On the Use and Abuse of Nietzsche for Marketing Communication: Examining Consumer Suspicion toward Advertising

This study examines increasing consumer suspicion in light of contemporary marketing praxis. Immanuel Kant\u27s concept of self-inflicted intellectual immaturity is traced throughout 20th century marketing literature. A review of the public relations practices of Edward Bernays reveals a close similarity to recent concepts of integrated marketing communication (Schultz). This project contrasts marketing communication approaches grounded in mass psychology with the rational choice model of consumer behavior. These dualistic viewpoints are often regarded as mutually exclusive; however, this author proposes an integrated dualism of marketing communication to provide consumers with ways to redeem rhetorical tokens (Mayhew) that constitute the managerial rhetoric (Sproule) of advertising. Integrated dualism constitutes an economic as well as ethical response to the multiplicity of the postmodern marketplace