In the first part of this article, I argued there was a explanatory gap in our understanding of the effectiveness of marketing in determining consumer behaviour. While it’s widely accepted that the technical mainstay of modern advertising – the association made between products and symbolic imagery – is extremely effective, no one seems able to explain the cognitive dissonance created in consumers. On the one hand they reject any suggestion that the advertisement has produced any effect on them, yet the billions of dollars spent on marketing every year attest to the exact opposite. I concluded by suggesting that the gap in the explanation was ‘us’ – that the symbolic associations are reinforced as a result of various ingrained social dynamics that commonly exist within social groups. In this part of the article I would like to demonstrate how this can be possible. The task is to give an account of some of the social dynamics that might play a role in this process. I will argue that one of the most significant arises out of agressive and competitive instincts that exist within social groups. While in most contexts these behaviours would be considered relatively harmless, nevertheless they do much to reinforce the advertising message. The picture we get then, is one in which we ultimately deliver ourselves over to the corporations, irrespective of the degree to which we originally felt aloof from their designs.
I’ve long been fascinated by the means by which the marketers so effectively manage to determine our choices in the marketplace. This effectiveness has long been appreciated by the corporations who spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year in marketing their services and products. While information about how these techniques work, and the reasons for their success, are starting to filter down to ordinary people (empowering their choices and to some degree liberating them from the malaise) – still many are unaware of their implicit involvement in marketing processes. We are helping the marketers and we don’t even know it. What I’ll attempt to demonstrate is the degree to which classic marketing techniques rely on the competitive and combative elements of human nature to re-inforce the individual marketing message. Once it is seen just how involved we all are, the insidious nature of corporate marketing becomes stark. We begin to realise just how much we help the marketers to do what they do.
Half Life 2 has been on the market now for several years, but still I feel a sense of awe whenever I step into that terrifying universe. The scope of the story, the immersive visuals, the characters – all of it combining to form an incredible gaming experience. But its as a narrative that I find the game most interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dr Breen’s rants against the “dangers of magical thinking” – a rich allusion to the struggle between rationalist and romantic ideologies. Beyond this, I find it fascinating the way they resolve the natural tension that exists between gaming as a narrative medium – and the exigencies of narrative structure itself. In most cases they limit the choice of the character so that there is one and only one path to follow at any given time. This allows Valve, the game’s creators, to guide the player through their carefully crafted narrative – at the expense of player freedom. Nevertheless, I was able to find one part of the game, where they allowed the player more choice than even they suspected. The result is a scene that they didn’t intend for you to see.