August 2004
Fourteen years ago I sat in a lecture learning of the four psychological types of suicide as defined by an 18th century sociologist. Later, I updated one of those types in my Master’s thesis, and concluded that advertising contributed to around 20% of New Zealand suicides in 1991.
In an issue of Marketing Magazine dedicated to celebrating successful marketing and advertising, such a statement may seem heretical. Yet the recent popularity of Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety book and TV-series compels me to write – he’s not offering anything new, but within the debate lies a “slippery slope” argument which could potentially see some advertising methods curtailed for the “social good”.
Those familiar with the status anxiety theory will know de Botton’s refrain: that happiness comes from exceeding or matching one’s expectations of life; and when a culture raises one’s expectations to generally unachievable levels, then anxiety and dissatisfaction will result as people find themselves forever “under-achieving”, resulting in de Botton’s “status anxiety” – an anxious feeling of constant underachievement, even if the desired materialist or financial achievements have been made. How come, de Botton asks, people can feel like underachievers when modern Western societies offer a material quality of life unequalled in the history of the world?
The answer primarily lies in the concepts of social dissonance and relative deprivation. Both underlie most forms of advertising: the premise of “dissonance theory” is that when dissonance or discord is created in a person’s mind, the person seeks to reduce that discomfort (ideally through buying the advertisement’s subject). Hence, much advertising serves to simultaneously create that dissonance and present the solution to it. When this is ongoing, even if just through annual fashion changes, then many may feel that although they keep on buying what is presented to them, achieving true happiness and contentment remains elusive.
In a similar vein, “relative deprivation” relies on the fact that people’s perceptions of their wealth, happiness and wellbeing are largely based upon the comparisons they make with others. If they see others enjoying something better, then the afore-mentioned dissonance often results. As such, having advertising continually present a better life is in turn continually highlighting the deficiencies of one’s own. To illustrate, the difference between the feudal peasant of the past who accepts his place in life, and a citizen of today, is that today’s consumers are constantly being told by advertising that they can and should improve their lot.
Therefore it’s commonplace for depressed people with lowered self-worth to deteriorate further if they measure themselves against advertising’s often unrealistic and mostly unachievable ideals (the causal links between advertising, anxiety, and depression are well documented). Furthermore, if unrealistic social comparisons lead depressed people to a conclusion that they essentially have no control over their lives and may as well “give up”, then a form of fatalism is likely to exist, leading in tragic cases to fatalistic suicide. The original definition of “fatalistic suicide” was developed in 1897, as a psychological state in which all important aspects of one’s life are perceived to be restricted, where free-will is curtailed, and in which one feels there is no control over one’s destiny.
So in 1992 I examined the coroners’ reports into the suicides of 1982 and 1991, seeking to identify those cases in which the victims exhibited the core signs of fatalism, i.e. a feeling of failure and loss of control aggravated by the perception that “much more” should and could have been achieved. These years were chosen because they exhibited large differences in relative deprivation – between 1982 and 1991 the income difference between households in the bottom and top deciles grew by 5.8% - essentially the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, leading to an increase in relative deprivation (accentuated by the simultaneous increase in advertising).
The result was a detected increase in fatalistic suicides, and since then relative deprivation has still increased – the problem’s still around.
Where does this leave advertising? Is advertising without the dissatisfaction / desire pairing self-contradictory? Interestingly, the answer’s already been provided – in the Advertising Standards Authority’s Code of Conduct for Advertising to Children: Principle 2(e) states that Advertisements should not suggest to children any feeling of inferiority or lack of social acceptance for not having the advertised product. With this precedent, the mental health industry could argue for extending this principle to adult-targeted advertising.
Fortunately this may be unnecessary, as advertisers have been reducing the level of unobtainable aspirations they cause already – through audience targeting. There’s no point, after all, of advertising to people who have no chance of buying into your dream. So if you’ve been avoiding the development of better-targeted advertising to date, this should be another reason to do so – for everyone’s sake.