Sex and Advertising: Retail Therapy -The Economist - December 17, 2011
Dichter recognised that in the new world of America, brands had become “a substitute for nobility and a family tree”. People seek out products that correspond with the group they want to associate with. Every object has a special meaning—one that often relates to sex, insecurity or a desire for prestige. He also understood that consumers felt guilt after buying self-indulgent products, so marketers had to sell such things as tobacco and candy as “rewards” for the deserving. Much of this is taken for granted now, but when Dichter was whispering these sweet nothings in the ears of CEOs, they were revelatory.
For Dichter, the ability to express oneself through shopping was a matter of great importance. After a childhood that had been defined by serious poverty, near-starvation and prejudice, he saw America as a beacon of democratic capitalism, with limitless opportunities to grow and express individuality. (Soon after immigrating he took lessons to drop his Viennese accent so he would sound “all-American”.) But he also viewed Americans as a puritanical bunch, incapable of embracing change without anxiety, or spending money without remorse. He worried that this inability to enjoy progress would cripple the country’s economy, which served as a crucial bulwark against the Soviet Union. If consumer culture was America’s best defence against communism, then motivating materialistic desires was an investment in the country’s future.
Dichter’s colourful take on the sexual relevance of ordinary objects got attention
To ensure national security, Americans needed to learn how to please themselves in realistic but ephemeral ways. “To some extent the needs and wants of people have to be continuously stirred up,” he argued, so that everyone will work hard to buy what they desire. In the early 1950s he discerned that, when Americans borrowed money, they preferred to do so from loan sharks at high interest rather than from a bank, because they saw bankers as judgmental father figures, whereas loan sharks lacked the authority to moralise. He advised one bank to advertise checking accounts with overdraft facilities, recognising that people wanted more money than they had but didn’t want to take out loans. As for credit cards, Dichter presciently called them “magic” for the way they provided “the American consumer with a symbol of inexhaustible potency.” One can only imagine what he would make of America’s latter-day spendthrift habits.