George Parker: the importance of Ernest…Dichter.

Few readers of MoreAboutAdvertising are as long in the tooth as I am and will therefore probably not be as aware of the fame and notoriety of Ernest Dichter, an Austrian born psychologist who became famous and ultimately filthy rich after the 1957 publication of Vance Packard’s book “The Hidden Persuaders,” which was an outrageously exaggerated expose of the way Packard claimed market researchers and advertisers used in-depth psychology, especially Motivational Research, to probe the emotions of consumers so that sales appeals could play upon their hidden sexual and irrational desires to cough up an extra ten cents to buy the ultimate haemorrhoid cream.

Practitioners of Motivational Research, including Dichter, bullshitted corporate America to believe that they were using qualitative, psychological techniques in a scientific way to enable advertisers to understand their audience so they could increase their sales. This was hardly new. Since the 1920s, market researchers had emphasized the importance of the non-rational in human behavior. But not until the early 1950s, with the creation of the “Focus Group” did attention shift from what went on at the point of sale to what was happening in the consumer’s pathetically addled mind over a longer period of time.

One of his first triumphs was a campaign for Ivory Soap. Using in depth interviews where people talked about their experience of bathing. Dichter claimed that bathing had an erotic element – “one of the few occasions when the Puritanical American was allowed to caress himself or herself.” In other words…Wanking! This insight gave rise to a new campaign slogan: “Be Smart and Get a Fresh Start with Ivory Soap.” Nudge Nudge…Wink Wank!!!

Another example of Dichter’s off the wall studies is his claim of why people use cigarette lighters. It isn’t ‘cos they use them to light fags, it’s because it gives you mastery and power. Reasons go far back into man’s history… “The ability to control fire is an age-old symbol of man’s conquest of the physical world.” In other words…People who smoke are arsonists!!!

Best of all was his involvement in the creation of the Barbie Doll. The original design was skinny and somewhat demure. Dichter knocked that on the head, explaining that little girls really wanted something that looked like how they wanted to grow up…”Sexy with long legs and big knockers.” All the better for Ken to nuzzle his snout in. Barbie was suitably modified.

Dichter had a good run for his money, trousering humongous fees from gullible clients through the fifties, sixties and seventies before retiring to his mansion in up-state New York. However his legacy of the ubiquitous “Focus Group” lives on. I look forward to its future iteration with AI generated Bots gathered in the sub-basement of a shopping mall in Croydon, munching on bowls of M&M’s whilst discussing their digital bowel movements.