Land Rover advertising evolution
example ·
retold in 4 talks
Žižek traces three historical stages of advertising logic using Land Rover as the example: first, appeal to real properties (fuel efficiency, terrain); second, status symbol ('keeping up with the Joneses'); third, subjective experience ('drive to the countryside and feel free from your alienated office life').
As told 3
“Today's publicity for Land Rover would have been something like, do you feel constrained by your alienated office life? Drive to the countryside with Land Rover, you will feel free.”
“Today's publicity for Land Rover would have been something like do you feel constrained by your alienated office life, drive to the countryside with Land Rover, you will feel free”
“Do you feel oppressed in your daily life? Have this car and you will feel your life energy, your life will be meaningful.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Brothers Grimm1Mark Epstein1Thorstein Veblen1Hans Christian Andersen1Maurice Merleau-Ponty1George Balanchine1Richard Gere1Sergio Leone1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Žižek traces three historical stages of advertising logic using Land Rover as the example: first, appeal to real properties (fuel efficiency, terrain); second, status symbol ('keeping up with the Joneses'); third, subjective experience ('drive to the countryside and feel free from your alienated office life')., illustrating cultural capitalism,subjective experience as commodity,symbolic value
Traces the history of Land Rover ads from functional efficiency (fuel economy) to Veblenian status signaling, to the current mode of selling subjective freedom and meaning ('feel constrained... drive... feel free')., illustrating cultural capitalism
Three historical modes of publicity map onto Lacan's Real/Symbolic/Imaginary: (1) real qualities of the product, (2) social status signaled, (3) postmodern experiential mode, 'this car will make your life meaningful'. The third mode is the dominant ideology today., illustrating postmodern capitalism,ideology of happiness,Lacanian triad