Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising's Impact on American Character and Society 6th Edition

Berger explains how advertising works by employing a psycho-cultural approach, encouraging readers to think about advertisements and commercials in more analytical and profound ways. The sixth edition features updated statistics, two new chapters, and new discussions of the role of brands, social media, non-binary perspectives on gender, advertising and the 2020 election, the problem of self-alienation, and how all these elements relate to consumption. Berger also considers the Values and Lifestyle (VALS) and Claritas typologies in marketing. Distinctive chapters examine the “1984” Macintosh commercial, a Fidji perfume advertisement, and a moisturizer advertisement from semiotic, psychoanalytic, sociological, Marxist, mythic, and feminist perspectives.

Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture provides an accessible overview of advertising in the United States, spanning issues as diverse as sexuality, politics, market research, consumer culture, and more, and helps readers understand the role that advertising has played, and continues to play, in all our lives.