Advertisements in the Post-Consumerist Era

In the consumerist period, advertisements played a major role in facilitating the selling of products. The advertisement agency was called in to ensure that a suitable market was created for some product. Even though big businesses spend a lot on advertisements, today's era can be labeled post-consumerist, primarily because of the decline of one function of the ads: to convince the consumer to buy something, and the advent of another function: to serve as the cultural product of capitalism. In short words, capitalism's claim to art and culture is the advert. Although the ad as cultural product is still an important identity for the advert, the advert no longer has the power and influence it once did when it sold products.

Why have we called today the post-consumerist era? This is because the consumerist era was defined by a subject who desired, but did not know the object of his desire. The consumer of the consumerist era believed the other (the other being the big businesses and the ad agency) had the best guess of what his/her object of desire was. This consumer was not the Lacanian subject supposed to know (his object of desire). The consumer bought only the product, and he fitted in the product into the rest of his lifestyle. And indeed, isn't it from the addition of different products to form a lifestyle that the consumer found value in his life? The desired object fills an absence, and a lack, but only insofar as the desired object creates the lack itself, that is, it creates the absence which it seeks to fill. There is never an ancient and original hole which the new object fills, rather, the new object creates the hole which it then attempts to fill. This is why the object of desire cannot also be an object of satisfaction, for what the object of desire ultimately highlights to the subject is the hole, the painful lack, the saddening gap. In a sense, the object of desire fills the gap but the gap is still there...and the consumer is satisfied, quite strangely, by the filling of any gap whatsoever, perhaps unconsciously realizing the fantastical nature of the production of lacks and objects. Here, the biggest mistake the consumer makes is not realizing that the gap/lack is in the product and not in the subject.

Thus, the advert was very important in two ways: it created the hole in the subject's lifestyle which needed filling, and it also created the object of desire to fill such a hole. So important were the advertising agencies that we can talk of capitalism of the recent past as not governed solely by the big businesses, but governed by a big business-advertiser complex, as a collusion of two institutions. At home, the advertisement governed the family, and at the dealership, the corporation was in charge. And today, while the big business continues to grow in strength and influence, the ad agency seems to be less important. This is because, quite simply, the consumer no longer buys based on adverts, and the product itself has been brought closer in proximity to the consumer. In simple terms, the consumer can touch and feel 'the real thing' (but this real thing is itself also distant no matter how one can tough it) and no longer needs to rely on a picture. The distance needed for an object to be an object of desire is no longer maintained, rather, selling a product relies on irreducible subject-object division.  Desire is going out of the equation. 

So, in this post-consumerist era, what can we say rationalizes the persistent existence of adverts? Precisely the advert as the chief cultural product of our times. The advert is no longer selling the product, it is selling innovation, creativity, a storyline, bright colors and so on. One way in which this benefits the capitalist system is that the advert is, in conventional interpretation, available free of cost, giving capitalism a good face. It can be enjoyed by anyone and anywhere. Each big business or company, through the advert, makes its presence felt in the cultural realm, contributes to the formation of art. The product need not take center stage, indeed, the product is often not even present. Why? Because the producers are artists, because with the advertisement the workforce is satisfied at his/her accomplishment and feels a sense of recognition for his/her work. The worker takes pride when it sees a billboard advertising a product he has worked on, or, any product for that matter, for even the system of which his/her product is a part is important to him/her. The worker is the audience, and it is not so much that he/she is being asked to do something in return; he watches the art piece like a movie and moves on. From the consumer being sold a product, in post-consumerism we have the worker being 'made proud.' Ads contribute to the 'cultural enrichment' of capitalism. In an era of social responsibility, it seems that contributing to the cultural field and realm is the most responsible and thoughtful action big business can take. And this would be a good thing were it not placating workers to work in bad conditions, for less pay, and generally ignoring other ways of being responsible which would improve quality of life in a more in-depth manner.

The consumer, now ignored by capitalism and adverts, feels autonomous (and, interestingly, the machines which make the consumer feel autonomous and independent are themselves created by big businesses...the hand held gadgets of our times). The consumer actively seeks the product, which is one reason why the product is made present to the touch and the eyesight of the consumer. The consumer learns of the product in conversations, in interactions, outside of the media which it finds untrustworthy. The consumer, therefore, is not one to passively consume, but rather to actively seek an object to fill a lack. The consumer is now an adventurer, his/her faith in the product firmly in place.

To end, a note on big businesses in the post-consumerist era. No longer are all firms advertising and fighting over any and all advertising slots and spaces. Rather, one advertisement attempts to sell all products, all objects. There is no such thing as monopoly or duopoly, rather, these are only expressed in the realm of advertisements. Rather, the big businesses do not compete, but help one another sell all products. In a slightly positive note, perhaps we can say that the creativity invested in advertisements is something that may potentially engender more creative products themselves. However, the fact that the adverts are to 'stay away from the products' in today's times, it is likely that the role of the advertisement will decline even more. Perhaps big businesses have realized that advertisements had begun to point to the truth of the lack inherent in products, rather than selling the idea of the consumer himself as lacking.