The porosity of the consumer

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore and extend the work of Daniel Pick. Pick articulates the ways in which the political and intellectual atmosphere shapes how we understand human thought. As a case in point, advertising and marketing have been influenced by theories, concepts and empirical materials that problematised the materialistic interpretation of mind. This is most overt in the debates relating to hypnotism and telepathy. To extend Pick’s analyses, we engage with these areas, focusing initially on the issues of hypnotic and telepathic crime, subsequently outlining the activities of E. Virgil Neal. We maintain that it was politically problematic for marketing to enrobe itself in hypnotic verbiage and trace the relevant changes in the language used to frame marketing and advertising discourse. What Pick’s writings and the narratives unravelled in this manuscript illuminate is the conceptualisation of the consumer as a porous being.

KEYWORDS:

• Marketing
• advertising
• history
• mind
• hypnosis
• telepathy
• porosity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Rorty, of course, is more critically oriented than Packard. His views were influenced by Veblen, Trotsky and some aspects of Social Gospel thinking (Rorty 1999). In his early publications, capitalism along with a war footing can short-circuit social change (Rorty 1936). Yet, hope, and an expectation of political-economic change threads throughout his analyses: “Our domestic situation [in the United States] is that of a progressively deteriorating social and economic anarchy, with a definite shift towards fascism … It is possible that the pressure of the unemployed and of militant rank and file labor movements will be just strong enough to organize the reaction but not strong enough to stage an effective battle on either the economic or political front. To recognize this possibility implies no attitude of defeatism or impotence. There are other possibilities … There is the possibility that, after the clear demonstration that capitalism cannot plan, cannot release the forces of production, cannot finance consumption, there will come a fundamental change in our social psychology. At some point – just where and when I don’t know – the American dream of freedom, of opportunity, of democracy, of justice as things actual or possible within the framework of the capitalist economy, will be definitely discarded by the masses of the industrial and agricultural workers. The break, I suspect, will come rather suddenly when it comes, and the factors making for such a break are steadily accumulating” (Rorty 1936, 380).

2 An exception being Francisco (1944) who continues to use hypnosis as a comparison point.

3 Recognition of the power of imagination and suggestion has a very long history, traced back to ancient times. Lawrence (1910) highlights their role in conjunction with the use of amulets, charms, “temple sleep”, “fairy cures”, incantations, edible prescriptions, the influence of the “King’s touch”, implements such as metallic tractors, and locations like the Temple of Asklepios, Aesculapius, Lourdes, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and so forth.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Tadajewski

Mark Tadajewski is Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, Visiting Professor, Royal Holloway, University of London, the Editor of the Journal of Marketing Management, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing and editor of multiple book series for Routledge.

Matthew Higgins

Matthew Higgins is currently a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Open University and an Associate Editor at the Journal of Marketing Management. He writes sporadically on issues of marketing, popular culture, and morality.