. It is said that they spent a lot of money to make cartoons such as Astro Boy, Transformers and Toy Story, and then gave them to radio stations all over the world for free. People were very puzzled at that time. Later, when people saw that Japanese manufacturers designed children's clothes, food, toys and stationery based on these cartoon images, which were deeply loved by children, they all sold well. As long as we pay attention, we will find that what children eat, play and use now is related to the image of advertisements, especially the image in the above soft advertisements. If today's children see a toy made of a familiar cartoon image in the street, they will definitely buy it, which shows that many consumer desires of contemporary children are made, not existing.
Then, advertising creates people's consumption desire and changes people's consumption concept through advertising image. In addition to bringing benefits to businesses, what other effects are there? We believe that from the social point of view, on the one hand, only by constantly creating consumption desire can we stimulate economic growth, which is determined by the nature of our current market economy; On the other hand, it has also caused a serious waste of natural resources that human beings are not rich in. This problem can be said to be an incurable disease of the market economy. Therefore, some contemporary economists believe that over-advocating the importance of economic development may even be harmful. Personally, people have to keep working in order to meet their false needs, especially the white-collar workers in the metropolis. In the eyes of workers and peasants, they live a fairy-like life, but in fact, the market economy is like an invisible machine. By creating endless false demands for them, they are firmly tied to the elements of this machine. It can be said that their living conditions are far from what Marx called freedom and liberation, and perhaps even farther than ordinary workers and peasants.
Another important influence of contemporary advertising on social life is that people's values have changed subtly: now people tend to pay more attention to the external image rather than the essence when evaluating things. In the past, people used to laugh at "the golden jade is outside, but the defeat is among them. Now it is not like this." For example, when we buy a suit, no one will look at the fabric and workmanship of the suit as in the past. On the contrary, we will first look at its brand and its style. Even if the materials and workmanship are good, if it is not a famous brand or the style is not good, we often think it is not worth 1000 yuan. If it is a well-known brand such as Shanshan, Youngor, Apple, Playboy, etc., that is, fabrics are used, and it is precisely because people value the external image of things and the brand of goods at present that merchants often spend huge sums of money on advertising. It is said that Michael Jordan's advertising revenue for Adidas is higher than the total wages of workers in Adidas' global production base. In addition, the cost paid by manufacturers to the media is also high. A set of prime-time advertising fees in the central government costs tens of millions or even hundreds of millions a second. We know that these advertising fees will definitely not be subsidized by the merchants, but included in the product price, which will be paid by the customers. The question is, why do modern people pursue famous brands so absurdly? Of course, the publicity of merchants is an important reason, but I think it is only an external cause, and the internal cause that plays a fundamental role is the change of our social structure.
We know that the structure of our modern society is very different from that of ancient and modern society. In modern society, people no longer have stable social identity and social status. Today you are a government official, a powerful ruler, and tomorrow you may be a common people. You are a multimillionaire and billionaire today, and you may go bankrupt tomorrow. Therefore, people don't have obvious signs to show their status like aristocrats and officials in the past. At any time, rich and powerful people generally want to brag about their status. We find that in the contemporary commodity economy society, people can only distinguish themselves from others through different consumption tastes. Therefore, rich and powerful people often consume not the consumer goods themselves, but the external image of consumer goods. American scholar Jameson calls this kind of consumption "image consumption", and some scholars call it "conspicuous consumption". I think businesses are familiar with consumers' psychology, so spending huge sums of money to advertise their products is actually a "collusion" with consumers unconsciously. Contemporary advertising caters to people's psychology of "image consumption" and "ostentatious consumption", which has great social impact, mainly the impact on people's values as I mentioned earlier. Nowadays, people not only pay attention to the image of goods when they consume, but also in other aspects of social life. For example, people worship stars, which is essentially the image of stars, not the real people of stars.
Contemporary advertising also has a far-reaching impact on contemporary culture. Contemporary scholars often criticize contemporary culture as "fast food culture" and throw it away when used; It is "industrial culture" and lacks spiritual dimension. Then, what is the reason why contemporary culture lacks spiritual orientation and becomes pragmatic culture? Although there are many reasons, the influence of contemporary advertising is also an important aspect that cannot be ignored. The most obvious influence of contemporary advertising on contemporary culture is that many cultural people set foot in advertising, become product image ambassadors, be product spokespersons, or appear in advertisements. For example, the advertisement of "The Force Drinks Red" starring Gong Li, the Sprite advertisement mentioned above starring Elva Hsiao, and even many advertisements directed by great directors themselves. For example, the "Aiduo" VCD advertisement is directed by Zhang Yimou and starred by Jackie Chan. Cultural people's involvement in advertising is only the superficial phenomenon that advertising affects culture. The deeper influence of advertising on contemporary culture lies in the corrosion of advertising consciousness on contemporary social and cultural psychology. Nowadays, publishing books, even serious academic works, requires planning and packaging, that is to say, all advertising means are needed, instead of hiding in famous mountains and rivers as in the past, and being confident that "good wine is not afraid of deep alleys"
Serious literary criticism can even become a means of advertising. For example, some literary critics are famous for swearing. Lu Xun said in The True Story of Ah Q that Ah Q was slapped by his great-grandfather Zhao because he said his surname was Zhao and he belonged to his family. Because of his relationship with his great-grandfather Zhao, Ah Q came into contact with celebrities in the last village. Therefore, the people in the last village are a little in awe of Ah Q. I think the literati who are famous by swearing must be very familiar with Ah Q's famous history and contemporary advertising psychology. In addition, academic circles often hold some academic conferences, which should be very serious, but often deteriorate and become disguised advertisements of conference organizers. Imagine that the convener of the conference can invite so many experts and scholars from all over the country. He must have level and face. So, who will not give him face when evaluating professional titles, masters and doctors?