Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S2E01 - Shame: The Secret Tool of Marketing

Episode Date: January 6, 2013

To kick off the 2013 season, we explore one of the most effective marketing strategies ever devised: The use of “Shame” as a marketing tool.First emerging in the late 1800s, toothpaste ads suggested a fresh mouth could help you attract a mate. But advertisers had a major obstacle to overcome – bad breath and body odour were not socially unacceptable then. So advertisers focused their sizable resources to linking odours to shame, and then shame to product solution. From bad breath, dandruff and ring-around-the-collar to gray hair, plastic surgery and skin lightening, the strategy of social shame has become the most lucrative selling strategy of all time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. We'll be right back. And no matter your team, your favorite skater, or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a sellie, and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League.

BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Thank you. pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You're in good hands with Austin. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false. It was a startling declaration coming from a sitting president. After Monica Lewinsky revealed the relationship, President Clinton went on national television to call her a liar. But seven months later, he would change his story. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky

that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible. In 1995, a tape showing actress Pamela Anderson having sex with her new husband, rocker Tommy Lee, caused a media frenzy. Less than four weeks before the debut of her reality show, The Simple Life,

a tape surfaced showing Paris Hilton having sex with her boyfriend. Three years later, a sex tape is released to the internet starring Kim Kardashian. Then, in 2011, another politician makes a startling admission. We begin tonight with the latest on the stunning news about Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, a superstar actor, and former governor of California. Today, we learn that Schwarzenegger, who once called family the basic foundation of everything, had a child out of wedlock and hid that child for years, not just from voters, but from

his own family. Welcome to the latest phenomenon in our culture, the death of shame. While extramarital activities and love children and sex tapes would have sunk careers in decades past, it seems that is no longer true. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. It could be argued that Bill Clinton has rock star status today. The courts awarded Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee $1.5 million,

not as damages, but for their share of the profit. The tape had been distributed commercially. When Paris Hilton's sex tape appeared four weeks before her reality TV show, it fueled viewership of over $13 million for the debut

episode, rocketing her to stardom. While it was reported that Kim Kardashian initially sued distributor Vivid Entertainment for ownership of her sex tape, reports later surfaced that she dropped the suit in return for a $5 million settlement. Eight months later, the Kardashians landed a reality TV show deal

and Mr. Schwarzenegger hit the road for a high-profile book tour to flog his best-selling memoir. The death of shame has opened a new door to the world of celebrity. What would have been considered shameful activity in another decade is today a viable strategy for fame. Yet, that strategy can only exist in a world where shame is no longer considered appalling. But there is another world where shame is critical, and that is the world of marketing. The strategy of shame is one of the most powerful marketing tools in modern times.

Fear of being judged by our peers has led to billions of dollars of products being sold. Social embarrassment isn't just a mix of humiliation, mortification and distress. It's also a heady cocktail of marketing, strategy and product solutions. And the marketing industry has a vested interest in keeping shame alive and well. You're under the influence. The use of social shame as a marketing tool has a long and interesting history. It can be carbon dated to the Industrial Revolution, when luxury items first appeared. Luxury products made people suddenly aware of status. Sporting an expensive piece of jewelry or a fancy coat spoke to your standing in society. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most people lived a rural existence on farms,

growing their own food and making their own clothes, so status wasn't a social imperative. But once the Industrial Revolution began mass-producing consumer goods, people migrated to cities to find work in factories. City life had an effect on the transplanted populations. For the first time, they had to purchase their food and clothing. As a result,

consumerism was born. Soon, people began judging each other by what they had purchased, and in particular, on personal appearance. As this newly discovered self-awareness spread, advertisers were quick to seize upon it as a marketing strategy. First, they began to offer health-related products, like toothpaste, pills, and liquid compound cures.

While health claims sold moderately well, sales soared when they were paired with beauty pitches. Soon, beauty claims and body hygiene solutions moved to the forefront of marketing, and health was relegated to the back of the bus. The leverage point was personal image, but the hot button was shame. One of the earliest brands to take advantage of social shame was Sozodont Tooth Powder.

In a print ad dated all the way back to 1884, the pitch connected oral hygiene to attractiveness. The headline said, Beauty and fragrance are communicated to the mouth by Sozodont. The headline said, And with that, social status worked its way into advertising. In a 1907 ad for toothbrushes, the headline boasted that, Good teeth are a woman's greatest attraction. Now advertisers were suggesting that whiter teeth could determine a woman's ability to attract a mate. And conversely, stained teeth were something to be ashamed of.

It was clear advertisers saw the lucrative possibilities in the linking of shame and solution. As ad historian Daniel Hill aptly points out, they also had to cultivate consumers to respond to this new strategy. And that meant they had to educate people. One of the first lessons advertisers imparted to women was that perspiration odor could lead to disastrous social consequences. Prior to that, women believed deodorants were not only unnecessary, but unhealthy.

Instead, they would just bathe often and wear something called dress shields, which were small, washable cloth or rubber patches worn under their arms to absorb perspiration stains. Enter Orderono, an underarm deodorant product that prevented female perspiration and eliminated embarrassing odor. Its very name told you everything. Odor? Oh no! Advertising agency J. Walter Thompson took on the Odorono account and began a campaign that tackled the first obstacle to sales

by explaining that blocking perspiration was not unhealthy. Print ads also pointed out that Od odorona was safe because it was developed by a doctor. Sales jumped initially, but then flattened. So, in 1919, odorona changed its strategy. It wasn't enough to convince customers that a remedy

for perspiration merely existed. They had to convince the population that sweating was a serious social embarrassment. They did that by framing the issue of perspiration odor as something friends and acquaintances would never talk to you about directly but were happy to gossip about behind your back, which created an insecurity.

In a typical ad, Orderono suggested that 9 out of 10 girls should take an armhole odor test, instructing girls to smell the armhole of their dresses because that was the way they smelled to others. Odorono labeled that smell

a humiliating odor and by doing so attached a feeling of shame. That strategy would fuel sales for decades however it would take the Great Depression to convince men to use deodorants according to Smithsonian historian Sarah Everts men began to worry about losing jobs in the mid 1930s advertisements therefore focused on the shame and embarrassment of body odor in the workplace

and warned that unprofessional grooming could spoil your livelihood. That new insecurity finally drove men to buy what was previously a female-only product. By the end of the 30s, body odor was a shame shared by both genders. Going back a decade, advertising took a big leap in the 1920s. Ad agencies were well established by then and began concentrating on the science of research and measurement. The insights this provided helped them educate a growing mass market. Advertisers next taught female shoppers that a youthful image was an ideal to be pursued, that men preferred a face free of visible aging.

In a 1928 ad for Squibb Dental Cream, the headline asked, Is there an age where a woman ceases to look young? The message behind the message was unmistakable. The shame of body odors or stained teeth, things that were not previously unacceptable, were suddenly put under the white-hot glare of marketing. The era of critical self-awareness was in full swing. It was a lucrative strategy that wasn't lost on other advertisers. Enter Listerine.

In his excellent book titled 20 Ads That Shook the World, author James B. Twitchell tells the story of how a British doctor named Joseph Lister developed a surgical antiseptic. It was so strong it had to be used with care during operations so it wouldn't damage the surrounding tissue. Not long after, an American named

Jordan Lambert synthesized a less powerful version and licensed it from Lister. He added the liquid suffix I-N-E to the product, calling it Listerine. Listerine was initially used as a floor cleaner, a scalp treatment, and even a cure for gonorrhea. Lambert discovered it was also good at killing oral germs. There was only one problem. Bad breath wasn't an issue.

Sure, people back then had bad teeth and gum disease, but mouth odor wasn't considered socially offensive. But Lampert wondered if breath could be leveraged as an advertising hook. So he summoned a company chemist to explain the science of mouth odor. And as the chemist skimmed his notes, he casually mentioned the word halitosis. Lambert interrupted him immediately and asked what halitosis meant. The chemist shrugged his shoulders and said

it was just the medical term for bad breath. There it is, exclaimed Lambert. It was a golden problem that Lambert's mouthwash could solve. From that day forward, the world has been acutely aware of halitosis, and Listerine has been marketed as the product that eliminates it. Twitchell points out an incredible insight here, that Listerine did not invent mouthwash so much as it invented halitosis. From 1922 to 1929, sales rose from $115,000 to over $8 million. Today, Listerine commands over 30% of the mouthwash market. And through the years, shame has been the one consistent strategy. Various headlines would issue warnings like,

Halitosis ruins romance, or Halitosis makes you unpopular. One ad showed a fiancé sadly wondering, Could I be happy with him in spite of that? As James Twitchell points out, what makes Listerine so unique wasn't because it was so unusual as a product, but that it has been so successful for so long. The shame of bad breath is one of the most lucrative marketing strategies of all time. And we'll be right back. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives, available wherever you download your pods.

Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. The strategy of shame has been used as the underpinning for many product categories, like coffee. Harvey, want anything special for your birthday? Just a decent cup of coffee. You're kidding. I'm serious. Honey, your coffee's undrinkable. That's pretty harsh. Well, so's your coffee. You know, the girls down at the office make better coffee on their hot plates.

The shame of dandruff arrived in 1960. Who's that? Phil Adams, new junior. Oh, he's gorgeous. Except he's got one big problem. Dandruff. Uh-oh. And let us not forget foot odor.

Phew, that foot odor. I can't take it anymore. But can anything stop it? This will. New odor-eaters in souls. Then there's detergent. Launched in 1958, whisk was one of the first liquid laundry detergents. But it was ten years later that whisk hit on the idea that made it famous. Ring around the collar. Ring around the collar. Ring around the collar.

Those dirty rings. You try scrubbing them out and soaking them out. famous. Whisk promised to removear beats Ring Around the Collar every time. Pretty shirt. Whisk promised to remove Ring Around the Collar by pouring the detergent directly onto the clothing, creating a new use for the product. But it wasn't the men who suffered the shame. It was their wives. The classic moment in every Whisk commercial

was when someone spotted a husband with ring around the collar and the camera would zoom into the pained face of his wife, humiliated in the fact she had failed him in the laundry department. Those dirty rings! Whisk's ring around the collar may have been annoying, but it helped triple sales between 1968 and 1974. The campaign ran successfully for over 30 years, proving once again that the strategy of shame

has one of the longest arcs in modern marketing. Today, the power of shame as a marketing tool plays a critical role in categories that weren't even around 50 years ago. In countries like the Philippines, for instance, there are many ads for skin whitening products. You can't help but notice the rosy white change in her skin with Pond Skin Whitening Vitamin Fluid. See the difference in just six weeks.

The underlying message is that lighter skin people are more attractive and achieve greater success. In India, the caste system there has historically favored lighter colored skin as a sign of wealth and importance. That's why the dream machine of Bollywood almost always celebrates stars with lighter skin tones. As a result, light skin is seen as an ideal. One research firm recently stated that more skin whitening creams are sold in India than Coca-Cola. Here's a remarkable TV commercial from India.

It shows a pretty Indian woman being ignored by her handsome husband as he reads the paper. So she gets up and decides to take a shower, using a gel called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash. Now in India, Clean and Dry Intimate Wash After the shower, she returns to the living room, and we see her husband lavishing her with all kinds of attention. Now, you may assume she just smells fresh and clean. But when you look closer at the animated product demonstration,

you see it promises to lighten the skin color of a woman's genitals. The slogan? Freshness that brings out whiteness. The commercial created a lot of controversy in India. And, by the way, similar products are selling well in the United States. Welcome to the intimate areas of shame in the 21st century. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight

loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Tree.

Many men have a small problem. Premature perspiration. It can be produced by nervousness. Insecurity. It can be produced by a dream. It's something they can't control. It stands as a huge wave of humiliation that crashes against their armpits, making them lose self-confidence, but above all, making them lose women.

New acts, full control. Premature perspiration can be controlled. Clearly, men are not exempt from shame marketing. While this recent Axe deodorant campaign uses humor, it cleverly equates excessive perspiration with that most dreaded of male shames, premature ejaculation. Unlike its close cousin, guilt, which usually stems from a boundary exceeded, shame is rooted in the negative judgment of others. The anxiety a shame-based message creates increases the need to surrender to a solution.

And while inducing shame in young people creates a future market, one of the biggest shame strategies in marketing is centered around growing old. Or shall I say, to visibly grow old. In our culture, aging is not celebrated. As a result, hair coloring is one of the most popular anti-aging categories. My gray hair makes me feel so old. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna wash that gray right out of my hair. I'm gonna wash that gray right out of my hair. Loving Care Color Lotion from Clairol washes away your gray and washes in your own natural color. Loving Care is different. It's gentle. It has no peroxide or ammonia. So I wash that gray right out of my hair. Yes, I wash that gray right out of my hair.

Wash that gray right out of your hair. Women have been coloring their hair since the late 50s, when the groundbreaking Does She or Doesn't She Clairol campaign took away the streetwalker stigma of dyeing a woman's hair and created a new one, the stigma of going gray. The very foundation of the cosmetic industry is the tease of a fountain of youth, like in this ad for CoverGirl featuring Ellen DeGeneres. Hey, wrinkle face.

That's what people could say if you're still using a liquid foundation that can settle into your lines and wrinkles and make you look older. Like an apricot. Or a prune. And I like both. I just don't want to look like one. CoverGirl and Olay Simply Ageless Foundation has Regenerous Serum and floats above lines and makes you look younger. The humor of Ellen takes the sting out of the pitch, but the shame of aging is still the underpinning of the cell.

In the last 50 years, could there be a greater signpost for the shame of aging than plastic surgery? Take a look at her. I wonder if she ever gets tired of being perfect. I know we don't all get to be born beautiful, but what I wouldn't give to have a body like that. I've heard about a plastic surgeon who could give me that fuller, more feminine look

with no visible scarring, and that I could be back to work in just a few days. What was the name of that doctor? Dr. Vitolo, of course. Plastic surgery dates all the way back to ancient India in 600 BC. The term plastic surgery comes from the Greek word plastikos, meaning to mold. Back then, plastic surgery was employed to restore various body parts that had been damaged due to injury. It wasn't until ancient Rome that surgery became cosmetic and based in shame. In the first century BC, Romans began practicing advanced forms of plastic surgery. Public baths were popular then,

and the Roman culture praised and celebrated the beauty of the naked body. But perhaps the most revealing reason Romans performed plastic surgery was due to shame. They began by removing scars from the backs of men. They were marks of shame because it suggested that a man had turned his back on battle. Over 14 million cosmetic procedures were performed on Americans in 2011. That's an 87% increase since the year 2000. Breast augmentation is one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries. And the biggest rise was in chin lifts, up 71% year over year.

Note that I'm talking about cosmetic procedures only here. The United States ranks number 1 in cosmetic surgeries, Brazil is number 2, and Canada ranks at number 15. Age range purchasing the most plastic surgery? 40 to 54-year-olds. Women account for 91% of all cosmetic procedures, with Caucasians topping the list at over 70%. Another disturbing fact is that the number of teens requesting plastic surgery is growing.

My dentist told me he's starting to get 12-year-olds asking for teeth whitening. With shame as a leverage point, the pursuit of less-than-perfect customers is a bottomless well. And that, in and of itself, is a shame. The cornerstone of modern marketing was an insight discovered back in the early 20th century. Essentially, marketers came to the realization

that inside every person is really two people, the person you are and the person you want to be. That insight has led to most of the advertising ever created. But there are two subsets to that strategy. One tells you life can be better. A BMW is more prestigious than a Toyota. A Caribbean vacation is better than watching the snow pile up. The other whispers that you can be better.

The fear of being judged by others creates a powerful anxiety in all of us. Isn't it fascinating that the earliest records of cosmetic surgery from Roman times are rooted in shame? That marks on a man's back suggested he retreated from battle. That he was a coward.

In the modern world, shame fuels the need to erase the humiliation, and products are solutions. When marketing first encouraged critical self-awareness, it stumbled upon what may be the most lucrative marketing strategy of all time. Because in this day and age, it's easy to see that satisfied customers are not as profitable as discontented ones when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O this is Ron. I'm the new intern here at Under the Influence.

I'm just calling to say that I like working on the show and that I really admire you. Even though you have a unique breath quality and questionable hygiene, you exhibit absolutely no shame. If only we could all be so free.

I'm a fan. Under the Influence was produced at Pirate Toronto. Sound engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Series coordinator, Debbie O'Reilly. Research by Myra El-Beoumi.

Download the podcasts on iTunes. See all the visual elements from this episode at cbc.ca slash under the influence. See you next week.