Analysis Of Lawrence R. Samuel's 'Freud On Madison Avenue'

Referred to as the “darling of Madison Avenue” who capitalised on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory to develop a new marketing technique to understand the new brand of consumer culture that developed in the post-WWI era, Lawrence R. Samuel’s Freud on Madison Avenue recognises Ernest Dichter’s idea of “Motivation Research” as the key marketing strategy to understand the changing commercial consumption patterns and advertising methods from the 1930s till today. In his book, Samuel comprehensively documents the development of “motivation research” which inculcated sociology into marketing techniques, and he highlights the profound influence of the revolutionary ideas of “motivational research” on the advertising industry. This refreshing
Underpinning this idea is Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory that examines people’s desires through psychoanalytical techniques such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, projective questioning, observation and word association. This bridging of a connection between psychoanalytic theory and qualitative market research led to Dichter’s so-called revolutionary stance that emotion, rather than reason, was the key determinant of human behaviour and consumer choices. Hence, Samuel convincingly posits that Dichter’s ideas were rudimentary in propagating the transition of marketing and advertising techniques from rational quantitative to emotion-based qualitative
He examines the perspectives of critics such as Ernest van der Haag who referred to motivation research as “Madison Avenue witchcraft” and Vance Packard who espoused the dangers of manipulating consumers’ sub-consciousness in his book titled The Hidden Persuader. More specifically, the spin-off idea of subliminal advertising that emerged in the 1950s was perceived to be precariously interfering with the American psyche by disrupting the Americans’ ability to exercise conscious control over the acceptance or rejection of advertising messages. In the middle of the book when Samuel explains how motivation research influenced other sub-fields, he explains the limited success of James Vicary’s propagation of subliminal advertising, which was feared as a form of brainwashing tool used by Communist sympathisers during the period of Cold War