Lifestyle and product advertising

The project is twofold:

1. Look for three examples of current advertising that sells by appeal to lifestyle rather then the virtues of the product and make notes to show how;
2. Find advertisements for products that existed prewar and today and annotate to show how, or whether, there has been a change from product to lifestyle as the selling point.

Three advertising campaings are reviewed then three more comparisons made, ending with a discussion on the Guinness 'Made of More' campaign that moves on from lifestyle to human emotion connotations.

 Current advertising

Copyright: Hugh Burden Available from http://www.hughburden.com/2006site/advertising-photographer/advertising-lifestyle/advertising-photography.htm

This advert is for Barclays Capital. The brief was to "reflect Barclays Capital's status and convey easy access to online financial services." Burden's website claims that: "expansive architecture and open skies taken from low angles mirror the accessibility and infinity of information technology." The denotational aspect is therefore the entire object of the exercise. We can note as well that a female is used as the subject. She is dressed in formal business attire and does not engage at all with the camera. She looks high, and away from the very 'product' (insofar as there is a product in what is actually an advert for a service) that is closest to the direct advertising image. The image conveys an open, independent, lifestyle with infinity suggested by the panoramic image, and the openness of the setting.

 Copyright La Luna productions Available from http://lalunaproductions.com/advertising.html

This campaign for condominiums in part of Chelsea, Manahattan is entirely lifestyle related. There is no allusion at all to the product - it is assumed that anyone who is interested can find the square footage, the aspect, the decor, the number of rooms. the price, on a web search - why use valuable advertising resources on detail when you can attract what you (the developer) believes is the likely audience of potential purchasers with a lifestyle campaign? The emphasis is on young, attractive individuals with connoted seduction in their attitudes: smiling and engaging by the woman; controlling and assertive by the man. The message could hardly be less subtle: these condos are where the chic young independent person wants to live; not only that but he or she can 'define his or her style'; take control of the product to suit his or her own desires. 

Available from: http://adstrategy.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/ad_new_luxury_acura.jpg

Car adverts rarely focus on the product nowadays, or if they do, the 'product' is something new such as keyless entry on the Ford Focus (easily copied and standard on many new cars within months). Most try to allude to some kind of cool living and this Acura advert is very much in that genre. The advert plays on the young, glamorous pull of nightlife, presenting an Acura TSX as part of that. We desire the product on the right because it is associated with the lifestyle on the left. The car manufacturer cannot present the product per se to be an attractive purchase (there are too many similar cars about) but has instead to package it as part of a lifestyle deal. Implicitly, the manufacturer/advertising agency knows that the Acura offers nothing different from many other cars so has to create an allusion of desirability. It is brave in a way as the ad specifically turns the older viewer away with its tag line in the left panel (though possibly this ad was run only in young people's magazines), and, by any common sense means, is absurd. The idea that only this car can realise the dream of late nights as 'modern luxury' is preposterous; the advertiser knows that, and in turn knows that the audience knows it too. It is thus a play on the emotions rather than the rationality of the audience. 

One cannot be sure that this spoofery of alluding to lifestyle rather than product in advertising can last indefinitely in a more sophisticated, questioning society that engages with many forms of visual content. Interestingly, there does seem to be a move away from lifestyle advertising. According to Sheard (2013):

"There is a paradigm shift in how consumers engage with brands; traditionally brands would connect twice a year – once with the summer campaign and once with the winter campaign. The conversation went, “We only see each other twice a year so I am going to present you with this lifestyle that you can choose to buy into.” Now we interface with our brands everyday via the Internet, social media etc. so a single high-impact advertising campaign isn’t enough. What we have to create are meaningful relationships where brand communication has to be deeper, more honest and robust.

Subsequently when you scratch beneath the surface of a brand, unlike vague lifestyle, there is greater depth and personality. The consumer will demand more of it from our brands and brands have to figure this out very quickly because the continual perpetuation of high-impact lifestyle driven advertising is not going to cut it anymore. It is going to stop working and the brands that are developing strong, meaningful relationships with their consumers are going to succeed."

Products in existence today that were also in existence before WW2

Three products were selected: Marmite; Patek Philippe watches; and Guinness. Annotation does not suit the Guinness comparison as a moving image is selected for comparison with a 1930 still image, so is set out below. The annotated images for Marmite and Patek Philippe are available on this link.


Guinness

Available from: http://blog.solopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/guinness-vintage-poster-solopress-design-printing-blog-pint.jpg

Guinness is an advertising phenomenon; its adverts rank alongside those of Benetton as being sufficiently distinctive and ground-breaking that the brand is now arguably more about advertising than the product itself. Yet, as the 1930 advert above demonstrates, this was not always so. The message is direct, simple and product based; even if desirable, advertising censors (and insurers) would make such a claim impossible to make nowadays. By contrast, the advert below is part of the 'Made of More' campaign that Guinness is running. The bartender in 'Empty Chair' places the drink at a table, but who for? There is no-one sitting there; successive visitors ignore the drink until near closing time a soldier enters, raises the pint and is saluted in the same way by other patrons. The clip ends with the words: “the choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.” 

This is a human story in which the product is a prop. The advert says nothing about Guinness, indeed nothing about beer, except perhaps its use as a source of relaxation at the end of a day. But it says something about the bartender; a symbol of hope and emotion, and a salute to the brave soldiers that defend the realm.   

This commercial shows a side to advertising that is much more than lifestyle - it is about the association of a product with human emotion, perhaps indicative of the direction for advertising in the future. It is an attempt to move the subject beyond being a product, beyond being a symbol of a better lifestyle, to being associated with a positive emotion. We have moved a long way from Marx's Fetishism of the Commodity.

Reference:

Sheard, Bob (2013) Lifestyle in Advertising Available from http://www.selectism.com/2013/06/21/bob-sheard-of-creative-agency-freshbritain-on-lifestyle-in-advertising/. Accessed on 28 October 2014