When I was first told to write an essay on a novel that depicts the marketing phenomena I drew a blank, I immediately thought about how ridiculous a novel would be based on such a thing. As I did my research I was proved very wrong, I found that in many ways the roles of marketing is depicted in novels in a much broader sense. The novel that I chose is Animal Farm by George Orwell. Our aim in this essay is to write about what the novel tells us about marketing or consumer society. What does Animal Farm tell us about consumer behaviour? It is a message targeted at emotion, aspiration and hope that can trigger deeply emotive and primal response, which often results in us buying into an idea/product irrationally. Also, it speaks to the idea of …show more content…
Propaganda is the art of persuasion and influence to reach a clandestine objective. It may surprise you to learn that propaganda isn’t just a military mechanism of war, and in my opinion it is just another name for marketing or advertisement as it shares the techniques with advertising and public relations, each of which can be thought of as propaganda that promotes a commercial product or shapes the perception of an organization, person, or brand. An example of propaganda in modern marketing are customer loyalty programmes. By tracking your purchasing and spending habits, along with when, where and how you shop, they can effectively utilise other forms of marketing such as personalised email offers, to influence your next purchase. An example of propaganda in Animal Farm is ad nauseam. This specific type of propaganda is seen throughout the novel through the song ‘Beasts of England’, this song is used to inspire the other animals with the idea of animalism and to unite them against one common enemy, humans. Another example of ad nauseam is seen through the slogan the animals are given, “four legs good, two legs bad”, it is simple and easy to remember. The question is do the animals actually think about what they are saying or are they just so familiar with it that it seems to make sense to them. This is often seen in modern marketing through advertisements such as McDonalds. They continuously have …show more content…
In chapter three of Animal Farm the mystery of the missing milk was cleared up, as well as the order for all the windfall apples to be brought to the harness room for the use of the pigs. Several of the animals were upset about this, as it seemed to go against the Seven Commandments. Squealer was sent by Napoleon and Snowball to explain this to the other animals. He basically said that the pigs were not doing this to be selfish or privileged but that they did this out of necessity for their health. He stated that the pigs were brainworkers and the running of the farm depended on them. He insisted in a most persuasive way that they ate the milk and apples for the sake of the other animals, for if they failed in their duty, then Mr. Jones would come back. Squealer was using techniques of persuasion and/or propaganda to convince the other animals that allowing the pigs to have the extra milk and apples was for their own good. Thus, he manipulated them into believing what the pigs wanted them to believe. Obviously, he used the either/or technique when he said that if the pigs failed in their duty, Mr. Jones would come back. In marketing, manipulation is mainly used in advertisements and we all fall into its trap in some form or another. The most noticeable form of manipulation used is consequences. Like in the example above where the pigs use the consequence of Mr. Jones