Lizbeth Cohen, “Culture: Segmenting the Mass” from her book The Consumers’ Republic is an excerpt composed of illustrations, ideas expressing political/marketing, and much more. Cohen starts off by talking about world war II and after the war ended American consumerism was booming. She specifically emphasizes the complex implications of mass consumption on postwar social interactions and political culture in particular. As it was on the rise as more and more people returned to somewhat of a peaceful life without having to worry about getting attacked or taken over. As at the end of the war in Cohen’s opinion, the most profitable way to achieve wealth was through the mass market. But how can one trust the market as it was doubtful and marketers began to raise questions that down streamed a lot of methods that people thought were profitable. Which gained a whole lot of attention as the economy in 1957 faced recession.
Cohen continues on exploring more of mass-market as she recognizes many theorists during that era. The contributions of major theorists were to have a significant impact on the subject of market segmentation. Wendel Smith was the first to advocate market segmentation as an alternative to mass marketing, claiming that the best way to stimulate the economy was through the “recognition of differences.” Which I found quite interesting as market segmentation was something of big influence as that makes it more approachable and easier to deal with. Cohen’s interest is in understanding how marketers, advertisers, and propaganda makers came to shift ground so decisively between mid-1945 and 1970, and then what this rethinking of the mass market, as distinct communities of consumers with distinct needs, desires, and product preferences, resulted in specific target customers.
Consumerism had to be diverted into something different like television which was made larger and electronic items that made daily life easier. Which led to restyling of mass consumer goods. As we continue interpreting Cohen’s perspective we can read how cohen puts a lot of emphasis on television becoming the new frontier for advertisement rallying up consumers for more and more. Which only boosted market segmentation as consumerism was booming due to high demand and supply. In my opinion, this shows economic slavery in a sense where marketers use consumerism to enslave citizens back and back again for more. Ironically market segmentation and major consumerism have been only possible because of industrial production and how items became cheaper so they can provide to all sorts of customers. Cohen continues to talk about consumerism by including economic groups like children, teenagers, seniors, black, and the gay market which all contributed to market segmentation as they all created a demand for supplies which the marketers kept on bringing out. This can be seen in modern-day consumerism companies like apple and amazon are mega-powerful marketers and they use consumers to fuel their efficiency. At the very last Cohen talks more about the political perspective where she discusses how market structure ad political structure had similarities as consumers started using television to only look at the mass market but also political news. Talking about the hidden persuaders and American democracy. Cohen goes more in-depth talking about the political sphere in the later 1960s which included crafting special messages for distinctive segments where the political leader would run campaigns like Kennedy and Nixon.
I do not think this is enough writing to cover the entirety of this beautiful and unique excerpt but by Lizabeth Cohen but what I do know is that consumerism can be looked at as something that is normal but in my opinion, I find it be somewhat like salvery as to consumerism people fall enslave to the mass market. A real-life example would be how we are enslaved to our phones on daily basis but going that is only going to get worse as there is no stop to consumerism. But one important thing I did learn is that consumerism and the mass market keep the economy booming as that includes aspects like supply/demand which profits capitalism but in Cohen’s perspective, this is a sphere people are not going to break out of any time soon which I agree with.