If our modern-day concept of marketing were a stool, it would have three legs. The first leg would be the late 19th century Symbolist movement, which invested all things with symbolic value to provide a temporary refuge from pain. The second would be Newtonian Physic’s mechanistic view of reality, which implies a rigorous determinism. The third, Freudian psychoanalytics, is the topic of this post.
Freud, broadly stated, based his model of psychology on the will to pleasure. It’s the idea that inside all our minds is an “I want” machine and that society, environment, family, or personal incapacity often prohibit satisfaction of our desires. Unable to sustain this tension of wanting without resolution, we push our desires down into our unconscious. Eventually, these repressed desires remerge as neurosis. That said, psychoanalysis concerns itself with undoing the consequences of repression to help “cleanse” individuals of neurosis, tension and pain.
Given that, one can see how this model has shaped our modern marketing ideology. Early 20th century marketers were told that people are propelled to action by internal “I want” machines. So they labeled people “consumers” and treated them as such. Marketers were told people want emotional resolution. So they stopped speaking about product features and started speaking to subconscious desires. Marketers understood pleasure as a personally experienced sensation, not a communal one. So they marketed to the individual and individual interests. Marketers were told their products could resolve soon-to-be-repressed desires or even help unlock repressed desires. So marketers believed they we are uplifting society (see Edward Bernays).
And it worked. For a long time.
But I think the girth of our industry as well as chancing tech is exposing the cracks in what looked to be a sturdy stool leg. The Freudian model isn’t holding up like it used to. “Consumer” is a misnomer for today’s producing populace. Pleasure as a personal pursuit has left our society quantifiably unhappy. “Brand”, an arguably psychoanalytics inspired concept, is (slowly but surely) falling out of favor.
But what will fill its place?
I think the answer is Logotherapy. Begun mid 20th century, Viktor Frankl’s discipline argues that our greatest motivation in life is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain but to find meaning in life. Logotherapy believes in the “self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that a human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself. Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully aware of his own responsibility – his purpose in a brief moment or in a long life.
Much can be said about logotherapy, but here is a short breakdown of the difference, as I understand it:
I can already see parts of this psychology popping up in our commercial world. Conscious consumption ties my purchasing activity to a larger purpose (Toms, Sun Chips). Companies engage me on a co-creative level acknowledging me as shapers and not a consumer (Starbucks, Purefold). Some help me be outwardly focused and connect with a larger community (NIN).
There is a WHOLE lot to say on the ideas of logotherapy, their value and their implications for marketers. But this thought by Viktor Frankle captures my sentiment best:
"People have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have means but no meaning."
Frankl believed that every generation has its own psychological discipline to help it deal with its situation. Psychoanalysis made sense for a world that viewed the machine as the greater uplifter and sought to understand why and how commercial progress had such a profound influence on individuals and society. But our world is fundamentally different now and I believe logotherapy is more aligned with it. Today, we seek to understand the why and how of people who are interconnected; who have unprecedented control over what they see, hear and do; who have storage units brimming with bought but unused products. To do that, we need to shed outdated frameworks and open ourselves to a new understanding of the world.
I encourage you to learn as much as you can about it, because the lens it provides for our work will present many new doors we never saw before.
2 comments:
Thank you very much for this.
I am a believer in Logotherapy. The principle of 'responsibleness' as outlined by Frankl is key to not only overcoming our own obstacles, but in fostering a healthy and workable model for all areas of development; from social, political, environmental perspectives all the way to larger scale problems such as food security and warring nations. All of us contain within ourselves a degree of potentiality that can only be truly identified, and then realized by by ourselves and our motivation. In order to see it however, we are challenged to look beyond ourselves. As Frankl himself points out, this takes extraordinary effort, but the effort is never wasted. Psychoanalysis is a useful tool that can shed light on how we might identify and then go beyond difficulties that hold us back from our true 'will to meaning' but only logotherapy can bring us to that next level. This is a level of not just existing in a state of pleasure fulfillment, but always moving forward within a framework that continually evolves and enlightens as we move along our unique journey that is life.
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