User:Ctierney/Major Assignment 5

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The Vanity and the Fair: An Entourage of Consumers

      Advertising = Consumption

Billboards, magazines, TV commercials, movie plugs, and logos are everywhere in this country. Each day, every American is exposed to an average of three-thousand advertisements. Why? Well, American culture is obsessed with “things.” Though the goal of advertisers is to sell a product, now they sell a product with ideas and lifestyle options. The idea that ads are consumer based rather than product based has been revolutionary. Through reading the HBO series Entourage as a cultural text, we can conclude that advertising creates a desire for a certain type of lifestyle and has a tremendous effect on male consumers. How Ads Work

In the U.S., $250 million dollars is spent each year on advertising, and worldwide about $600 million is spent. With all of this money being spent, advertisers know what is on the consumer’s mind and use that to their business’s advantage. Juliet Schor believes that advertisers know more about us than we know about ourselves (29).

The basic strategy that ads use is in semiotics, or the process in which meanings are made to create a personal relationship between products and consumers. Ads contain signs that contain two parts, the signifier, and the signified. The signifier is the carrier of the meaning. The signified is the meaning that the signifier contains to the consumer. For example, look at a common diamond commercial, “A Diamond is Forever.” A diamond is simply a gem. In reality diamonds are not extremely rare, and they come out of the ground. But the meaning that we now give to a diamond is eternal love and happiness. Advertisers give the sign to the consumers and leave the interpreting up to them. Consumers see the as and attach meaning to it; it is the advertiser’s job to create that artificial emotional bond between the product and the consumer. Advertising is the medium used to establish the relationship between business and media. The production of goods is a key to any economy. Production creates jobs, and the production of goods satisfies consumer needs. The fundamental requirement of production is the need for demand in the goods that are produced. “The function of advertising is to create demand” (Galbraith, 17). There is an over supply of most things, it is important to get consumers interested in those products.

According to Naomi Klein, “The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single idea developed by management theorists in the mid 1980’s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands as opposed to products” (No Logo, 3). Companies no longer primarily produce products, but images of their brands. The real focus is no longer in manufacturing products, but in marketing them.

      Entourage

The HBO hit comedy series Entourage created by Doug Ellin and produced by Mark Wahlberg is a perfect example of how the media and popular culture have come together to directly market a lifestyle. Entourage is about a young, up-and-coming movie star, Vincent Chase who moves to Los Angeles from Queens, NY with three of his friends. Eric is Vince’s best friend and manager, Turtle is what they call Vince’s “gopher” who runs random errands, and Johnny Drama is Vince’s older half-brother and a struggling actor. The guys live what consumer culture wants us to consider “The Ultimate Lifestyle.”

Vince and his friends live in a Hollywood mansion with the new Sony Flat-Screen TV’s, they wear Armani suits, and drive around in an Escalade. Of course, the choice of the brands is not by accident. Product placement on television shows is an old form of advertising, but Entourage takes lifestyle marketing to the next step. The New York Times rants, “The attractive cast, the glamorous show-business story lines and the show’s popularity among men have made Entourage – about the picaresque adventures of a young movie star and his posse – appealing to marketers.”

The majority of Entourage fans are male. When a man watches the show he sees potential for a glamorous lifestyle of parties, beautiful women, and expensive cars. Most men can relate to Vince or one of his friends. Each character symbolizes a different type of man that adds to the attraction of the show. For example, Eric is the smart college dropout with a chip on his shoulder, Turtle is the city kid with street smarts, and Drama is the actor passed his prime blessed with the wisdom of age. Being able to relate to and admire a character in a show draws the viewer to subconsciously aspire to be more like that character in the way he talks, acts, and (what businesses care about) consumes.

Each of the guys in Vince’s entourage love to spend Vince’s money and use his fame to get them new and expensive things. For example, in the season 2 episode, “One Day in the Valley,” Vince’s hit movie, “Aquaman,” makes more money than “Spiderman” in it’s first weekend, he buys his three friends brand new $100,000 Aston Martin cars. Also, in the episode “What About Bob” in season 3, Turtle brings Vince to get himself a pair of Limited Edition Nike sneakers, they did not get to the store on time, so Vince paid $20,000 for a pair of custom-made Nike shoes for Turtle. The Aston Martin very well could have been a Roles Royce and the Nike shoes could have been Adidas, but companies pay millions of dollars for ads like these because they prove to be very effective.

Rodeo Drive is a common place where the characters spend time shopping in Beverly Hills. The idea of shopping is interesting when relating the mall to the Entourage characters because according to Anne Norton, malls are a place where women go to get away from their husbands (84). Men sit back and watch Vince and his friends meet women while they shop for expensive watches or suits. To live like Vince men shop more frequently and spend more money. Shopping is longer seen as something for just women. Entourage makes shopping acceptable for a man. This is good for businesses because the more money people spend – the more money the company makes. The mall is indisputably the cultural locus of commodity fetishism (83).

The alcohol advertising industry also uses Entourage as a marketing tool. If a company such as Jack Daniels, or Captain Morgan, or Jaeger gets their product into Vincent Chase’s liquor cabinet – thousands of consumers will buy those products to live up to the standard of a popular movie star. For example, Seth Green guest starred as himself and he asked Eric if he wanted a shot of Jaeger and Eric replied, “I stopped drinking Jaeger in high school, I drink Vodka,” while a Sky Vodka bottle is blatantly showing behind the bar. This is an advertisement for both Jaegermister and Sky Vodka. While Seth Green drinks Jaeger while having fun with a large group of friends and beautiful women, Eric drinks Sky Vodka while he eloquently sips and speaks to his beautiful girlfriend as a successful businessman. When the guys drink beer it is always Bud, and sometimes when Vince’s agent, Ari Gold, get excited he asks his assistant, Loyd, if he wants a “Shot of Jack.” This sort of product placement is a sure way to increase the sales of these beverages.

Advertising doesn’t stop with material products. Entourage includes music advertisements, much like MTV. The storyline of Entourage includes Turtle finding a demo CD (in Vince’s Masarotti) for a rapper, Saigon, and gets him a record deal through Ari Gold. Saigon turned down the deal to stick to his street routes instantly making him instantly making him “cool’ to the viewers. In reality, Saigon is an up-and-coming rap artist who is starting to make it big courtesy of some great marketing done in Entourage. Kanye West and Snoop Dog also make appearances in the show. Kanye gives the guys a ride to Cannes in his private jumbo jet.

    Risk = Good?

The overall theme of Entourage when looked at in the context of consumerism and advertising is: If you take a risk and put money into something, the risk will be worth more in the end (if you buy this product you will be happy). Risk is attractive to men, and is yet another tool used by advertisers. The series offers three prime examples of this. The first is obvious; Vince takes a huge risk when he moves to Los Angeles as an aspiring actor and gets lucky when he finds a very powerful agent that will represent him.

The second example takes place in the episode, “Vegas Baby, Vegas” in season 3. Vince and his agent Ari decided to go fifty-fifty on gambling money for the night. They are down over $300,000 when Ari starts to get anxious, he says, “If we lose this hand my kids are going to community college!” Vince asks if Ari wants him to cover the hand himself, Ari thinks about it for a minute and finally tells the dealer to deal the cards. Of course they won the hand. Advertisers want us to believe we will win.

The third example is in season 4, “No Cannes Do.” Eric and Vince are co-producing Vince’s next movie, “Medellin – The Pablo Escobar Story,” when Eric gets nervous about the way the movie is coming out. While sitting on a luxury yacht, Vince offers to buy Eric off the movie and give him his money back because Eric is so nervous. If the movie is not successful he would be broke. Eric refuses the offer after Vince says, “No loss,” and the movie director Billy Walsh says, “Yeah. But no gain!”

    More Things = More Happiness?

In the United States there is a positive relationship between income and subjective happiness (Klein 32). The more money we make the happier we are. Worldwide this is not the case. Consumerism has created a perception problem in this country. Thanks to advertisers and shows like Entourage, Americans don’t compare themselves to the next social group up, but to the richest 20 percent of the population (End of Suburbia). This is causing problems. There has been a rise in household debt, 63 percent of Americans are in credit card debt, and debt services have become 18 percent of disposable income.

It is easy to look at other reasons for the desire to live a wealthy lifestyle, but the constant exposure to advertisement-rich media, like Entourage, take consumerism to the next level. People now feel deep, intimate, and emotional relationships with material things.

References Galbraith, John K., (1967). The New Industrial State. Klein, Naomi. (2004) No Logo: New Branded World. New York: Knoph. Norton, A. (2006). The Signs of Shopping. In Maasik, S., & Solomon, J (Ed.)The Signs of Life (pp. 83-89). New York: Bedford St. Martins. Schor, Juliet. (1999). The Overspent American: Why we want what we don’t need. New York: Harper Perennial. Wahlberg, M. (Executive Producer). (2004-2007). Entourage [Television Series]. Los Angeles, California: HBO Entertainment. Elliot, Stewart. New York Times. (August 23, 2006). Madison Ave. Joins the Entourage’ Hanger-On. Retrieved December 11, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/business/media/23adco.html?_r=1&partner= ssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin