I was half expecting to find on the list some groups of people who say that marketing doesn’t “affect them” and they only buy stuff that they “know” are good brands (you have no idea how often I’ve heard that), but the groups were actually quite serious in their rejection of consumption. If you’re too busy to click on the link, just know this: one of the groups is the Amish, and the other four are equally committed. So yes, I think these five groups are legit in their rejection of consumerism, but let’s come back to the group that I already half identified there: somewhat normal people who swear off marketing and state that it has no impact on them.

For consumers, what they don’t consume is usually an even more powerful identity statement than what they do. So in effect, non-consumers, big brand haters, leftists, hippies, whatever the group may be, usually do have favorite brands and strong emotional ties to them (like anything carrying a Fair Trade logo), but the consumption of these brands is driven by the fact that they are usually the antithesis to some big brands these consumers are actively opposing. Put it this way: they might actively reject McDonald’s’ marketing efforts, yes, but by running away from McDonald’s, the are also running towards brands that stand against everything McDonald’s stands for. Douglas Holt did a wonderful study on anti-consumers like this in his paper “Why do Brands Cause Trouble?” (PDF). I’ve linked to the study before, and it is a must read for any marketer.

This is not a logo… right?

I was talking to my cousin the other day and he recounted a rather interesting example that mirrors this kind of behavior. My cousin is studying philosophy and he had done his bachelor’s thesis on the ethical questions surrounding pharmaceutical companies (to put it short), and he enlightened me on the effects of so-called health advertising. As advertising for pharmaceutical products has boomed and gotten more and more intrusive (especially in the US, think “ask your doctor if you should be taking Tylenol”), so has the amount of people who actively try to reject this kind of pill-based western medicine. These people feel that pharmaceuticals are promoting over-medication and unnatural remedies just for their own profit, and so these people are driven to holistic and eastern medicine, mysticism and consumption of herbal remedies, just to name a few.

But the interesting thing here is that at the same time people are not just trading their previous habits for staying healthy for different ones, they’ve supercharged their personal health care. Where as in the past they might have jogged once a week and eaten a vitamin pill or two every week, now they chug green tea by the gallon, attend yoga classes many times a week and change their diet entirely.

So the message of the pharmaceuticals has sunk hook, line, and sinker: there is something wrong with my health and I need to fix it somehow. It’s just the messenger’s solution they’re not buying. Marketers are nothing if not culture makers, and it’s examples like these that show how far this kind of cultural influence can go.

“If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

Those are the words with which Barack Obama declared himself as the next president of the United States. Truly a historic day and one that will do a lot of good not only for Americans, but the world-at-large. But aside from politics, I have another interest in the subject of Obama’s election.

Grant already touched upon this subject briefly, saying that either candidate winning would have effects on culture and commerce alike. Certainly, given how president-centric the US political structure is made to be, whoever is sitting in the White House will have an enormous influence on people’s daily life and perception of self. It’s my perception that for Americans the “idea” of America has more of an effect on the self than in most countries: the idea of the self-made man, the belief in democracy, America’s manifest destiny as the leader of the free world etc.

All these core American beliefs have been toiling in crisis pretty much from the start of George W. Bush’s presidency – especially for liberal Americans who happen to populate the majority of America’s biggest cities. I believe the Iraq war and John Kerry’s unlikely and crushing defeat in the 2004 election had left many liberals disillusioned and disappointed in America. As Douglas Holt points out in “How Brands Becom Icons”, one of the biggest drivers for consumption of identity products is how people aspire to meet a given culture’s or society’s identity models or “myths”, as Holt puts it. When there’s a disconnect between your own life and what you perceive your immediate culture expecting from you, this is when the tension and anxiety will create the most opportunities for brands and other cultural products (especially movies and music) to soothe these anxieties.

If we go back 30 years, we’ll find one of the most classic examples of a cultural product soothing national anxieties. As George Lucas himself put it: Star Wars was “really about the Vietnam War”. America had lost a big chunk of its belief in itself as the hero of the world after what conspired in Vietnam. In large part this was because this was the first fully televised war, people got to see the brutality of war in its fullness. The nation was badly divided when the war was over (as Obama said, even worse than it is now because of the Iraq war) but Star Wars, while it didn’t totally heal the American spiritual wound left by Vietnam, gave America the permission to believe in heroism and American ideals again. I’m sure the movie would have been a colossal success even without Vietnam, but it would have never found this kind of cultural resonance on its own. Similarly, I think Obama would have found followers and support on his own, but his message and persona hit a cultural key that really resonated. A lot of people say that without the financial crisis Obama wouldn’t have won. I say without the “crisis of democracy” (as Al Gore put it), a transformational figure like Obama wouldn’t have even been in the running.

I have some theories of how consumption and culture was shaped during the Bush years. I for one think that the DYI consumer movement was in part fueled by a sense of distrust and cynicism towards the establishment and any authority – especially by liberals in America. The Bush years have provided academics with a very interesting historical era to mine; not only politically but also culturally and commercially. I’m sure we will be reading about these findings a lot in the near future, but right now I just know that marketers shouldn’t neglect this newly found trust in old American ideals. It will be interesting to see which (big) companies will capture this new zeitgeist first, and which ones will do it best, not by just playing lip service to “change”.