The Hidden Persuaders by Packard Vance

Author:Packard, Vance [Packard, Vance]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9781935439530
Amazon: B006NV977W
Publisher: IG Publishing
Published: 2007-07-17T04:00:00+00:00

12. Selling Symbols to Upward Strivers

“People feel that if you jump from a Ford to a Cadillac, you must have stolen some money.”

—Pierre Martineau, research director, The Chicago Tribune

While American society presents an over-all picture of stratification, most of the individuals at the various layers—expecting only the benighted nonstrivers near the bottom—aspire to enhance their status. This trait, which if not peculiarly American is at least particularly American, offered an opportunity that the depth merchandisers were quick to exploit. It needed to be done with some deftness as no one cares to admit he is a social striver.

Lloyd Warner spelled out the inviting situation to ad men in these words: “Within the status systems something else operates that is at the very center of American life and is the most motivating force in the lives of many of us—namely what we call social mobility, the aspiration drive, the achievement drive, the movement of an individual and his family from one level to another, the translation of economic goods into socially approved symbols, so that people achieve higher status.”

Mr. Martineau is so impressed with the potentialities of selling symbols to strivers (via ads in his newspaper) that in 1956 he advised me he was putting $100,000 in a three-year study of social classes in Chicago (under the direction of Dr. Warner) that will “bring in the whole aspect of social mobility.” He added, “I hope it will end up as a very significant study showing… the taste and style of life of people… the economic behavior which distinguishes both ends of the continuum on social mobility—differences between the strivers and the savers.”

These depth probers of the Chicago school of M.R. have already turned up many evidences of change in our behavior as we strive upward. Social Research in its study of the meanings of food found that people striving to gain entree into a more sophisticated social group almost invariable are alert and receptive to the food preferences and dietary habits of the group they aspire toward. Failure to do so, it found, may well mean failure to get “in.” And Mr. Martineau likes to tell about the bourbon drinker who gets a promotion in his job and quickly makes the amazing discovery that Scotch tastes better as a drink.

Several of the whisky producers, alert to the symbolic designations in people’s minds, began doing some social climbing themselves to make their symbols more appealing to the human climbers. American whiskies in particular felt they had been socially depressed ever since, under Prohibition, Scotch had gotten the jump on them in age. In 1956 Schenley, with fanfare, brought out a twelve-year-old whisky to sell for thirteen dollars a fifth, which it proudly proclaimed was the oldest, most expensive American whisky and would bring back “the golden age of elegance.” Not to be outdone, Calvert attempted some social climbing, too, by using backdrops of prime roast beef and lobster to show that it was right at home with fine living. The terrible fate

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.