{"id":610,"date":"2022-11-25T20:37:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T20:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/?p=610"},"modified":"2022-11-25T20:44:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T20:44:16","slug":"empowerment-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/?p=610","title":{"rendered":"Empowerment for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYes You Can,\u201d (Sprint), \u201cBe All that You Can Be\u201d (U.S. Army), \u201cBecause You\u2019re Worth it,\u201d (L\u2019Or\u00e9al) in \u201cYour World, Delivered\u201d (AT&T). You\u2019ve seen these new ads: pitches for products or services to let you \u201cbe yourself\u201d or \u201ctake control\u201d of some aspect of your life. It\u2019s a new strategy called \u201cempowerment marketing,\u201d based on the premise that in media savvy age people are smarter about advertising and need to be approached in a way that flatters their evolved sensibilities. \"\"<\/a>As a recent feature in Your Business <\/em>put it, \u201cTraditional marketing depends on creating anxiety in the customer in convincing her that she has a need that only the product or service sold can help her fill.\u201d \u00a0In contrast, \u201cEmpowerment marketing subverts traditional marketing techniques by recasting the consumer as the hero who has the power to effect change and use the product or service being sold to achieve success.\u201d[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Nice as this sounds, it is really a case of putting old wine in new bottles. The example Your Business<\/em> uses is the familiar Nike \u201cJust Do it\u201d campaign, which doesn\u2019t so much promote a certain shoe as much as \u201cthe message that anyone can be an athlete if they\u2019re willing to work hard.\u201d[ii]<\/a> And indeed, this is exactly the message that appears on the first page of Nike\u2019s current website: \u201cYour daily motivation with the latest gear, most effective workouts and the inspiration you need to test your limits\u2013\u2013and unleash your potential\u201d with a fashion item lower on the page captioned \u201cDress like a champion.\u201d[iii]<\/a> In other words, the new empowerment advertising doesn\u2019t really forgo conventional appeals to consumer anxiety. It simply personalizes the pitch with the lure of enhanced autonomy. The Nike ad itself sums up this contradiction perfectly in stating: \u201cLife isn\u2019t about finding your limits. It\u2019s about realizing you have none.\u201d[iv]<\/a> <\/p>\n

Just think about the potency of this message in an America where people feel controlled and managed at every turn. Where is the one place to exercise absolute creativity? What is the canvas that is yours alone? It\u2019s the body, the face, the external image of the self. Nike pitches heavily to younger customers pressured by school or job seeking and still in the vulnerable stage of identity formation psychologists term \u201cdifferentiation.\u201d And of course, a lot of empowerment advertising has targeted women, ever since the technique was first introduced decades ago with the Virginia Slims \u201cHave it your Way, Baby\u201d campaign for cigarettes. One doesn\u2019t have to look far to find other examples, such as the recent \u201cBe Who You Are\u201d ad campaign by Bobbi Brown cosmetics, offering \u201csupremely flattering makeup for all skin tones \u2026 to make any woman feel like herself.\u201d[v]<\/a> Ads by Covergirl (\u201cBecause We Rule\u201d) and Famous Footwear (\u201cVictory is Yours\u201d) work the same way.<\/p>\n

The concept of creativity drives brands like \u201cCreative Make-up\u201d (Sephora), \u201cCreative Cosmetics\u201d (Thames & Cosmos), and the entire \u201cBE Creative Make Up\u201d line, the latter of which urges customers to \u201cBe Beautiful, Be Yourself\u201d because \u201cYou Are Wonderfully Unique.\u201d[vi]<\/a>\u00a0 No less a publication than the New York Times Style Magazine<\/em> recently ran a cover story along the same lines entitled \u201cTo Thine Own Self Be True\u201d proclaiming its \u201cpraise of idiosyncratic beauty.\u201d Summarizing all of this in Business Life Magazine<\/em>, columnist David Mattin argued in a piece called \u201cThe New New Thing\u201d that a novel truth has emerged in American marketing\u2013\u2013\u201cThe endless search to become the people dream of being.\u201d To Mattin the commodity of personal fulfillment\u2013\u2013whether through appearance, personal fitness, happiness, or knowledge\u2013\u2013has become the new holy grail in advertising. As he writes: \u201cWhatever you sell, you\u2019d better be selling personal fulfillment. Increasingly, brands that fail to understand that powerful truth will find themselves sailing into oblivion.\u201d[vii]<\/a><\/p>\n

This may sound appealing, but it also has troubling implications\u2013\u2013the notion of creativity and \u201cpersonal fulfillment\u201d as a sponsored aspects of the human psyche. Here again, this isn\u2019t so much a matter of anything \u201cbad\u201d being promoted or sold, but of \u201cgood\u201d qualities transformed into products. It\u2019s a form of seductive conditioning that draws consumers into purchasing with the lure of self-expression.\u00a0 Despite its proponents\u2019 claims, this process works by making people feel badly about themselves. Why would one need a beauty or fulfillment product if one already had these things? This is \u201ctraditional marketing\u201d reaching into fresh territory, but still leaning on familiar social norms and ideals to convey inadequacy (unachieved fitness, skinniness, newness, for example), and along the way implying prejudice or outright distain toward anyone not fitting the image. And if you can\u2019t afford the product, you are in double-trouble.<\/p>\n

None of this should come in a surprise in a culture seemingly obsessed with the topic of identity. The rise of internet technology has made it possible to \u201ccreate\u201d an image of oneself in ways earlier generations could never imagine: online profiles, timelines, personal blogs, dating apps, game avatars, etc. More than ever, the \u201cself\u201d has become one\u2019s most treasured possession\u2013\u2013something to be cultivated, stylized, beautified, and presented for public view. And of course identity has to be protected as well\u2013\u2013not only in the sense of a combative politics of identity, but also as an aspect of self that can be diminished, tarnished, or even erased. \u201cSomeone you\u2019ve never met can post your picture on the internet,\u201d wrote Daniel J. Solove in The Future of Reputation<\/em>. \u201cThese transformations pose threats to people\u2019s control over their reputations and their ability to be who they want to be.\u201d[viii]<\/a>\u00a0 To Solove and many other privacy experts, the expansiveness and permanence of internet databases threaten to further compromise the boundaries between self and others. Now ordinary citizens must contend with the kind of public scrutiny once reserved for celebrities. But things can get strikingly personal too. When the New York Times<\/em> recently asked \u201cDo you snoop on your partner,\u201d one in four respondents said \u201cyes.\u201d[ix]<\/a> The solution Solove proposes is a \u201cnew and broader notion of privacy and by reaching a better balance between privacy and free speech.\u201d And then there is the matter of \u201cidentity theft\u201d in which the once-philosophical notions of the self-as-possession is literalized, often with criminal intent as when credit card fraud results.[x]<\/a><\/p>\n

What lies behind this new preoccupation with the \u201cself\u201d? The seemingly narcissistic (and sometimes paranoid) obsession with personal identity, self-image, and reputation? Is this simply American individualism in yet another form, maybe amped up by media and ubiquitous social networking? Or is there something else behind the rising inward direction of American people? Might the neo-protectionism seen in Trump-era global policy reflect a deeper fearfulness of a nation and a people alone in a menacing world? Is it mere coincidence that empowerment marketing is rising as many feel politically disempowered, financially insecure, and alienated from their neighbors? Are self-expression and inner creativity becoming the final psychic refuge? And if the latter is the case, who gains and who loses from such a situation? And do prospects for change improve or lessen?<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Jean Marie Bauhaus \u201cWhat Does Empowerment Mean in Marketing?\u201d Business & Entrepreneurship<\/em> (n.d.) http:\/\/yourbusiness.azcentral.com\/empowerment-mean-marketing-28220.html (accessed Aug. 6, 2017).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> \u201cStart Your Journey,\u201d Nike.com (Aug. 1, 2016) http:\/\/www.nike.com\/us\/en_us\/c\/justdoit (accessed Aug. 6, 2017).<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> Bobbi Brown, \u201cThe Bobbie Brown Philosophy\u201d Empowering women to look like their best selves,\u201d aol<\/em>. (Mar. 21, 2015) http:\/\/www.aol.com\/article\/2014\/03\/21\/bobbi-brown-makeup-philosophy\/20849490\/ (accessed Jul. 17, 2016).<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> \u201cBe Beautiful. Be Yourself.\u201d BE Creative (n.d.) http:\/\/www.becreativemakeup.com (accessed Mar. 28, 2018).<\/p>\n

[vii]<\/a> David Mattin, \u201cThe New New Thing,\u201d Business Life (Jun. 2016) (accessed Jul. 18, 2016).<\/p>\n

[viii]<\/a> Daniel J. Solove, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet<\/em> (New Haven: Yale, 2007) p. 3.<\/p>\n

[ix]<\/a> \u201cDo You Snoop on Your Partner?\u201d New York Times Magazine (Aug. 7, 2016) (accessed Aug. 7, 2017)<\/p>\n

[x]<\/a> The Future of Reputation<\/em>, p. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYes You Can,\u201d (Sprint), \u201cBe All that You Can Be\u201d (U.S. Army), \u201cBecause You\u2019re Worth it,\u201d (L\u2019Or\u00e9al) in \u201cYour World, Delivered\u201d (AT&T). You\u2019ve seen these new ads: pitches for products or services to let you \u201cbe yourself\u201d or \u201ctake control\u201d of some aspect of your life. It\u2019s a new strategy called \u201cempowerment marketing,\u201d based on … <\/p>\n

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