Advertisements: Reference Groups, Charismatic Authority, Role Allocation, Social Stratification, Reformative Change, Nationalism, Super Structure

 

Advertisements whether in print, TV or social media are all about creating and sustaining Reference Groups that Robert Merton pertinently outlined for us students of sociology. When they show on screen a fair lady or man, a housewife speeding through her household chores due to a better dish wash or a man gifting his wife a diamond or gold necklace, it is all about creating that positive orientation into a Reference group of being the Ideal Type woman, housewife or husband.

               

Added to that is the Weberian Charismatic Authority in play with sports celebrities and film stars who have millions of fans and followers. If someone whom you worship drinks a particular brand, wears a particular clothing line or drives a said car then you also must have it. That’s the reference group of your mind and the tune of the Charismatic pied piper.               

               

It is thus safe to say advertisements are thus specialists in role allocation. They achieve this by reinforcing the value system of society defining the character sketch of the Ideal housewife, lover, husband, employee, women, man and the list is endless and allocating the virtues associated. In a way, they feed into the common sense and stereotypes of society that ‘white is beauty’ or ‘Gold symbolizes prosperity and social status’ or ‘a woman must be the one washing clothes’ (yet to come across an ad in which men wash clothes). Ads are thus a reflection of the culture angle pointed out by Margret Mead and Ann Oakley in the nature-culture debate on gender hierarchy where it becomes clear cultural values perpetuate male domination of women in society. This role allocation as a whole becomes status quoist encouraging system of social stratification in place.

             

This is straight of the Parsonian and Davis and Moore functional theory of stratification. Advertisements are a mere reflection of social rank and order that exist in society and the value consensus that bind this rank. Advertisements reinforce this value consensus, social order and thus ensure the sustenance of stratification. Most of them being punctuated with a feel good ending (a girl smiling after becoming fair or the housewife content at clean dress or plates) drive home their point that social stratification in effect becomes functional for unit of family and society as a whole.                 

               

That being said, advertisements are ironically change oriented also albeit a reformative rather than revolutionary change. The state itself utilizes advertisements to change social attitudes, behaviours and social stratification systems that exist. The ads advocating Sanitation facilities, its linkage with gender and the use of charismatic authorities like Vidya Balan and Akshay Kumar are a case in point. Who can forget the tag line ‘Jaago Grahak Jago’ that the Indian state has utilized to drive up consumer awareness among citizens and renewed trust in consumer-seller relations.                  .

               

The state-ad linkage goes one step further when ads also feed on the idea of a nation. Benedict Anderson gave the concept of how nations are imagined communities. Advertisements seek to establish this imagined community as those who utilize their goods or services. That is how Amul sells as the ‘Taste of India’ and Hero Honda is ‘Desh ki Dhadkan’. It is the unity and feeling of oneness among us as nation that becomes the selling point for businesses at the same time reinforcing nationalist feeling among citizens and consumers.

               

Marxian and Neo-marxian thinkers would place Ads a part of super structure to a great extent determined by the base structure- the ruling class and its ideas. The Ads on luxury cars, perfumes, champagnes that ooze elitism are a direct hit on the dominant class values that they perpetuate and the elite hierarchy that they seek to maintain. At the end of the day, it is about haves and have-nots, the haves’ social status created, maintained and reinforced through Ads and the desire for material pleasure directly correlated with social status. The haves become the Positive Reference Groups for the have-nots inducing false class consciousness suppressing revolution and serving as the Ideological State Apparatus for capitalist dominance.

Whatever said and done, Ads build and thrive on social relationships, patterns and networks. The very foundation of economics thus curiously lies in society (if one were to turn Marxian thought on its head). The Cadbury Diary Milk Ad of ‘Kiss Me’, The Hutch Ad of ‘You and I in this beautiful world’ and the Havells Ad featuring the mother and child all show that advertisements rest on the foundation of relationships- fictive, familial or conjugal. This truly must be the Comteian moment for the ‘Queen of All Sciences’.

 

(Disclaimer: The names of companies and celebrities used here are purely for educational, academic and non-commercial purposes. The author does not intend to advocate any brand or to defame or criticize any company for its advertisements. The examples used are purely for illustration purposes and no damage is intended)