OUGD501: Study Task 2

Using the text Berger, J. (1972) 'Ways of Seeing', write one critical analysis of an advert which, in your opinion, reflects the logic of consumerism, or the social conditions of consumerism, discussed in the lecture 'Consumerism' (17/10/13). Use at least five quotes, referenced according to the Harvard system, in support of your argument.

Lynx Legend: Spray More, Get More. 

(2010)

The advert begins with a sea of women swimming to the shore line, with more scantily clad women approaching from the cliff side and running along the beach, all heading towards a man on the beach. He’s spraying himself with two cans of Lynx Legend deodorant (The product being advertised),and, as the women approach the sense of power, self worth and glamour grows and produces a smug grin on his face as the advert ends. This is then accompanied with a shot of a Lynx can as well as the slogan: ‘Spray More, Get more’ which is a reference to the use of two cans and a consumption of Lynx deodorant.

The advert digs into the unconscious fantasy of an everyman to be desired and surrounded by women who want him, to feel powerful and desirable. The reason he is not desired or surrounded by women currently is because he doesn’t have the product and smell the man is using in the advert: Lynx Legend. 'The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life. Not the way of life of society’. This advert is trying to make the spectator-buyer aware of this dissatisfaction, it’s his fault for not buying the product, and through buying the product the feeling of dissatisfaction will disappear. 

The deodorant is being advertised as something that will get you more women as opposed to something that masks your body odour. This is a common trait of consumerist logic. 'Publicity is about social relations, not objects.’ The advert is not about the deodorant, but what it’s going to bring to the spectator buyer: glamour and happiness.

The need it unearthed to be satiated is of being envied, wanted and power, to have that emotional security in knowing that they are all these. These are the promises given to the spectator-buyer from watching the advert and it’s only through purchasing the deodorant that they will come true. ‘If you are able to buy this product you will be loveable. If you cannot buy it, you will be less loveable.’ The reassurance of self-worth is only attainable through the purchase of Lynx Legend deodorant.

The advert features just one man for a reason, to project the spectator-buyer’s 'Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance.’ 

To know that 

'It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.’ 

'The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that sea and the more remote the chance of bathing in it will seem to him.’