In the laboratories of desire. Advertising as an intermediary between products and consumers - article ; n°2 ; vol.1, pg 169-192

Cécile Méadel, Antoine Hennion

Description

Réseaux. The French journal of communication - Année 1993 - Volume 1 - Numéro 2 - Pages 169-192
Summary: What makes us desire objects? In the attempt to find a practical answer to this fundamental question on the subject and object of desire, the authors consider the organization of work in advertising agencies. They identify three procedures which together constitute advertisers' solution to the problem of communication between the product and the market. The to and fro movement which makes one attribute desire to either the object or the subject, is replaced by a series of intermediary screens on which the two components of the supply /demand equation are constantly refashioned.
24 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: RESEAUX-_THE_FRENCH_JOURNAL_OF_COMMUNICATION
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1993
• Nombre de lectures: 24
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Antoine Hennion
Cécile Méadel
Liz Libbrecht
In the laboratories of desire. Advertising as an intermediary
between products and consumers
In: Réseaux, 1993, volume 1 n°2. pp. 169-192.
Abstract
Summary: What makes us desire objects? In the attempt to find a practical answer to this fundamental question on the subject
and object of desire, the authors consider the organization of work in advertising agencies. They identify three procedures which
together constitute advertisers' solution to the problem of communication between the product and the market. The to and fro
movement which makes one attribute desire to either the object or the subject, is replaced by a series of intermediary screens on
which the two components of the supply /demand equation are constantly refashioned.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Hennion Antoine, Méadel Cécile, Libbrecht Liz. In the laboratories of desire. Advertising as an intermediary between products
and consumers. In: Réseaux, 1993, volume 1 n°2. pp. 169-192.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/reso_0969-9864_1993_num_1_2_3249IN THE LABORATORIES OF
DESIRE
Advertising as an intermediary between
products and consumers
Antoine HENNION and Cécile MÉADEL
Translated by Liz Libbrecht
Summary: What makes us desire objects? In the attempt to find a
practical answer to this fundamental question on the subject and
object of desire, the authors consider the organization of work in
advertising agencies. They identify three procedures which
together constitute advertisers' solution to the problem of
communication between the product and the market. The to and
fro movement which makes one attribute desire to either the object
or the subject, is replaced by a series of intermediary screens on
which the two components of the supply /demand equation are
constantly refashioned. 169 IN THE LABORATORIES OF DESIRE
sively organized around an uncompromis
1 INTHE ing defence of the laws of objects, like
epistemology for science or aesthetics for
art, other ideas, like those of Freud or
LABORATORIES Girard, have been used to rewrite a comp
lete model of humanity from a new de
finition of the subject desire.
OF DESIRE Since the beginning of the twentieth cen
tury, this twofold question on the subject
and object of desire has attracted interest.
Introduced by the first advertisements
Advertising as an into the world of business, then into that
intermediary between of industry by modern advertising, and
products and consumers finally into all sectors of public life by
communication, it is no longer of interest
only to the clergy, academics and lovers
alone. It has found in the economy a field
in which it can be converted into cash.
What answers are given by those who are
paid, budget after budget, to ensure that
the products offered in the marketplace
become the objects of consumer demand?
Antoine HENNION and
Cécile MÉADEL
Advertising as an
experimental answer
Introduction
The aim of this article is not to demons
trate the theoretical model on which ad
vertising is deemed to function, but rather
Desire? to explore it. Psychoanalysts well know
that clients more readily tell the truth What is the source of the
when they are paying to do so, and errors power of objects? What
of desire are certainly more expensive for makes us desire them?
advertisers than for philosophers. A maThere could hardly be a
chine with an interest in producing intermore fundamental question. It embraces
est in every sense of the word, advertising the most persistent metaphysical and re
depends on the practical knowledge ligious questions and the most superficial
which it accumulates on the thousand discourse about the consumer society. In
ways of being interesting: in other words, the name of true values, it provokes de
on the very nature of Man and his relarisive laughter about the American Way
tionship with the world. What then can of Life and the society of appearances, or
we learn from its numerous attempts at feeds a modern critique of all objects r
seduction, from its experience as a proeduced to the arbitrariness of a distinctive
fessional, paid for bit by bit to create that sign. It unites in the same spirit of mis
relationship between subject and object trust, former ascetic morals of renunci
which philosophers have made the ation and Marxist condemnation of
comer-stone of their most complex thecapitalism and proliferation. Whereas en
oretical constructs? tire disciplines have been almost
171 HENNION and Cécile MÉADEL Antoine
ism. Above all, it quite naturally finds all Taking seriously the levity with which
advertising treats our desires is in fact the identified places of uncertainty in the
descending a little from the lofty rigour of subject-object relationship.
books to the more chancy tinkering of
Our knowledge also has its certitude - laboratories. The subject-object model no
longer seems like a central given, en even, particularly, about desire. But,
graved on a philosopher's tabula rasa to based on this certitude, how can it be
sensitive to uncertainty, to the undeci- help him to rebuild the world; it becomes
a laboured product that on the laboratory dable, to the disappearance of borders
bench reacts to the way in which adver which this always involves? To produce
tising deals with it. It is in our capacity as knowledge of the intermediary, to respect
a laboratory worker that the latter inter its vacillation instead of reducing it to its
ests us, since the analysis of advertising causes, one must have a subject of r
provides us with an experiential under esearch which commands this attention.
standing of the mechanisms of desire. It is thus by a different type of attention
that advertising will permit us to under
stand where the mere theoretician
A sensitive spot - in between hastens either towards the arbitrariness
of objects and the vanity of subjects, beThe mediating position which advertising cause he finds there the critical denuncioccupies is the best possible point for ation which makes him a prosecutor of observing the role of desire, that myst modernity, or towards the laws of objects erious interest which both defines and which permit him to escape from the unlinks subject and object. Economics has certainty of the creative artist. The advertits certainties; those of the market, which iser on the other hand stops to find the require a price to determine demand, or particular detail which makes him sucthose of technology, which expect a good ceed in this campaign amongst dozens of product to be recognized - but these have
others. Faced with objects which are a always been obviously incapable of com priori all similar and with interchangeable
prehending the relationship between pro subjects, the one is (badly) paid to reduce ducts and markets. Advertising, on the differences, the other (well) paid to pro
other hand, deals with the uncertainty of duce them; one to smooth the roughness this relationship. In so doing, it wrenches of contingent appearances under the it from its inherent links - on the one hand truth of a general model, the other to take with technology, and on the other with the the best possible advantage of the tactical economy - and brings it closer to other moment, the coincidental opportunity, uncertain relationships. Behind account the peculiarities of each isolated case. managers' ants' columns of figures,
and marketing's ranges of strategic plans What happens before a product 'exists',
before it has found 'its' market? Instead products, advertising echoes games of
identity and difference; it reasons in of inspecting finished products, judging
terms of rites, talks of a strange desire to the overall effect of publicity, we shall visit
be labelled, and aims at characterizing a the mobile scaffolding, observe pro
type of consumption which insists on a gressive, opportunistic construction work
want rather than satisfying a need. De which keeps scrapping its plans and uses
pending on fashion, it becomes saturated intuition and tricks of the trade to ad
vance. The natural tendency of studies of with semiotico-analytical vocabulary or
returns to made-in-USA marketing, talks advertising, insofar as their results have
of passion or of rituals, quotes Lacan and caused them to give up coldly measuring
Barthes, or appeals to dreams or its 'effects', has been to collaborate with it
172 IN THE LABORATORIES OF DESIRE
in its seduction. Allowing themselves to which prepare subjects to recognize ob
be attracted by the images it proffers, they jects, technological research and innovat
are raised from economics to semiotics. ion produce objects to be recognized by
subjects, and the entire economy always We refuse this vacillation. One must
operates between goods and markets. In know, at least at first, how to resist the short, all production activities, successful Sirens' song, how not to drop the econ
or otherwise, are in a similar position. omic expert's scalpel and sit down behind
the couch to listen to publicity expatiate But in relation to these activities which
on itself. Once again this is simply an are more oriented towards production of
objects or th