Wheeler, Chapter 3 Selling Consumption, 1880-1930 Consider primary sources 1 through 19 - Essay Example

Selling Consumption, 1880-1930 Advertisers have different reasons for using images to appeal to the emotions of its target market. Since the historical periods of the 1800s, advertisers have managed to convince buyers to use their services or use their products because of the pictures and images they attach to a message. An image is often attention grabbing and is a powerful tool to convince a potential buyer. Through the sources, it is evident that advertisements have ways that appeal to gender roles, class distinctions, and an urban society.

The images present some highlights about gender roles. Most department stores in the United States are tailored to deliver an emotional appeal, a strategy that has been used by marketers since after the civil war when women were the main targets for consumption. Retail therapy is a concept used in marketing making people purchased products to ease their emotional states. Conspicuous consumption in retail stores can be traced to attracting women as compared to men, using appealing painting, innovative lighting and other similar attractions that appeal to women’s eyes.

The use of emotion is largely used in marketing photography. For instance, a photo showing the image of a woman is highly likely to be attractive.1This same approach is used in organizations marketing products to children. One of the images in the book has showed this, titled Christmas at Macy’s which shows two female children window-shopping for dolls. Class distinction is evident through the images in the chapter. The image of “Christmas at Macy’s, 1876” differentiates an affluent class from the underprivileged.

The image depicts a mother and children peeping through a window and watching people conduct a myriad of activities. For instance Marshal Field and Company (1925 and 1927), promotes an image that shows a large building with several floors. Such an image shows prosperity and progress for 1925. The images confirm that there was an urban society at this time that was undergoing considerable urbanization. The advertisement about the eastern fair indicates an urban society that loves to celebrate.

There are several events going on in the fair that define urbanization. Information on retail therapy and emotional appeals in marketing campaigns of retail stores shows that consumption is now mainly a female role and no longer a male role as was before. Currently, marketing strategies are aimed at impressing women more as compared to men. Additionally, there are more female-targeted consumption goods as compared to male consumption goods. However, similar strategies have been to market male-targeted consumption goods.

Regardless, the appeal to emotion is more effective on female customers as compared to male consumption. Women are generally more emotional as compared to their male counterparts. Americans are predominantly a consuming culture and hence innovative marketing strategies have been developed to appeal to humans. Emotional manipulation, as most consumers would consider it, has a critical influence in the success of marketing strategies. Advertisement and architectural changes after the civil war played a critical influence on urban consumption culture, making women shopping-addicts.

As seen above, advertisements appeal to gender roles, class distinctions, and an urban society. Understanding history in a more interactive manner encourages one to relate the historical context of selling consumption to the modern methods. BiographyWilliam Bruce Wheeler, Susan D. Becker, and Lorri Glover, Discovering the American Past: A Look at Evidence, Vol. II (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.