What are some good examples of how advertising is responsible for the routines and rituals we take for granted?

The classic example of this is the Oreo cookie. Over the years, Oreo has promoted the idea that its little sandwich cookies should be eaten in a certain ritualistic way: Twist the cookie, open it up, dunk it in milk, then eat. The ritualization of Oreo consumption has led the way to an enduring brand that crosses generations, in part because the ritual of Oreo eating is shared from parent to child. What's the secret that lies behind this ritual marketing success? A scientific study published in Psychological Science last year (Vohs, K., Wang, Y, Gino, F. and Norton, M. (2013). Rituals Enhance Consumption, Psychological Science, July 17, 2013) gave an important clue. This study contained three experiments designed to test the effect of ritual upon perception of product value. In one of the experiments, a control group was told to simply wait for a short period before eating a chocolate bar, while the experimental group was told to go through a specific series of movements with the chocolate bar before eating it: Breaking it without unwrapping it, unwrapping it, eating half of it, then unwrapping the other half and eating it. The experimental group and control groups ate the very same chocolate bar, but the experimental group rated the taste of the chocolate bar as much higher, and said that they would pay a higher price for it.  Perceptive marketers understand that this impact of ritual provides a route for establishing premium brand status, for increased profit, without substantially increased production and promotion costs. Ritual consumption benefits the bottom line. The success of Febreze comes from the way the product has been promoted as part of a purification ritual. Anthropologist Grant McCracken has explained how a significant driver of much consumption is the perceived degradation of the material goods we own. It's not enough simply to purchase an item. It needs to be maintained as well, with the perception (often not based in concrete reality) that a product loses its purity over time. Febreze is just one of many products that are used in purification grooming rituals. Think of Armor All, "protecting your car, inside and out" as another example. You're right to think of breakfast as an opportunity for advertising to establish daily ritual consumption. Ritual isn't just a matter of grand rites of passage, like coronations or weddings. We also need smaller rites of passage for smaller transitions,.These are called microrituals, and moving between daytime and nighttime identity is one of the most reliable and psychologically significant of these. Coffee and orange juice companies have done a great job reinforcing the idea that we aren't capable of having a productive day without having their product first. The Nutella "Rise and Shine" advertising campaign is another recent example of this morning microritual approach. If you want more evidence of the power of ritual in marketing, consider that the two biggest annual occasions for spending are centered around ritual events: Christmas and Halloween.  Add on Black Friday advertisements for "doorbusters", and you have the beginnings of a new holiday shopping ritual.

You should read about Edward Bernays.  He is often considered one of the pioneers of the PR industry.  Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and used ideas around the subconsious to drive the behavior of the masses.  His methods / propaganda in the 1920s created quite a number of buying patterns for Americans which exist to this day: Bacon and eggs for breakfast: Bernays was hired by a bacon company to help drive sales.  He created a survey for physicians regarding the benefit of eating a hearty meal for breakfast (versus a light breakfast of toast and coffee/tea which was the US norm at the time).  Doctors generally agreed eating more calories was better in the morning to provide energy during the day.  Bernays published that information with the concept that "bacon and eggs" fit into that bucket, to which the masses shifted to eating that breakfast. Women and smoking: At the time, smoking was considered a taboo for women (as in my opinion it still should be for all... I degress).  One of the tobacco companies hired Bernays to help target the female market.  During the annual Easter Parade in NYC, Bernays got a bunch of debutantes to light up and then told reporters that suffragettes were lighting up their "Torches of Freedom".  This created a media frenzy and made it cool for women to smoke. Interestingly, he also took part in anti-smoking campaigns later in his life.

Cosmetics and exaggerated body hygiene: I remember as a kid some advertisement for baby shampoo where the main argument was: So you too can wash your hair every day. Some time ago taking a bath or even a shower was a weekly event. There even were times where some only had two baths in their lifetime, one when entering this world and one when leaving. That does not mean people were dirty, they just knew how to stay clean using little water and a washrag. Today it is considered normal to take one or more showers a day.   Another commercial or media induced behaviour is the systematic hunt of body hair even those not seen in public. Introduced by the censorship of Hollywood movies body hair was considered obscene. Remember Jonny Weissmuller as Tarzan? Not a hair on his virile chest. He had to shave every day while in the rest of the world a hairy man’s chest was a sure sign of masculine virility.  At the same time European movie stars like Sophia Loren were perfectly comfortable exposing hairy armpits “au naturel”. Today even Germans shave their body hair or have them removed by torturous means.   There certainly are a lot more commercial-induced behaviours that would have passed as irrational some time ago, most of all the consumerism without boundaries. Every day commercials tell us that we are just a piece of poo because we don’t have this or that consumer item or because we don’t look like that prepped up siliconed anorexic model or that big hunk of man with his big machines and toys for big boys. That probably explains why we are willing to throw away a perfectly functional appliance just to get the newest one, such as the newest cell phone for example. Worse of all is our pill swallowing behaviour. For the slightest thing we drop a range of pills that probaly end up making us even more sick so we need some more pills, vitamines, pro-biotics and whatnot.

The ultimate advertising-moves-culture story? DeBeers "A diamond is forever" campaign actually created the modern day diamond market, assigning huge monetary and emotional values to - quite literally - useless rocks. The full story: http://www.gemnation.com/base?processor=getPage&pageName=forever_diamonds_1

Coca cola invented the modern conception of Santa as a cheery, red-cheeked obese old man. http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html Coffee was marketed in such a way to not only replace tea but completely dominate the morning routine. Other examples: Toothpaste for brushing ones teeth after meals The valentines rituals of flowers and chocolate. Great advertising.

Does anyone remember those early 90's Noxema commercials?  ("Noxema Girls... get noticed!")  God, they were so bad!  But I fell victim to them and (though I do no longer use their products) still to this day wash my face in small circular motions with my fingers, as the Noxema models demonstrated (I think it's probably good for my skin in some way; I just wish I hadn't learned it from a TV commercial!)