Download Chapter 1. The Social Criticism of Vance Packard

Vance Packard and the Fear of Totalitarianism
The Discussion of The Hidden Persuader in the Context of Cold
War Anxiety
Anne van Vemde
4111672
Ma Thesis
American Studies Program
Utrecht University
July 27, 2015
Table of Contents
Introduction
3
Chapter 1. The Social Criticism of Vance Packard
8
Chapter 2. Marketing, Sociology and the Reception of the Books
26
Chapter 3. Totalitarian Regimes and the Origin of Fear in American Society
42
Conclusion
56
Bibliography
59
2
Introduction
In the years after the Second World War, American society became more focused on
consumerism. Marketing was used before this time as well but it became much more
important during these years. Books were published on the subject of marketing. One of these
books was the very influential book The Hidden Persuaders by American journalist Vance
Packard. In this book, published in 1957, Packard explores “a strange and rather exotic area
of American life”. The book looks at the efforts that are being made to channel thinking
habits, purchasing decisions, and thought processes with the use of psychiatry and social
sciences.1 This book made quite an impression on the general American public with the
stories of manipulation of advertising men. Vance Packard wrote two more books that deal
with related subjects in the years after The Hidden Persuaders was published, The Status
Seekers and The Waste Makers. These books highlighted the change in post war American
society to consumerism and the questions of morality that came with it.
Books like this did not define marketing during this period, but they do fit into a broader
development that was happening in this time. They reflect some of the unrest that was going
on in the American society about these new ways to influence buying behavior of people. The
rise of marketing was not the only thing that influenced this change in society. More and more
products were being developed to make the life of the average American family easier. These
products helped to create a consumer society in which buying and owning products became
more important. Historian Lizabeth Cohen looks at this in connection to the malls that could
suddenly be seen everywhere during the 1950s.2 This helped to create the idea that American
society was superior and that this superior American way of living had to be brought over to
Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, Inc, 1957),
3.
2 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar
America (Vintage Books , 2004), 6-7.
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3
other parts of the world. This created a form of soft power that America used during the Cold
War to create a more positive image of the country in other parts of the world.
Marketing was not only connected to the life of the American people but it was also used in
other aspects of society politics with the political campaigns.
This topic is something that is already widely discussed in the academic field. It is mentioned
in different academic field like marketing, sociology and history and it can be used to describe
different aspects of American society and the idea of the American empire. The psychological
aspects of marketing are often discussed. Different fields look at different aspects. Often a
book like The Hidden Persuaders is looked at from a marketing angle when only the
importance for the field of marketing is discussed. Much of literature focuses on
consumerism. This is something that also plays and important part in Packard’s books.
Packard questions the morality of the persuading done by marketing men and the
consumerism that is becoming more and more important. Consumerism is something that is
addressed in the book A Consumers’ Republic by Lizabeth Cohen. She looks at the rise of the
after war suburbs and the consumerist change this brought with it. Class plays a big part in her
analysis of consumerism in this book. She sees “an economy, culture, and politics build
around the promises of mass consumption, both in terms of material life and the more
idealistic goals of greater freedom, democracy, and equality”. 3 This is something that ties into
the idea of the ideal American society that was created in this time period.
The importance of Vance Packard is described in the book Vance Packard and American
Social Criticism by Daniel Horowitz. Horrowitz argues that Packard felt the anxieties of
the American society during this time of change. According to Horowitz, the critique
Vance Packard had on the American society was both ambivalent and powerful. In this
3
Cohen, A Consumers' Republic, 6-7.
4
book Horowitz describes Vance Packards life and work and “the trends in American life”
that his words “reflected and shaped”. 4
Consumerism is described in the article “Makers, Buyers, and Users” by Ann Smart
Martin. She defines it as “the cultural relationship between humans and consumer goods
and services, including behaviors, institutions, and ideas. Martin describes how
economic researchers maintain thet “consumers seek sensation, novelty, creativity, or
religious verification” as a way to describe the need for consumers to aquire new goods.5
The role of gender is also something that was important in marketing and consumerism.
Shelly Nickles describes this role of gender and class. She describes how important the
purchasing power of working-class women was in the 1950s and how they were
searching for social identity. She describes how the working-class was now able to buy
more of the mass-produceed comfort good.6
The main question for this thesis is the if the reception of the book The Hidden
Persuaders was influenced by the Cold War climate of the time period, and the fear of
totalitarian regimes and mass influencing. This thesis is divided into three chapters that
will each answer a sub question. The first chapters focuses mainly on Vance Packard and
his motivation for writing not only The Hidden Persuaders but also his other two
influential books The Status Seekers and The Waste Makers. The question that is
answered in this chapter is: What was the motivation of Vance Packard behind the
writing of these books and what was he trying to achieve with writing the books?
Daniel Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (University of North
Carolina Press, 1994), 2-3.
5 Ann Smart Martin, “Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism as a Material Culture
Framework,” Winterthur Portfolio (1993): 142-44.
6 Shelley Nickles, “More Is Better: Mass Consumption, Gender, and Class Identity in
Postwar America ,” American Quarterly, (Dec. 2002): 581-82.
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5
Chapter two looks more into the reception of the book in different fields. It looks into
articles that have been written about the book in fields like marketing and sociology in
the time the book was published and the ten years after. The question that is answered
in this chapter is: How was the book The Hidden Persuaders received in different fields
like marketing and sociology and how the general public reacted to the book?
The final chapter goes into the Cold War background of the ideas of totalitarian regimes.
The Cold War had a big influence on the way people looked at certain things that are
described in Packard’s book like manipulation. The question for this chapter is: How
important this background of fear of totalitarian regimes in the Cold War period was for
the reception of this book?
As someone with a history in marketing, the combination of history and marketing is a
question that is very interesting for me to explore. It shows the history of marketing in
relation to the changes within a society and in what way they are connected to each other.
Some of the questions that are being asked are still relevant today. Marketing is still often
seen as a tool to manipulate people into buying things that they see as something they do not
need. The change in society is also something that still lives on today. The years after World
War Two were very influential in shaping a new view on the ideal American society and what
this ideal society should look like. The interest people still have in this subject and this time
period can be seen in a television show like Mad Men that is very popular. The relevance can
also be seen in more recent articles on The Hidden Persuaders and the influence of Vance
Packard in articles in The New York Times in 2007 and The Economist in 2011. The article in
The New York Times, called The Hard Sell, looks at The Hidden Persuaders and how today
we still ask some of the same questions and have some of the same critique on the consumer
society.7
7
Mark Greif, “The Hard Sell.” The New York Times, December 30, 2007.
6
To answer the questions, literature from this period like the books by Packard and the
responses will be used in combination with more recent literature on marketing, social
studies, psychology and history. The time period this thesis mainly focuses on is from The
Hidden Persuaders in 1957 and the ten years after during which Vance Packard wrote The
Status Seekers and The Waste Makers.
This thesis will look at the changes in society with the rise of marketing and fears of people of
manipulation and the way this book fits into this. The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
helps to highlight some of the feelings that were notable in the American society during this
time. Consumerism is also an important aspect in the literature that is used for this thesis and
something that is often mentioned in the The Hidden Persuaders. The literature used for this
thesis looks at American life in the post war years, at the rise of marketing, and at Vance
Packard and his critique and the reception of his book in 1957.
Schumpeter. “Hidden Persuaders II.” The Economist, September 24, 2011.
7
Chapter 1. The Social Criticism of Vance Packard
As a social critic, Vance Packard wrote many books about the problems he saw in
American society. With these books he tried to make people aware of what was
happening in their country and how important it was to know of new technological
developments and new fields of business like marketing and advertising. This chapter
looks mainly at The Hidden Persuaders and the motivation Vance Packard had for writing
it, but two of his other books, The Status Seekers and The Waste Makers, will also be
discussed. The question that will be answered in this chapter is: What was the
motivation of Vance Packard behind the writing of these three books and what was he
trying to achieve with writing the books?
Vance Packard was an American journalist, writer and social critic. The main focus of his
work was on social aspects of society. He wrote books in a critical manner on different
developments he saw in American society. Packard has written twelve books between
1946 and 1989 on al sorts of different problems he noticed in America. He wrote on the
dangers of new technology in The Naked Society, on business culture and hierarchy in
The Pyramid Climbers, the sexual revolution of the 1960 in The Sexual Wilderness and
many other social subjects like the lives of American multimillionaires. 8
Richard Severo, “Vance Packard, 82, Challenger of Consumerism, Dies.” The New York
Times, December 13, 1996.
8
8
Vance Packard was a socialist, which becomes clear when looking at the subjects of his
books. He focuses on equality and the distribution of wealth. In an interview he did with
Harold Hudson Channer, he discusses his final book about the division of wealth in the
United States and his political views are quite clear. In this book, The Ultra Rich: How
Much is Too Much, he looks at the richest people in America and questions again the
morality of theses people making so much money while others are struggling to make
enough.9
Three books that were very important in making his name were The Hidden Persuaders
from 1957, The Status Seekers published in 1959, and The Waste Makers, which was
published in 1960. In these three books, Packard focuses on the advertising industry;
the way people in America try to achieve some sort of status, and mass consumption in
America. The three books are connection by the subject they discuss. The Hidden
Persuaders looks at marketing in general while The Status Seekers and The Waste Makers
take certain aspects, like the how people want things that will give them status and how
marketing is connected to this and how the consumerist society buys more and that with
that came more waste, that are described in The Hidden Persuaders and look at them
more in-depth.
Packard wrote these books during a time in which America was struggling to get used to
all the new technology and there was always a fear that the Russians would infiltrate the
country. This fear of things that were unknown to the American people provided the
perfect background for books on manipulation of the mind. More on the background of
the time in which Packard wrote these books can be found in chapter three. The time
Vance Packard interviewed by Harold Hudson Channer. "Conversations With Harold
Hudson Channer" (March 1989).
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9
had a huge influence on the way the books were received and it is very likely it also had
an influence on the way the books were written.
Daniel Horowitz has written the book Vance Packard & American Social Criticism, a
biography of Vance Packard and his work in the field of social criticism. Horowitz wrote
the book on the basis of different conversations he had with family and friends of Vance
Packard. The book by Horowitz is seen as the most complete and influential work on
Vance Packard and it is the book that is often used to describe him and his work.
Horowitz focuses on these three books and their background. He writes that around the
time Packard was writing The Hidden Persuaders, the magazines he worked for stopped,
making him unemployed. According to Horowitz this had a big influence on his life and
caused him to panic about his future. Horowitz writes that the three books he wrote in a
row, The Hidden Persuaders, The Status Seekers, and The Waste Makers, made a bestseller
author of him. According to Horowitz these books were based on the experiences of
Vance Packard on a farm where he grew up, during the depression, and when he studied
sociology.10 Horowitz argues that these books were the result of the mixed feelings
Packard had about what he was witnessing in society with the manipulation of people to
make them buy. He writes that these books made millions of people aware of the
dangers corporate power brought with them, the great division there was between
social groups and how economic growth threatened the natural resources and the
national character of America.11
Horowitz describes that Packard reacted to the people that talked positively about the
changes that were happening in the American society. Horowitz writes, “[t]hese
celebrants claimed that the United States had entered a new era, characterized by
Daniel Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism. (University of North
Carolina Press, 1994), 102-3.
11 Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism, 103.
10
10
advertising, consumer credit, product innovation, and a pleasure-seeking morality.”
These people argued that this new era and new developments would have a positive
influence on social differences, it would help to get rid of poverty and create a more
equal American society.
The ideas behind this were related to the situation in the world at this time. According to
Horowitz, the Cold War played an important part in creating these ideas. Especially the
idea of an equality society and the all people having access to the same products was
influenced by the ideology of communism. They were trying to make the contrast
between free capitalist America and communism behind the Iron Curtain bigger by
stressing the “abundance for all” in America while at the same they were showing the
poverty and totalitarian regime of the communist Soviet Union. 12 The Cold War
background will be discussed further in chapter three.
The Hidden Persuaders is considered as Packard’s most important book. The book
received much attention when it was first published and it is still getting some attention
now. In this book Vance Packard describes the new and upcoming field of marketing.
According to Packard, some of the people in marketing used techniques to manipulate
people into buying things they do not really need or want. Packard describes many of
different ways in which marketing, specifically the ‘depth approach’ that plays an
important part in this book, are used to influence people without them knowing it.
Packard writes that the approach used by marketing is very much based on psychology
and reaches the subconsciousness of people. One of the most important aspects of
marketing is the way it uses the area of peoples mind that they are not always aware of.
He gives a great many examples of things that are done to reach this level of peoples
mind.
12
Ibid, 102.
11
Something that Packard describes indepth is the way packaging works. He describes
how the use of colors and materials is specifically altered to reach the right target group.
Packard describes two boxes of candy, one in the lower price range and one that is more
expensive. Packard describes how the packaging of both boxes helps to get the product
sold to the right people. The expensive box comes in much cheaper packaging that the
lower priced one because people with more money are more likely to throw the box
away while people that do not have a much of money to spend are more likely to keep
the box and use it for something else.13 One aspect that is used for targeting product is
the use of sexuality and people’s ideas about it. Packard sees this as one of the biggest
moral questions of marketing. 14
Packard not only discusses the way marketing is used by companies to sell their
products but he also looks at the way marketing is used in politics and business.
According to Packard, this manipulation of people’s mind did not just happen in
advertising. He describes the differences between the presidential campaigns of the
Democrats and the Republicans and the big role marketing played in these campaigns.
Packard writes that the Republicans were more aware of what marketing could do for
them than the Democrats were in the beginning of the campaign.
Something that was important according to Packard is the relation the Republicans had
with the most important agencies that made it almost impossible for the Democratic
Party to find an agency that was willing to take on their campaign. Packard describes
that the use of marketing early on in the campaign helped the Republicans to win the
elections. 15
Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, Inc, 1957),
124.
14 Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 121.
15 Ibid, 183-87.
13
12
What Packard was trying to do with this book is make people aware of what is
happening with these new developments in society and question the morality of what
the marketing people were doing. He wonders if it is moral for the people in advertising
to look into people’s lives and thoughts and sub consciousness to sell their products.
According to Packard the consumers were manipulated into buying by ways they were
not aware of. In the book he wants to make people aware of what is happening and he
wants to get them to think about the morality of some aspect of marketing for
themselves. He ends the book with some moral questions that he has for people to think
about.16
In a Book and Authors Luncheon, which was broadcasted on WNYC in January 1957,
Vance Packard talks specifically about The Hidden Persuaders and what his reasons were
for writing the book. What he wanted to do was not just show the use of motivational
research but he saw the book as “a protest against the over commercialization of
American life.”17
In this discussion he mentions three aspects he is concerned about. He feels that the
advertisers are getting more and more bold in trying to invade the minds of the people
they are trying to sell their product to. As an example of this he mentions the very short
advertisements that are shown during movies that are too short to be noticed but do
influence the mind. In the book, Packard mentions this form of advertising often and
more indepth.
The second aspect he mentions is how irrational behavior is deliberately encouraged.
For this fear he gives the example of women that go shopping in supermarkets without a
list. Because they did not have a list of products they needed to buy they were not tied to
Ibid, 233.
Vance Packard, Mary Margaret, and Henry Kissinger, interviewed by Van Doren. “Book
an Authors Luncheon,” Book and Authors Luncheon (January 13, 1958).
16
17
13
just the items on the list and they could buy everything they wanted. Packard felt that
buying was being done more and more on impulse.
The final thing he mentions is the ‘psychological obsolescence’. This is the subject he
would later explore further in The Waste Makers. Packard felt that people were replacing
products that were still good to use by newer models. The design of these products had
to be in style and new models had to have new technology. The advancement of
technology was in part responsible for this according to Packard. This is something he
also mentions in the interview with Harold Hudson Channers in 1989.
Packard also feels that there is a change in the society. This is something that is also
mentioned in the book by Daniel Horowitz where Horowitz describes the fear Packard
had that the American puritan ideals were disappearing and society became less hard
working. He feels that people in America are becoming more and more materialistic,
much more than other countries. According to Packard the American youth did not have
any ideals like young people in other countries did but they had given in to the pressure
to consume.18
Even though the sources of the book are not specifically mentioned or footnoted,
Packard does mention them occasionally. He describes talking to people that come from
the field of marketing and in some parts he discusses specific techniques that he was
told about or researches into psychology and hidden needs of people. One of his most
important sources is Ernest Dichter who had been influential to the depth approach and
motivational research.19
Something that Packard describes in this book is Marketing Eight Hidden Needs. This is
one of the aspects of the book that got much attention when the book came out and
18
19
Vance Packard, Mary Margaret, and Henry KissingerBook and Authors Luncheon
Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism , 47.
14
something that is still written about. With these eight hidden needs, Packard describes
the needs that are identified in marketing and that from the basis of most of the
marketing campaigns. The hidden needs focus on basic feelings of people of wanting to
feel safe and secure, like with the example that is given of the home freezer that is much
more expansive than it would seem. The reasons people gave suggested they were a
good investment but additional research showed that this could not be the real reason. It
was found that the main reason people wanted a freezer was that they could save food
after World War Two when they became more anxious about these sorts of things.
The eight hidden needs all play into subconscious feeling people had on their safety,
childhood, sexuality, social status and other aspects in the same category. The reasoning
behind this was that people wanted to be reminded of happy moments of their
childhood and they wanted the conformation that their social status was what they
wanted it to be. Marketers played into these feelings by creating campaigns that
targeted them and made people think that buying these products would help them to get
the feeling they were looking for. These hidden needs are an example of what could be
found by using motivational research. This motivational research is something that
Packard mentions often because it is one of his main issues with marketing. It looks at
people’s attitudes and feelings on a level that people are not aware of. 20
Something else that is an important part of the change in America, according to Packard,
is the supermarket. He describes how women completely changed their buying habits
when they went to a supermarket instead of a shop were they would have to ask
someone for the products they wanted. Supermarkets hid their ignorance about food
and made it easier for these women to buy whatever they wanted to.21
20
21
Ibid, 47, 86-94.
Ibid, 82, 100.
15
The first time Vance Packard came in contact with some of the material he would later
use for The Hidden Persuaders was when was given an assignment for the Reader’s
Digest in 1954. The main subject of this article was “the increased use of ‘motivational
research’ by merchandiser.” This motivational research would later become the basis of
The Hidden Persuaders. The magazine did not print the article Packard wrote about this
subject even though he did get paid for it. Packard suspected this decision to not print
the article had something to do with a recent change in the tradition of the Reader’s
Digest. The magazine was starting to print advertisements. Packard has always seen
these two things as connected according to Horowitz. The events at the magazine and
his interest in the subject made him think about writing a book about it.
He sent the article to someone he had previously worked with at a magazine that at that
time worked at the David McKay company as an editor. They were interested and
encouraged him to write a book about it. Horowitz writes that the book was an answer
to the people that were claiming that the developments in the advertising industry were
very important to the well being of Americans. According to Horowitz there has not
been much critique on the new developments of advertising. There had been debates
about the techniques that were used but there was nothing that really influenced the
way advertising was seen.
Horowitz does describe some novels that were already dealing with this subject but
there were no nonfiction books like The Hidden Persuaders. They were often fictional
stories that helped to scare people about changes in their society. All of these books did
see marketing and advertising in the same way. The executives were described as being
16
“materialistic, status-conscious, immoral people who cynically manipulated the
consumer’s desires.”22
In contrast to these books that were critical of advertising, there were many people that
stressed the important role of advertising in the American economy. According to these
people advertising was the main activity of the American economy. It was seen as the
reason for the high standard of living in the United States.
The main thing Packard does with The Hidden Persuaders is warning people for the
changes in America. He mainly critiques the methods used in marketing and the way the
psyche was used to convince people to buy. Packard argued that advertising was a
threat to individualism and it was something that was changing everyday life in
America.
Horowitz writes that the main sources for the book were case studies. With these case
studies Packard could describe specific techniques and processes behind the
advertisements. The fears Packard had were closely related to other fears from a
decade before about the invasion of privacy. He felt that what the advertising industry
was doing with their motivational research and their connection to the fears of people
was an invasion of privacy. Horowitz argues that Packard believed that the different
people that worked in the advertisement industry, like researchers and psychologists,
represented Big Brother.23
Something Horowitz should have been more critical of is the way Packard used his
sources. This use of sources from the marketing world makes the book more interesting
to read, but because it is only based on what these sources told Packard it is difficult to
check them.
22
23
Ibid, 105.
Ibid. 107.
17
Others have raised questions about Packard’s sources. In an article in The Atlantic
Randall Rothenberg, the president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, looks
back at The Hidden Persuaders and the claims it made about advertising. In the article
‘How Powerful is Advertising’ he looks at the claims Packard makes in the book and how
these claims, and the fears Packard had, are for some part a result of the time in which
the book was written.
According to Rothenberg, many of the claims Packard makes in the book have since then
been proven to be untrue. He mentions one of the main sources of The Hidden
Persuaders that gave Packard the information about the short advertisements during the
movies. James Vicary later admitted this experiment did not really happen. The sources
that are used by Packard can indeed be seen as one of the biggest weaknesses of the
book. Because there is no list of sources and he does not have notes, it is very difficult to
check the claims Packard makes.
According to Rothenberg The Hidden Persuaders is no longer relevant because of the
changing times. The fears that people had during the Cold War are no longer relevant.
This is also mentioned in a WNYC article on the Book and Authors Luncheon and in
other places. It argues that people are now more aware of marketing and consumerism
but they do not really care about it anymore.24
The critique that Horowitz describes is mainly that it is exaggerated. He wrote about
certain aspects of advertising, like the motivational research, like they were used by
everyone without controversy. This was not always the case. This technique was very
much discussed within the advertising world. Other criticism Horowitz has is that
contradictory evidence was not taken into account. Something else that Horowitz
Randall Rothenberg, “How Powerful is Advertising.” The Atlantic, June 1995.
Vance Packard, Mary Margaret, and Henry Kissinger, Interviewed by Van Doren. “Book
an Authors Luncheon.” Book and Authors Luncheon (January 13, 1958).
24
18
mentions as noticeable in the book is that he feels that Packard does not always comes
across as really alarmed but also as fascinated. This is something that can be noticed on
different occasions within the book were Packard describes the advertising strategies.
There are some he immediately sees as immoral, like the sexual aspects that are used,
and others where he gives to impression to be interested in the techniques that are used
instead of questioning the morality. As Horowitz also describes, The Hidden Persuaders
was not an attack on all aspects of marketing. He argues that the criticism was directed
mainly at the advertisers that used the new techniques that are described in the book.
The Hidden Persuaders was a big success that helped Packard to become more widely
known than he was before. 25
Horowitz provides an interesting overview of the life and work of Vance Packard. While
he does mention some of the motives Packard had for writing these three books he
could have elaborated some more on that in some areas. In interviews, Vance Packard
has clearly stated his motives and what he was trying to do with these books. Horowitz
mainly looks at the financial reasons Packard had to start writing books when became
unemployed, and at the direct reasons for writing them, like an article he read or an
assignment he had to do. Something Horowitz hardly mentions is the motive behind it.
In an interview Packard describes exactly why he wanted to write The Hidden
Persuaders and what he wanted to do with these books. Packard stated that he wanted
to warn people and make them aware of what was happening in their society. Others
criticized this and felt that Packard had a good instinct for the feelings that people had
during the Cold War period and was able to use that to write a book that was seen
written in a style that was to popular and not nuanced enough. Horowitz does not really
look at this discussion. The same goes for the way he looks at the motivation behind the
25
Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism, 108.
19
other two books. The responses and the discussion of Packard’s motives will be
discussed more in-depth in chapter two.
Because of the successes of other authors that wrote multiple books on subjects that
were closely related Packard was urged to write another book that focused on the field
of sociological phenomenon to really get his name out is an important social critic and
writer, which lead Packard to writing The Status Seekers.
In The Status Seekers, Packard looks at the social divisions in America and status
consciousness. This book is largely based on a marketing study that was brought to his
attention. This study looked at the relationship there was between social class and
patterns of consumption. 26 The book reacted to some claims that were made about
marketing and advertising that are discussed earlier in this chapter. It was something
that was already a theme in The Hidden Persuaders that now became one of the main
focuses of The Status Seekers. This was the claim that was made by some people that
came from the advertising world who argued that the class and ethnic divisions were
decreasing.
At the time it was argued that America was becoming the first truly classless society.
They reported that there was one big middle class emerging with people that were all on
the same level. Horowitz mentions one commenter who said, “The United States is not
evolving towards socialism but past socialism.” There were discussions about the
opportunities that were offered in America in contrast to Europe and is was suggested
that the word class should be replaced by ‘status groups’ to avoid the connection class
had with European social systems.27
26
27
Ibid, 110.
Ibid, 112.
20
The time in which the book was written did suggest that things were getting better for
the average American. The economic position of a great many people did increase. There
were some other aspects of society that were more problematic. This was also the time
during which segregation was still important in America and women did not get
chances. Not everyone could make it to the middle class, which meant that there was
still a working class below it. The division of wealth remained very unequal and there
were many people living in poverty.28
The main reason for the problems in America was, according to Packard, the people that
were behind marketing. There were two different opinions on what the cause of the
problems was. Packard saw it is coming from the manipulators in marketing and
advertising while there were others that blamed mass media. Packard does not discuss
mass media in the book as a responsible party even though the media was also changing
with for example the introduction of the television. Packard writes in this book that the
advertising industry is responsible for making people more class conscious and
therefore they are seeking more and more upward mobility. He argued against the idea
that the growing prosperity of some Americans meant that classes were disappearing.
According to him this meant that the social division in America was becoming greater.
The evidence used by Packard came from market research and social scientists with a
main focus on the relationship between consumption and status. Packard mentions a
couple of reasons for the change in society. He felt that people could get less social
prestige from their job and they were getting fewer opportunities to get higher up into
the management. This meant that people were trying to find that social prestige in other
places. Packard argues that with other possibilities take away from them; they felt that
Ibid, 112, Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (New York: David McKay Company, Inc,
1959).
28
21
increasing their consumption could help them to increase their social status. According
to Horowitz, Packard saw consumption as something that was compensating for the loss
of meaningful work.29
The final book of the three Packard wrote about the subject of advertising and
marketing is The Waste Makers. This book was again based on some of the subjects he
briefly discusses in The Hidden Persuader. In this book Packard discusses the subject of
economic waste that comes from the faster technological developments and styles that
keep changing. This meant that the new developments were heavily advertised and it
resulted in people buying products they did not really need. Packard argues that the
problem in America is that there is too much and not too little of everything. People did
not buy because they needed things but because Americans had learned that continual
prosperity demanded that they must consume more and more. Packard was again
critical of advertising executives and market researchers. They are the ones that
encourage people to keep buying more goods and have all sorts of extra’s that are
completely unnecessary.
There also were some other aspects of this wasteful society that concerned Packard. He
was afraid that vital resources would be exhausted which was already causing America
to get them from other nations. He also felt that consuming became such a big part of
American society that is seemed “to be getting into the air the public breathes.” Packard
saw the household products and ready-made meals as something that took over the
tasks of the housewives causing them to find employment elsewhere. The most
important fear Packard had was that increasing consumption would change the
traditional puritan traits of the United States.30
29
30
Ibid, 114.
Ibid, 122-126, Vance Packard, The Waste Makers. (Vance Packard Inc, 1963).
22
In an interview with Harold Hudson Channers in 1989, Vance Packard talks about his
work and what he sees in the American society. He mentions that The Status Seekers and
The Waste Makers are a more in-depth take on what he wrote about in The Hidden
Persuaders. He calls himself more of a social observer than a sociologist. In this interview
Packard mainly talks about his last book The Ultra Rich: How Much is Too Much, but he
does mention some of the subject that can be found in the other books.
He discusses the distribution of wealth in the United States and the inequality in the
American society. He mentions the trend towards equality that he saw in the thirty years
after World War Two. Technology is also something that is mentioned as responsible for
being able to produce more. He sees society as getting even more materialistic then
when he wrote the books. He feels that it is something that is typical for America that
people should take care of themselves. Technology is something that he also mentions in
The Waste Makers as something that is responsible for the increasing consumerism he
sees in society. He mentioned this again during the interview.31
Horowitz feels that Packard had a big influence on American life around the time these
three books were published. According to Horowitz there were multiple reasons for the
popularity of these books. He argues that the time in which they were published was
very important. Horowitz writes that the worst effects of the Cold War were starting to
disappear. Packard’s books helped build support for social movements that were
emerging. Horowitz argues that Packard voiced the concerns many Americans had about
their changing society. People were both excited and afraid of these changes. The
economical and technological developments did give people access to things that were
Vance Packard, interviewed by Harold Hudson Channer. "Conversations With Harold
Hudson Channer" (March 1989).
31
23
unavailable before but it also frightened them. According to Horowitz the style of the
book also helped to make it popular with the general public.32
The points Horowitz makes to explain the popularity of the books are valid. The style in
which they were written made them very accessible to the general public. This is also
something that got mentioned often in the reviews of the books. The style and the
sources are often points of concern in these reviews. A more indepth look at the reviews
of the book and the main complains can be found in chapter two.
The success of these three books can be seen in the number of copies that were sold of
each of them. The Hidden Persuaders was the most successful out of the three with
almost three million copies by 1975 and a year at the top of the nonfiction bestseller list.
The Status Seekers was at the top of the list for over four months and The Waste Makers
for a few weeks but it did stay in the list for half a year. The books made a celebrity of
Packard and he was featured in different television shows.33
Conclusion
The question that was asked in this chapter is: What was the motivation of Vance
Packard behind the writing of these three books and what was he trying to achieve with
writing the books?
The motivation Vance Packard had for writing The Hidden Persuaders, The Status
Seekers, and The Waste Makers seems pretty clear. He discussed this himself in different
interviews and discussion. Packard felt that American life and some of the important
puritan values that were the basis of the American society were threatened by this new
32
33
Horowitz. Vance Packard and American Social Criticism, 132-136.
Ibid. 133
24
development of consumerism. He believed marketers and advertisers got into people’s
heads with their motivational research.
The background to which these books were written is also an important aspect. There
were discussions about the differences between the poverty in the communist Soviet
Union and the still improving high standard of living in America. Advertising and
consumerism became important for the American economy and people believed that the
American society was becoming more equal. With the Cold War going an in the
background people feared what these advertisers could do with their minds. The
differences between the poor and the rich seemed to be getting smaller.
Packard saw technology as one of the main causes for the change. For him technology
was the reason people could be persuaded into buying more and more products and
goods that they did not need. Technology was used to keep improving products but it
was also the reason the growing middle class in America had access to all sorts of things
that were unavailable to them before. Packard saw things like the supermarket as
something that promoted the idea that people could buy anything they wanted. For him
this only promoted consumerist behavior. Packard recognized the fear in society about
new developments and he found a way to express this fear in a way most people could
not.
As he said himself, the main reason for Packard to write these books was to make people
aware of what was happening around them with something Packard saw as threatening.
For all three of the books Packard had a direct cause to write them, like The Hidden
Persuaders after the article he was assigned to write. However, the change that he saw in
America provided the strongest motivation to start writing about these themes.
25
Chapter 2. Marketing, Sociology and the Reception of the Books
When The Hidden Persuaders was published it immediately got many responses from all
sorts of different fields. As mentioned in the first chapter, the book was very successful,
being on the bestseller list for a year. The responses the book received were also very
different. As described in the first chapter, one of the reasons the book was successful is
that Packard was able to voice some of the concerns people had about the change in
their society. The people that came from the world of marketing and advertising saw
this book differently. This chapter looks at the responses and critiques The Hidden
Persuader, and the two books that are connected to it, got during the time they were
published. The question that will be answered in this chapter is: How was the book The
Hidden Persuaders received in different fields like marketing and sociology and how the
general public reacted to the book?
26
In his books Vance Packard repeatedly discusses the changes that were taking place in
American society. What he means by this change is the way in which people are not just
buying the goods that they need but they are buying products that they like and
products they are encouraged to buy by the advertisements. These changes worried
Packard and other people but many also enjoyed it. Before going into the responses and
reviews Packard’s book received it is good to start by looking at what was happening in
this time period.
The fifties in America were the times of new fields in business and study of which two of
the most interesting were marketing and sociology. These are also the two fields that,
together with psychology, get the most attention in Packard’s books.
Even though advertising had been around for quite some time before the 1950s, it only
evolved in the years after World War Two when marketing and consumerism became
popular. It became a subform of marketing and the advertisements evolved from being
just about the product to becoming more targeted at the feelings and needs of
consumers. The needs and wants of people became the most important aspects of
marketing and people had to have choice. The afterwar years marked a big change in
American society that was very visible. The middle class became much larger and people
in this middle class started to move to the suburbs. All sorts of products were becoming
cheaper and people started to make more money, which gave them the chance to buy all
sorts of luxury items that would have been unavailable to them before this time.
Lizabeth Cohen, Professor of American studies at Harvard, looks at the start of this
consumer culture in America in her book A Consumers’ Republic. She argues that it really
started during the Second World War when a redistribution of income was making
America more equal. Because of all the products that were needed for the war, there
were more, and better paid, jobs. The war meant the end of the great depression and it
27
had a big influence on improving the American economy.34 In her book Cohen describes
how the ideal of the ‘American Way of Life’ became something that was fought for
during the war. People were waiting to get access to all sorts of products that were
unavailable during the war because production was directed at war products. They were
saving up during the war to be able to buy everything they wanted after the war was
over.35 Cohen argues that buying was encouraged and people were given the idea that
buying all these goods helped to increase not only their own standard of living but also it
also influenced the lives of other Americans. Buying would make the high standard of
living possible for everyone in America. Cohen writes, that mass consumption in
America was not something people did for themselves but it was a responsibility to buy
so that jobs were created and living standards improved for everyone in America.36
The argument that consumerism was a good thing for America and that it would help
society to improve was also used in some of the reviews. As discussed in chapter one
Packard argued that the people in marketing saw it as a way to create an equal society
with the living standards for all Americans going up.
Something that is a very important aspect of The Hidden Persuaders, The Status Seekers,
and The Waste Makers is technological development. Packard saw this as one of the most
important reasons for the growing rate of consumption in the United States. Cohen also
mentions the role of technology. According to her, mass manufacturing was necessary
for mass consumption. Technology made it possible to manufacture products at a faster
rate and with that it made the availability greater. For Packard, this technology was one
of the main reasons that society was changing.
Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar
America (Vintage Books, 2004), 69.
35 Cohen, A Consumers' Republic, 70.
36 Ibid, 113.
34
28
According to Cohen, the federal government also played a part in promoting the
changing economy. The government favored a mass consumption-driven economy
because it helped the economic growth and it created more job opportunities. Cohen
also argues that the Democrats and the Republicans shared the idea that consumerism
was the best way to improve the economy. She writes that both sides were convinced of
the need of purchasing power to keep full employment and full productivity. She argues
that even social programs were designed just to make it possible for people to keep
buying goods. Unemployment insurance and minimum wage made sure that even
people in the lower classes were able to keep buying.37
While Packard saw consumerism as a threat to the traditional puritan values of America,
others saw it as something that was part of the American tradition. People were helping
themselves to improve their standard of living by buying. It was a perfect example of the
American Dream. The employment rate was one the reasons consumerism was seen as
something positive. The middle class that was becoming larger and larger and the
improving living standards of a large group of Americans made it very popular. Mass
consumption was seen as the best way to become more prosperous as a country. The
booming economy of America in the postwar years was proof that consumerism was the
best way to go.38
In the article “Mesmerizing marketing: A Compact Cultural History”, Stephen Brown
discusses the main theme of The Hidden Persuaders. He looks at the persuading power of
marketing. He writes about the subliminal messaging that is discussed by Packard in The
Hidden Persuader. Brown mentions, just like Randall Rothenberg, that James Vicary lied
about the results of this. He states that the effectiveness of these messages has not been
37
38
Ibid, 118-119.
Ibid, 121.
29
proven and that books like The Hidden Persuaders reinforced the idea of people that the
marketing men were able to get inside their heads and that they were willing to use this
information.39
Historian of culture Thomas Frank looks at the influence marketing had on culture in the
United States in his book The Conquest of Cool. He sees the consumer revolution as
something of the sixties, which means that he feels that it only came after books like The
Hidden Persuaders.
Frank discusses the influence books and marketing and advertising, like Packard’s
books, had when they were published. He writes that science was the central principle
of the advertising industry in the fifties. Everything that was done by the advertisers was
based on research that was done on public attitudes. It was believed by the advertising
people that these methods that were based on psychology were proven to be effective.
Frank sees The Hidden Persuaders as one of the books that showed how many people
were concerned about these psychological methods. He feels that the book was one of
the first real attempts to understand the consumer society and how the manipulating of
consumers worked. Frank argues that the influence of The Hidden Persuaders can still be
seen today with the fear people still have for “advertising trickery.” He describes how
much influence the book actually had on even the advertising industry in the sixties.
According to Frank “Madison Avenue itself would adopt a version of Packard’s critique
and cast products as solutions to the problems of mass society he had done so much to
publicize.”40
Stephen Brown, “Mesmerizing Marketing: A Compact Cultural History,” European
Business Review (2008): 350-51.
40 Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of
Hip Consumerism (University of Chicago Press, 1998), 41.
39
30
Frank also writes about books that were inspired by The Hidden Persuaders. Not only
books that agreed with Packard’s vision on the advertising industry but also books that
were written with the intent to defend the advertising industry. He discusses the book
Madison Avenue, U.S.A. by the journalist Martin Mayer. This book tries to do the opposite
of what Packard’s goal was with The Hidden Persuaders. Mayer minimized the influence
of science in advertising and he wanted to write about the more positive side of
marketing and advertising. The book gives the impression that the advertising industry
works just like any other industry worked in America.41
Another thing that was critical of the marketing industry was someone that actually
came from the center of marketing, Madison Avenue. Doyle Dane Bernbach was an
adman but was also critical of the postwar consumerism in America. He had his own
very successful advertising agency that worked slightly different than the other ad
agencies did. Frank describes the style of Bernbach as anti-advertising. According to
Frank, Vance Packard had a big influence on the advertising industry, which was
acknowledged by them in the sixties. The style of marketing changed in the sixties and
books about marketing were critical of the way advertising was done in the fifties. 42
Marketing was not the only field used and described by Packard. Sociology also plays an
important role in his books. Just like marketing, sociology was something that was
becoming popularity in the fifties. Vance Packard uses it for example when he looks at
peoples need to reach a certain amount of status in The Status Seekers.
The developments in the field of sociology in the after war years are described in the
book Sociology in America: A History edited by Craig Calhoun. In the chapter “Hot War,
Cold War” Andrew Abbott and James T. Sparrow describe the development of sociology
41
42
Frank, The Conquest of Cool, 41-42.
Ibid, 75.
31
from the 1930 until the 1950s. They see the transformation from a country that was in a
depression during the 1930s to a country that was having fast economic development
and high employment after World War Two. The standard of living had become much
higher in only a few years. This change had already started by the 1940s but it was
helped by the war that created more job opportunities.
The reason for the development of sociology in this time was, according to Abbott and
Sparrow the rapid change that had taken place in the American Society. For sociology,
Abbott and Sparrow see the development starting in the 1930s with the founding of
some associations like the Population Association of America. These associations were
not the only way in which sociology progressed. There were specialty magazines and
colleges and universities were having departments of sociology. An interesting
development was that the American Sociology Association was declining during this
increase of interest in the field. The reason Abbott and Sparrow see for this is that the
active reformers had been driven away during the Depression and with the “maturing of
social work.”
The popularity of the most important direction of sociology, the Chicago school, was
slowly fading away and quantitative methods were becoming more important. In this
decade sociology was starting to get involved in market research. This decade also saw
the start of the real involvement of sociology with marketing. Abbott and Sparrow write
that this new direction sociology was taking, was a logical response to the changing
society. Consumerism became more important and sociology needed to move with it.
The concepts that were most important within this relationship between marketing and
sociology were brand image and market segmentation. Another big change in sociology
in the fifties was influenced by world events like the Cold War. Sociology moved away
from groups and went more into the analysis of the individual and how this individual fit
32
into a larger group. According to Abbott and Sparrow, this shift comes from the
influence social psychology had during the war.43
After all these important changes in the field, sociology looked very different by the
1950s that it had ever looked before. The people that had left the American Sociology
Association had started other organizations that now all worked together. Books were
written about it from the mid-forties until the late fifties that made sociology a more
popular field of study.
Abbott and Sparrow see a very important role for the Cold War in the sociology of this
time period.44
The sixties were again a different period for sociology. Doug McAdam writes about the
developments of sociology in the sixties in From Relevance to Irrelevance. He writes that
after the increasing attention sociology received in the years after World War Two, this
began to decline again in the 1960s. Reasons he sees for this decline are the expansion of
the field in the sixties. It remained the same during the Second World War, after that in
the forties and fifties there was a steady growth but in the sixties this became rapid
growth. Something that McAdam mentions is that sociology is exponentially larger in the
United States than anywhere else in the world.
According to McAdam the sixties were important because of the political aspect. It was
originally a left field discipline but the sixties made it even more so. McAdam describes a
class between the Marxists in the field and the more moderate leftist that were active.
McAdam sees many reasons why sociology seemed to have become less relevant in since
the sixties.45
Craig Calhoun, Editor., Sociology in America (University of Chicago Press, 2008), 281285.
44 Calhoun, Sociology in America, 285.
45 Ibid, 411-426.
43
33
Marketing and sociology are well represented in all three of the books. The changes in
the field that are described in this chapter can be found in the books. The most
important change is probably the way in which these fields started working together
and how they were using techniques that were comparable. Both fields turned to
psychology to get an idea of what was going on in people’s minds.
In the field of marketing there were many different responses to The Hidden Persuaders.
Most people in marketing felt that the book was not a good representation of what
marketing and advertising was and what it did. These people saw themselves as
contributing to the economy and they felt that people were given a choice. They were
not forced to buy these products but decided to do so themselves. The upward mobility
that Packard describes in The Status Seekers is something that is naturally inside people
and it was just that people now got the opportunity to access things that were
unavailable to them before.
Packard’s books were often reviewed by different marketing magazines like The Journal
of Marketing. They were not only discussed in reviews but there also were some articles
written about them. One of these articles is “Marketing Science: The Psychographic Fad”
by Kenneth A. Longman in Management Science that appeared in 1969. This article
looked at the motivational research that was made popular by Vance Packard in The
Hidden Persuaders and other marketing techniques that use psychology. He sees these
techniques as fads that seemed to have disappeared. Longman describes the way
psychology is still being used by marketing but it is not getting the attention it did when
it was ‘exposed’ by people like Vance Packard.
In this article Longman writes that at Harvard University “studies of general selfconfidence scales showed only little relation to marketing behavior, but rather strong
connections were found when the scales were made more specific to the product
34
involved.” Longman argues that motivational research was still very much there in 1969
but in his opinion it has changed. The marketing people are now looking at other,
useless, data and Longman argues that “motivational research is needed to identify the
important set of variables for study that will make the scales and clusters meaningful
and discriminating with respect to consumer behavior and product performance.”
What Longman does in this article in connection to The Hidden Persuaders is that he
describes the things Packard was worried about as fads and the attention it suddenly got
as just a phase. He sees a role for motivational research in marketing.46
The reviews of the book did not just come from the marketing side. Lloyd Barenblatt
wrote a review of The Hidden Persuader in The Public Opinion Quarterly. He mainly
questions the level of psychological knowledge of the advertisers and marketers.
Barenblatt sees the book as “journalistic and popular, it is a curious phenomenon
because of its public reception a well as its content.” The main criticism he has is that he
feels that Packard has overestimated the level of psychology that is used by the
advertisers. Barenblatt sees it as effective but not as sophisticated as Packard seems to
suggest in the book. Barenblatt writes that it is difficult to find examples of anything a
professional psychologist would see as “worthy of the extent and complexity of his
knowledge of unconscious motivation.”
Barenblatt feels that the effects of some of the techniques described by Packard were
not really influencing the mind. He mentions the interview that in his opinion, “despite
claims or fears to the contrary”, does not influence the mind of the interviewed person at
all. Barenblatt sees the claims Packard makes and the fears he has on the influencing of
Kenneth A Longman, “Marketing Science: The Psychographic Fad,” Management
Science (1969): 331-33.
46
35
the minds of consumers as a reaction that is too strong and not completely founded in
the material Packard describes in The Hidden Persuaders.47
Another field of study that was interested in Vance Packard and his books is sociology.
The reviews that came from this area are focused on slightly different aspects of the
book than the reviewers from the side of marketing did. An example of this can be found
in a review of The Hidden Persuaders by Gordon J. DiRenzo in The American Catholic
Sociological Review. He focuses more on the question of morality that Packard posts in
the book than on the methods he describes like the marketing reviewers did.
DiRenzo mainly likes the sociological data that is used by Packard and the way he
describes “the role of social class and social caste.” He seems to feel that sociology is the
most important part of the book and not so much the motivational research that he feels
can be seen as a more modern presentations of some of Freud’s original
contributions.”48
Other articles look at The Hidden Persuaders and some other books on comparable
subjects. Patrick D. Hazard wrote America’s Newest Profession: Some Inside Stories for
The Clearing House. He looks at it from the perspective of the newly emerging profession
of marketing and advertising. Hazard feels that Packard has been “falsely accused of
sensationalizing his analysis of the advertising fraternity’s increasing use of the depth
psychology to move both commodities and politicians.” According to Hazard Packard
asks the questions of the morality that he feels that any literate person in America must
ask.49
Lloyd Barenblatt, “The Hidden Persuaders Book Review,” The Public Opinion
Quarterly, (1958-1959): 579-80.
48 Gordon J. DiRenzo, “Review of The Hidden Persuaders,” The American Catholic
Sociological Review (1958): 348-49.
49 Patrick D. Hazard, “Review: America's Newest Profession: Some inside Stories,” The
Clearing House (1959): 565-66.
47
36
The Clearing House also published a real review of The Hidden Persuaders by Mary E.
Hazard. She is completely convinced by the arguments Packard gives on the
manipulation. She feels that the manipulation of people into buying goods is disturbing
but she finds the part of the book on the political use of the same methods even more
disturbing. She sees The Hidden Persuaders and the awareness it creates as a beginning
of the resistance of sales.50
Overall there are many reviews of the book in which the role of psychology is seen as
not as great as Packard seems to suggest. Reviewers feel that the book is written in a
popular way to appeal to the general audience.
The Hidden Persuaders was not the only book that much attention. Much has been
written about The Status Seekers and The Waste Makers as well. One of these reviews is
by Sister Mechtraud in The American Catholic Sociological Review. She writes about The
Status Seekers and the typical American idea that classes do not exist in the American
society and that everyone can work himself up to become successful. She writes that the
Packard’s findings suggest that there really are different classes in the American society,
they are however hard to define because they are not always recognizable or
acknowledged. She feels that the book shows convincingly that status is important in the
America even though it is not always acknowledged. 51
Even though the sociology aspects are maybe a bit more developed in The Status Seekers,
the marketing world did have an interest in reviewing the book. A review of it by Sidney
J. Levy was published in the Journal of Marketing. In this review Levy mentions that this
book is more serious that The Hidden Persuaders was and that it requires more
knowledge of sociology of the readers. Even though Levy likes the book and the ideas it
Mary E. Hazard, “Motivational Research,” The Clearing House (1957): 123-24.
Sister Mechtraud, “Review The Status Seekers,” The American Catholic Sociological
Review (1959): 248-249.
50
51
37
presents on status he feels that Packard gives some suggestions that are naïve and
feeble.52
There was a review of The Waste Makers in the Journal of Marketing by A. Edward Miller.
He offers some harsh criticism on all three of the books that he describes as “the Packard
trilogy.” He describes the books as “all on the wasteful side.” Packard had the
opportunity to add something useful and constructive to the way the great American
distribution system works if he had reported in proper perspective He argues that
Packard did not use this approach because it would have sold fewer books.
Miller comes from a marketing background and he looks at the book from this
marketing perspective. He writes that the people that have worked in marketing know
that there is always some waste and inefficiency but that it is not “a Machiavellian
activity designed to increase prices, lower quality, create obsolescence, and generally
bilk the consuming public.” Miller argues that the people that work in marketing have
respect for the ‘consuming public’. According to him it would be impossible for
marketing men to exist if everything that Packard describes were to be true. Miller
would not recommend it to marketing men. He sees books like this as responsible for
the bad image of marketing and describes marketing as a field people are ignorant about
and he sees the need for a well-informed book about it.53
Thomas E. Lasswell reviews The Waste Makers for The American Sociological Review. He
seems to have some issues with the style of the book and the reliability of the informants
that Packard uses. These are issues he also saw in Packard’s previous works and that
Sidney J. Levy, “Review The Status Seekers,” Journal of Marketing (1959): 121-22.
Edward A. Miller, “Hasty Conclusions About Waste,” Journal of Marketing (1961): 10910.
52
53
38
have since been mentioned more, especially with the information Packard got from
Vicary.54
There are quite a few different assessments of these books. Some of the reviewers are
completely convinced by the arguments made by Packard while others have some
reservations. Critiques that are often mentioned are his popular style that according to
some stands in the way of giving constructive criticism. They feel that it is too much
targeted at the general public. Something else that is a point of criticism is the sources
that Packard uses. Their reliability is often questioned which is something that is
addressed in a later article in The Atlantic and in the article by Brown. The Rothenberg is
discussed in the first chapter and it claims that one of the sources Packard used for The
Hidden Persuaders later admitted he lied about one of the most important points of the
book. From the marketing perspective the books are in some cases considered not
worth reading and responsible for the bad reputation of marketing.
There have been some very positive reviews of these books as well. Some of the
reviewers felt that Packard made some really good points that have to be considered. An
example of this is the question of morality Packard poses in The Hidden Persuaders.
Conclusion
The question that was asked in this chapter is: How was the book The Hidden Persuaders
received in different fields like marketing and sociology and how did the general public
react to the book?
To answer this question different aspects have to be considered, like the background of
the fields that were most critical of the books and how they saw the book.
Thomas E. Lasswell, “Review of The Waste Makers.” American Sociological Review
(1961): 307-8.
54
39
The influence these books had can be seen in the way both of these fields have
developed further. Both kept developing after these books but they were influenced by
it. The time period that Vance Packard looks at for his books is the time period in which
they were taking a direction that was closely connected, and they even started to work
together on the behavioral research that Packard describes so many times in his books.
Marketing later went into a different direction in which it relied less on psychology and
motivational research. The books damaged the image of marketing and advertising
though. It was already difficult for the general public to completely understand what
marketing was doing so when The Hidden Persuaders was published, people felt that
they finally understood what they admen were doing.
As one of the marketing men that reviewed The Hidden Persuaders wrote, it added to an
already negative image that marketing and advertising had and it would take the
profession quite some time to get over this. The author of that article felt that the book
completely misunderstood, willingly, what marketing was doing to people’s minds.
Sociology was probably more influenced by the Cold War and the politics than it was by
the books. The reviews of the book show that it was received in different ways. The
marketing reviews are generally not very positive about the book and how it deals with
marketing and advertising. The sociology reviews are more diverse with some of the
reviewers being completely convinced by all of the arguments Packard gives, while
others agree more with the marketing reviews that the sources are often questionable
and the tone is too popular.
The influence the books had on the marketing world can be seen in the way marketing
evolved during the sixties according to Thomas Frank. He writes that after Vance
Packard and his books, marketing changed and it used less motivational research and
less psychology.
40
How the general public reacted to the books is a bit more difficult to determine.
The responses from the marketing and sociology fields can be found in the reviews they
wrote about the books and the way in which they mentioned the books in articles. It is
clear that these books had to have had a big impact on people when the sales and
popularity of the books are taken into consideration. With The Hidden Persuaders on top
of the bestseller list for a year, many of people read it.
The article on the influence the books had on the image of marketing would also suggest
that people read the books and agreed with Packard about a great many things he
describes in these books. Some of the critics mentioned that the book was specifically
written for the general public and that Packard’s style of writing and use of sources
suggested that he really targeted his books to the general public that did not really knew
anything about marketing and sociology but did see the changes in society. For these
people the book was a good description of what they felt but could not describe for
themselves.
Overall the book got much attention in different areas. It was, and still is, seen as a book
that had a big influence on how people saw marketing and what they felt of the changes.
41
Chapter 3. Totalitarian Regimes and the Origin of Fear in American Society
The fifties and sixties were not just interesting times for Vance Packard because of the
changes in marketing and sociology. This was the time of the Cold War and all the
political and cultural changes this brought with it. People had a strong fear of
totalitarian regimes and what they could do. This fear is one of the reasons Packard’s
books were as successful as they were when they were published. The idea that these
marketing men were able to manipulate the mind of the consumers and have such an
influence on their buying behavior was very scary to many of people. The question that
will be answered in this chapter is: How important was this background of fear of
totalitarian regimes in the Cold War period for the reception of this book?
The Cold War had a big influence on the American society during this time. Vance
Packard knew how to translate the fears people had to something that was closer to
them and something they could potentially have influence on. As Packard suggest in The
42
Hidden Persuaders, these advertising people could be stopped by just not buying the
products they are promoting.
Totalitarianism was a very important concept during the Cold War. Abbott Gleason
describes just how important in the book Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold
War. He writes that
[…] it described the unparalleled threat that faced the European and American
democracies from a new kind of insatiably aggressive and invasive state; it
provided a typology of that state based centrally on Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union; and it channeled the anti-Nazi energy of the wartime period into the postwar struggle with the Soviet Union.” 55
It was a threat to the free world. Gleason describes the Soviet Union as the successor of
the Nazi regime in Germany in the sense that both had what was seen as a totalitarian
regime. The United States had to step in the make sure this totalitarian regime would
not take over the power on the European continent.56
During the Cold War America felt very much responsible for stopping the totalitarian
regimes from moving west any further. The totalitarian regimes were made the number
one enemy and Americans felt that this was something they had to be afraid of. The
term totalitarian regime is often used to make the distinction between the free world
and communism. The core meaning of totalitarian is A radically intrusive state that does
not only controls their citizens from they outside by preventing them from going against
the elite or doing things the state does not like, but it also tries to reach the more
intimate regions of people’s lives.
The term became widely known in America at the beginning of World War Two. It was
used during the presidential election of 1940. Both sides started to create the fear for
Abott Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War . (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), 3.
56 Gleason, Totalitarianism, 3.
55
43
totalitarian regimes in the American society by threatening that Hitler would be helped
if the candidate from the other party was chosen. On some occasions they even
threatened that Americans themselves would be under a totalitarian regime. This was
really the start of the fear that would become even greater during the Cold War. Many
European countries were said to be under a totalitarian regime and it was a great
dilemma in America if they should get involved in stopping them or if involvement
would only harm America itself.57
In the article “Red Fascism: The Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the
American Image of Totalitarianism”, Les K. Adler and Thomas G. Paterson writes that
Americans were more scared of Russia than they were of Germany because they knew
Germany and Russia was more difficult for them to understand. The comparison of the
regimes made it easier for Americans to understand the Soviet Union and communism.
Totalitarianism was used as a slogan against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Even though it was mainly used in the academic world at first, during the Cold War it
was used so often in different ways that it lost some of the meaning it had when the
word was first used. For Americans it was much easier to look at the similarities
between Nazi Germany and the communist Soviet Union than it was to look at the
differences.
These authors argue that this comparison has blurred the vision of Americans so much
that the two systems are still seen as very similar even though they are completely
different. The similarities were some of the aspects of both systems that Americans had
the most issues with.
The issue of a representative government is one of these issues that were easy for
Americans to pick up. Other aspects were the denial of human freedom and tolerance.
57
Ibid, 4-7.
44
The main difference they saw was that the Soviet Union was evil but it was not seen as
an immediate threat. This was different for Germany that was not just evil but also
considered a threat to America. When an alliance had to be formed with Russia to defeat
Germany the focus shifted from the similarities to the differences between Germany and
Russia.58
Adler and Paterson discuss the idea American had of the totalitarian regimes. They
knew that the totalitarian state had complete control over all the information that was
given to the public. This meant that if this regime did not want to inform people, they did
not. This is something that had already been mentioned in connection with the murder
of John F. Kennedy. People were afraid then that the government was denying them
information which caused them to speculate. Other things that were considered to be
typical for totalitarian states were the denial of freedom of expression and mental and
physical regimentation. All of these aspects of a totalitarian state could be found in NaziGermany and in the Soviet Union. The Americans felt that the Russian people were not
allowed to see the resemblance between the development of Nazi Germany and the
Soviet Union. The image Americans had of the totalitarian regimes was that the people
were controlled through fear and terror.59
Something that also helped to enhance the fears of the American people of totalitarian
regimes was the idea that Soviet spies could be walking around in America. It was feared
that these communist spies were infiltrating American labor unions, mass media, and
even the American federal government. Because of this fear of spies, all communist had
to be excluded from working in government jobs. It was said that there was a conspiracy
Thomas G.Paterson and Les K. Adler, “Red Fascism: The Merger of Nazi Germany and
Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930's-1950's.” The American
Historical Review (1970): 1046-51.
59 Paterson and Adler, “Red Fascism”, 152-153.
58
45
going on to divide the American people and discredit the government. Because the
United States was able to help defeat the Germans and even wanted Germany as an ally,
Russia was seen as even more of a threat than Germany was. Events that had really
nothing to do with the Soviet Union were seen as influenced by them. An example of this
was the civil war taking place in Greece, which, according to the Americans, had to have
been influenced by the Soviet Union.60
The Cold War had an enormous influence on American life. Anti-communism was very
important for America. Stephen J. Whitfield describes the Cold War and how it
influenced American life and the American society in the book The Culture of the Cold
War. He argues that this fear came from the way the media kept portraying the dangers
of the Soviet Union. Whitfield writes that, “Literature, movies, art, and the media –
particularly the then-new form, television – consistently hammered the theme of an
enemy within, working to subvert the American Way of Life.”61
Communism was something that haunted America according to Whitfield. He writes that
communism became more loathed than organized crime, as people feared it could
fundamentally change the America and all it stood for. Whitfield feels that this fear of
communism was not completely unfounded because of what happened in the Soviet
Union however it was not so much a threat to the American Way Of Life. He did see the
deep fear as an overreaction because communism “was a threat to the United States but
it was not a threat in the United States. Even though the communist party was more
popular during this time, it did not really have any influence on normal life in America.
Something that Whitfield sees as significant for explaining the fear is that America had
lost the monopoly on nuclear weapons. Much of attention was paid to communism
Ibid, 154-155.
Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (The American Moment) (John
Hopkins University Press, 1996), vii.
60
61
46
within America. Because America was not really able to do anything in the Soviet Union,
it concentrated on the communist that were living in America. Communism was banned
from a great many cultural places like Hollywood where actors and directors that were
suspected of ties with communism were blacklisted. They could not work in the film
industry. Whitfield argues that all Americans had to feel the same about communism
because they would otherwise be suspect.62
All these fears of totalitarian regimes and communism entering the United States are
connected to Vance Packard and his books. Technology is always seen as a major threat
people had to be careful with. Packard described the dangers of technology multiple
times and stated that it was important that people were warned. Technological
developments could be used by other regimes, and even the American government, to
spy on people and to influence their minds.
Professor in American Studies Alan Nadel also discusses this same subject in the book
American Cold War Culture. He writes about television and technology in the article Cold
War Television and the Technology of Brainwashing. This article deals with one of the
most important factors of Packard’s books, technology. Nadel discusses the influence
television had on the life of Americans and how this helped to enhance their fears of
totalitarian regimes. He writes that television had originally been planned as something
that would “put all Americans in immediate, direct touch with everything.”
Because television came out later than planned during the Cold War, Nadel argues that it
changed the way people saw this new form of technology. Television came together with
the technology that was used for the surveillance state. The technology was scary for
people because it let unknown waves come inside the house. People felt that this was an
external power that they could not control. This fear of external powers that are outside
62
Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War, 3-4.
47
of the control of people is something that is very much described by Vance Packard in
The Hidden Persuaders. The external power in the book is not television but marketing
but the way it enters people’s private space, as something they do not have any control
over is comparable to television. People fear what they cannot control which is one of
the roots of the fear that Packard describes.63
Brainwashing is something that became a topic because of the Korean War. Nadel sees
television and brainwashing as something that is connected because of what it
represented to people during the Cold War. Nadel argues that this fear of outside
powers is something that is deeply rooted in the American society. There has always
been an aversion to the other and Nadel sees this as resulting the concept of
brainwashing that was used an incentive of Western Cold War propaganda in the
Korean War.
The connection he sees between television and brainwashing comes from the new
technology that was used by both. It was meant to confuse the relationship between the
inside and the outside, which produced a psychological manipulation. This again has a
close connection to what Packard writes about in The Hidden Persuaders. Packard sees
this psychological manipulation mainly in marketing and advertising but it was a fear
that went much further in the Cold War American society. Nadel also sees this
connection between The Hidden Persuaders and other cultural sources of the 1950s like
films and other books and studies on subjects like sociology.64
Brainwashing and television can be seen as very much connected to each other mainly
because of the time it became available to the general public. The society was already
very much involved in wars and all sorts of fears on political and cultural aspects of
Alan Nadel, “Television: Cold War and the Technology of Brainwashing,” in American
Cold War Culture, ed. Douglas Field (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 147.
64 Nadel, “Television: Cold War and the Technology of Brainwashing,” 148-49.
63
48
these wars. Nadel sees television as something that had a defining role in “defining ‘unAmerican’ activities.” With blacklisting it helped to mark subversives but it also
presented messages about the role models who exemplified non-subversive behavior.
Very significant for television is the way in which it could bring reality into people’s
homes. It made it possible for people to participate in society without actually
participating in the outside world. Nadel mentions one of the most prominent critics of
television who saw the ability of television to transmit as something that is
psychological importance. He felt that it could satisfy the human desire to look at
reality.65
Connected to the television was the concept of brainwashing. This was connected to the
idea of the American superiority. Science was seen as one of the most important
examples of American technological supremacy. It was used in many different aspects of
life in the 1950s. As discussed in the previous chapter, science was also seen as the basis
for the motivational research and other marketing techniques. The fight against this
brainwashing could not be done from outside. Brainwashing could only be stopped by
the person that was targeted, by not giving in to ones own weaknesses. It was not
effective when it was used against Americans that possessed the right strength of
character. Just like television did with bringing reality into the home and with that
blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, brainwashing did something
comparable with the internal struggle it was supposed to bring with it.66
Nadel argues that the media can be seen as The Hidden Persuaders even though Packard
does not mention it at all. It is indeed comparable with everything Packard describes in
The Hidden Persuaders. The whole idea that the outside world is trying to influence the
65
66
Ibid, 152.
Ibid, 156-158.
49
private space of people is one of the fears Packard describes. The fear of the mind being
influenced by outside forces was something that was very strongly noticeable in the
American society in the 1950s. Packard focuses mainly on the advertising side of
manipulation but people feared it was happening in quite a few different ways like the
television described by Nadel.67
These were no the only fears people had in the America of the Cold War. Often these
fears were political. David Ryan discusses the political aspects of the Cold War culture in
America in the chapter Mapping Containment. This looks, again, at the importance of the
American Way of Life that had to be protected against all the outside communist
influences. Ryan mentions the importance the Soviet Union had for the forming of the
American society. He writes that everything in America was directed at the Soviet Union
and communism. Communism was used as an excuse to expand the American values to
the Western European countries that were not able to resist the American presence. The
idea was that this presence was necessary to keep communism out of these countries.
Ryan argues that the Soviet scare was needed to get a closer relationship between
Western Europe and the United States. What Ryan describes is a form of political
manipulation, by saying that it is necessary for Western Europe to be influenced by
America.68
The fear did not just come from the communist nations but there was also distrust
towards the American government. Tom Engelhardt describes the idea American people
had on their own government in the book The End of the Victory Culture. He mentions a
book by two journalists called The Invisible Government. In this book these journalists
Ibid, 162.
David Ryan, “Mapping Containment: The Cultural Construction of the Cold War,” in
American Cold War Culture, ed. Douglas Field (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press,
2005), 50-5.
67
68
50
argue that there are two different governments in the United States, one of these is the
government people hear about everyday that organizes the more public aspects of
American life. The other government, the invisible government the title of the book
refers to, is the government that organizes everything they do not want people to know
about. This invisible government was responsible for carrying out the United States
policies in the Cold War. 69
Journalists David Wise and Thomas B. Ross saw this other government as basically
outside of the control of the president and congress. What made this hidden government
different from other Cold War scares, was that the Americans themselves created it. This
gave people the idea that even their own government could turn against them and
influence them. Engelhardt sees this book, which was published in 1964, as something
that captured the changing national feelings of the government that three years earlier
had the secret Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba exposed as a disaster, and two years before
had led the world to the edge of destruction during the Cuban Missile crisis. 70
Engelhardt also discusses the role television played when John F. Kennedy was
murdered. This connects to what Nadel describes in his essay on the role of television.
The television reports on the murder were used to reassure the people that there was
secret explanation behind the assassination and that they had nothing to worry about.
The overall goal was to make sure that there would not be all sorts of stories and
conspiracy theories about the murder. There was speculation that the Russians were
involved in the assassination. This was denied by the Americans that did not see any
reason for the Russians to get involved in this. Engelhardt felt that there was much
confusion within the society with people wondering if the story was really as simple as it
69
Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of
a Generation (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).
70 Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, 181-182.
51
was made out to be with Lee Harvey Oswald as the killer without any accomplices.
Engelhardt sees this as something that can easily be understood when it is considered
that people were getting used to getting little information about the really big events.
This made people think that this story would probably have been withheld from the
general public. The part that people saw as suspicious was that the murderer had just
returned from the Soviet Union and he had a Russian wife. This made people believe
that he had to have been brainwashed by the Russians. This was something that people
were already thinking about seeing that a comparable story was the plot of a film that
had come out only a year before the murder.71
Loss of privacy was also a theme that is very important for Packard. This loss of privacy
was a more general fear in Cold War America. Deborah Nelson writes about privacy in
the Cold War in her book Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America. She writes that the
debate about privacy started during the Cold War and this was the time that people
really started to think more about others invading their private sphere. She sees this as
something that came with the “unstable boundaries” between public and private life.
These changes in the boundaries are something that has been discussed earlier with
television and people getting the reality from the outside world suddenly inside their
houses. Nelson argues that this was happening in both the mass democracies like the
United States, and in the totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union. According to Nelson
the rhetoric that was used by America during the Cold War was more focused on the
private sphere than on the free public discourse. She sees a big paradox in the Cold War,
which is that “in the interest of preserving the space of privacy, privacy would have to be
penetrated.” Even with all the focus on privacy, it still got lost during the Cold War. The
71
Ibid, 182-184.
52
privacy that was lost is the patriarchal privacy, which included things like private
property and sovereignty over family members.72
People in America were getting more and more suspicious of what was happening in the
world during the Cold War. Often people were having trouble trusting the new
technology that was getting more important in their world. Vance Packard was able to
capture these feelings in his books. The way he describes the techniques used in
marketing seem very closely related to what people felt the Russians were doing. The
Hidden Persuaders gave people the conformation that these things were actually
happening. For Packard all these fears seemed closely connected, which is why he felt
the need to warn people about it. He saw changes in the society that were a threat to the
American way of he living and he felt that people had to know about these changes.
Many people were not sure what they could trust and they kept hearing about things
like brainwashing so it was not difficult to understand why they would have the same
fears about marketing and the techniques that were used by the advertising men.
Packard’s books are very much rooted in these Cold War fears of brainwashing,
technology and government secrecy. Vance Packard was one of the first authors to really
look at the fears of the society, which he may have had himself, and how it influenced
people and their daily life.
The idea of totalitarian states was something that Americans feared the most. They felt
that their society was infiltrated by spies that could influence even their own federal
government. This fear for totalitarian regimes had a background in Nazi Germany but
eventually the Soviet Union was seen as a much bigger threat because they were able to
infiltrate American life better than the Germans could. The fear that their own society
Deborah Nelson, Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America (Colombia University Press,
2002), xii-xiii.
72
53
could be taken over by the Russians, and the idea that they were everywhere within
American life made it more believable for the general public to belief everything that
Packard wrote about marketing and the manipulating of people’s minds. They already
suspected that there were things happening that they did not know about so they were
willing to belief this too.
Looking at all the developments that were going an in the America of the fifties and
sixties, the main goal seemed to be to protect the American Way of Life. This meant that
the people that were seen as communist from the entertainment industry were put on a
blacklist, which made it impossible for them to work and spread communist ideas.
Another thing that was done to protect The American Way of Life was spreading this
American ideal over Western Europe. These countries could have been easily influenced
by the communism of the Soviet Union. These countries were already more left oriented
than America was, which the American government saw as a threat. Therefore all
aspects of American life had to be brought to Western Europe. This was also seen as a
form of brainwashing with the Americans bringing all these new technologies and
culture to Western Europe.
Conclusion
This chapter focused on the question how important this background of fear of
totalitarian regimes was in the Cold War period for the reception of this book.
The reception of the book was influenced by the time it was published. People that read
it saw all sorts of things that they recognized from their everyday life, which made it
easier to connect to claims of brainwashing and influencing of the mind. The fears were
already very visible in the American society and people needed someone that could give
them a voice. As a journalist, Vance Packard was able to see this unrest in society and he
54
was able to put the fears into words. The sales of the book reflect the fact that people
needed a book like this to assure them that they were not alone with their fears and
concerns. People were waiting for a book like this. It did not really matter to them that
much of what Packard wrote was probably a bit overdone. As the sales and the
responses show, a book like this was necessary to create at least a discussion about
these subjects. The brainwashing especially was something that frightened people and
something that Packard picked up in his books. Even though the subject that Packard
specifically deals with in Te Hidden Persuaders is something that is not really a Cold
War subject, the fears behind it do fit into the bigger Cold War context. The American
society was changing rapidly and people were uncertain about their future and the
future of their society.
The totalitarian regimes represented everything the American citizens had to be afraid
of. First Nazi Germany and later the Soviet Union that became an even bigger fear within
the American society. This deep fear within the society helped the ideas people had
about other developments and technologies that were entering into their lives.
The 1950s and 1960s were years that were filled with fear for all sorts of things that had
to do with the possibility of rising totalitarian regimes, invasion of the privacy of people
and fears of brainwashing. In the middle of this time of fear, Packard’s books were the
perfect conformation for people that they were not getting paranoid but there really
were things going on in the American society that they did not hear about.
55
Conclusion
The years after World War Two saw a great many changes in American society. One
enemy was defeated but another, in some ways even scarier, enemy replaced it. With the
economic prosperity in these afterwar years came new professions like marketing. The
living standards were getting higher for most Americans and the new technological
developments were meant to make life easier.
Even though this new prosperity did change the lives of Americans in a positive way, the
Cold War made it not always easy to accept all the changes. There was a general feeling
of fear that the Russians could invade America and that they were influencing Americans
from within the country. The source for this fear did not just come from the Soviet Union
but also from inside America. People were often not trusting their own government and
accused them of holding information back like in the Kennedy murder.
The Soviet Union and communism were realistic fears for most people in America and it
was something they really had to take into consideration in their everyday life. This fear
influenced society and the way people thought about the changes that were happening.
The main question for this thesis is if the reception of the book The Hidden Persuaders
was influenced by the Cold War climate of the time period, and the fear of totalitarian
regimes and mass influencing?
56
Overall it seems clear that Packard was very much influenced by the time he was living
in. The Cold War with all of its fears provided an ideal background for a book like The
Hidden Persuaders. The time influenced Packard to write a book about manipulation and
it convinced people to read the book, making it very successful. People saw it as
something that really voiced the fears they had and in some cases saw the books as a
conformation that there really were thing happening in America that they did not know
about but could influence their lives.
The reasons Packard had for writing all three of the books were often discussed. He has
said that for him it was important to show people how society was changing and how
much people did not know of what was happening around them. He wanted to warn
people for the dangers that new technologies brought with them and the possibility of
marketing people influencing their minds. People often felt that Packard had really
captured the fears they had about the changes in society and about the Cold War.
The people that were reading the books did not always feel the same about his motives.
They often thought that the only goal Packard had was to make money by writing
popular books that were based on questionable sources. According to some of the
reviewers of the three books, Packard had a great feel for the time he was living in and
he was able to capitalize on that. They had critique on the style and the way the book
was written.
These fears that Packard describes in connection to marketing are already visible in
other parts of society like the television that people did not trust. Because marketing
was still a relatively unknown field, people were having the same fears about it as some
of the brainwashing things that were supposedly dome by the Russians.
As seen in chapter three, the fear of the totalitarian regimes ran deep in American
society. There were all sorts of different ways in which American people felt the Soviet
57
Union was threatening them and their country. It was suspected that spies were
everywhere in America and that brainwashing was a serious threat that people had to
worry about.
Technology is one of the main aspects of the fear of totalitarian regimes and one the
things Packard was most worried about. Technology made fears of people into a reality
like the television that could bring hidden messages into the homes of people.
Brainwashing was seen as a serious threat that people had to be prepared for.
Against this background of fear of everything that is new and unknown to people it is
not strange that Americans were interested in Packard’s books. Marketing was still very
much an unknown profession for people, which made it scary. When Packard was
describing the way he saw marketing and advertising focused on people’s
subconciousness and the depths of their minds, most people did not have trouble
believing it.
The reception of the books was not just based on the times in which they were written
and published. Mainly the people that worked in marketing and advertising felt
threatened by what they saw as a false account of what they were doing. They saw a
book like The Hidden Persuaders as an accusation and reacted to it by writing reviews of
the books that attacked Packard, his methods, and his sources.
Totalitarian regimes and mass influencing were big fear in Cold War America and The
Hidden Persuaders fits right in with these fears. Packard was able to capture the fear
people had and translate them into a book about something that was completely
unknown to most Americans. The accessible way in which Packard wrote the book also
helped to get a wide audience. The book was written in a way that most people could
easily read it and it played to the fears they already had.
58
Mainly the public reception was very much connected to the times. The reception in
fields of marketing and sociology looked at it from their side and often did not agree
with Packard. The way in which they received the book was more influenced by their
own profession and what they often saw as an attack. Mainly the marketing people felt
like they had to defend themselves and their profession.
Overall the Cold War has had a major influence on The Hidden Persuaders and on its
reception. Packard was influenced by the times he was living in when he wrote the book
and the general public that was reading it saw the fears they had reflected.
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