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

Separation perfected by Guy Debord

We are asked to reread the essay by Debord, read before as part of Chapter 2, Ways of Seeing. Whilst I recalled reading Debord, and finding difficulty with his concept of the spectacle, I did not realise until after re reading the essay that it was the same article as read a few months ago (I thought it was another excerpt from Society of the Spectacle that was included in the reader).

This was useful, as the temptation would be to revisit my previous notes before re reading, whereas this way I could read, then compare the thoughts afterwards.

The extract is brief; Debord has a way of writing that I can best describe as 'floating' above his subject. The essay is replete with unsubstantiated (and unsubstantiable) assertions, very much in the mould of Lacan, Althusser, Barthes, and Derrida. I have commented before on the tendency for the French philosophical school to almost to tease its audience, test its perseverance, defy it to retort that their writings are nothing more than fancy polemics. Take away the Emperor's contorted language and you see he has no clothes.  

But, putting aside the generalities, Debord does recognize the importance of imagery for a contemporary Marxian analysis, noting that it is a relatively recent phenomenon:

"The spectacle, as a tendency to make one see the world........naturally finds vision to be the privileged human sense, which the sense of touch was for other epochs;..."

Debord thus not only acknowledges the importance of imagery, but also its transience. He makes a number of claims for the 'spectacle', defined as: "...a social relation among people, mediated by images." His allusion to advertising is clear when he adds that "....[the spectacle] says nothing more than that which appears is good, that which is good appears." He emphasises again towards the end of essay that the spectacle is about relations between men and classes; it is not merely purely fetishistic or objective. Here he extends the Marxian analysis to the intangible, thus extending Marx's commodity fetishism to incorporate the visual intangible world, the imaginary vs. the real.

Debord contends that the mass media - the 'most glaring superficial manifestation' of the spectacle - 'invades' society as its 'equipment'. This equipment is a tool of the society of the epoch. It represents an accumulation of information by the system's administration in order to preserve the system itself.

As we shall see (and have already seen in Assignment 3, an essay on Barthesian analysis that is equally relevant to Debord's thesis), contemporary advertising demonstrates very well the move from the tangible to the intangible, the said to the unsaid, but it represents only one facet on visual culture. The problem for Debord and others is that they could not foresee the democratizing impact of the internet and social media on contemporary society, acting almost as an antidote to the slick advertising message. A few duff posts on Trip Advisor will negate any amount of positive spin propagated by a tour company's advertising agency. People review products and services on Amazon and other sites. To a degree, these negate the imagery, they cut the provider down to size, and focus on the lowest common denominator: "does the product deliver". Paradoxically, this may have actually enhanced the status of luxury brands: who wants to buy a bag when they can afford a Louis Vuitton? Branded items are the new fetishes as the underlying products are common place.

Comparing the above with my previous notes on Debord , I can see that my second reading shows more empathy and understanding of his messages. But the quote from Hussey, repeated below, remains pertinent:

"It depressed [Debord] in his later years that [his] insight had long since ceased to be a revolutionary call to arms but the most accurate, if banal, description of modern life. The term "society of the spectacle" had itself become a cliché, entering the post-modern lexicon to describe any contemporary process....(Hussey, 2001)

 What seemed perspicacious at the time, was, in the end, mundane.

Reference:

Hussey (2001) Situation abnormal Available from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jul/28/biography.artsandhumanities Accessed on 2 March 2014
 



 

Feedback from Assignment 4

Received feedback from tutor on my Assignment on the portrayal of women in sport

Am very pleased with the comments:

"This is an impressive submission, which I have judged as excellent across all four criteria. I particularly liked your discussion of the representation of women in sport. which I thought raised very important questions about the ability of cultural theory to keep up with changes in technology as well as with what is new and significant in popular culture."

It is particularly gratifying that tutor notes my attempts to present visual culture as far as possible in a contemporary way. A major paradox of reading books and periodicals as source of understanding and reference for visual culture is that they are two dimensional, static, and often include minimal examples of  the very visual element about which they write. I have tried to use the blog as a medium to include colour images, and short video clips. There is an argument that perhaps at least one Assignment should be presented entirely as a visual presentation. 

I spent a long time researching the Assignment, reviewing and reading many articles, as tutor notes, and several that are not included, either because out of date (this is a fast moving subject); using inadequate research (I used mainly the work of researchers who had performed substantive studies); or would have made the essay too long. Most articles were found online, but I bought a few from subscription sites, including a few that were not incorporated in the essay. 'Less is more' is an important adage when writing essays within a prescriptive word count; there is a temptation to include too much and lose the thread, a point by implication that tutor notes:

"Your research is indicated by your references to twenty different sources in your bibliography, all of which you evaluate with an enviable ease and discrimination in the text."

Tutor highlights that I use Mulvey's distinction between voyeuristic and fetishistic gaze; the idea for the Assignment came to me while reading the article, as it seemed to me that the portrayal of women in sport probably demonstrates Mulvey's argument better than the movies she used as examples (with due recognition that she wrote some time before there was significant female participation in top level sport).

My use of statistics and related issues such as health are viewed by tutor as 'admirable'; I thought it important that while the topic needs be discussed against the backdrop of an academic study (that was, after all, the brief), it should also be placed, as tutor says 'in wider context of sexism.'

Tutor would have liked more discussion of the Nike advert of Maria Sharpova. The YouTube clip was included only as a sort of taster within the abstract, as sort of visual update on Berger's well known passge of 40 years ago, that was included above it. I considered that Nike cleverly parodied our (male and female) instinct to view the likes of Sharapova as beautiful and glamorous rather than as a great tennis player. Tutor considers that the likes of the bellboy, receptionists etc admire Sharapova because 'she is a great deal less successful than she is.' Not sure of the exact meaning of this statement, but the 'decisive moment', in Cartier Bresson terms, of the clip is when Sharapova serves, drawing breath from the audience and stopping the 'I Feel Pretty' song in its stride. She is (as at 19 October 2014) ranked world number 2, and has won five Grand Slams over ten years: two French Opens, and one of each of US, Australian, and Wimbledon. That is sporting success in anyone's books, and gives Sharapova a sporting kudos as well as celebrity status. By comparison, Anna Kournikova's celebrity status was undermined in a sporting sense by an absence of singles success, an injury at just 21 forcing her retirement. She did win two Grand Slam doubles titles with Maria Hingis (source: Wikipedia).

In hindsight, taking tutor's point, it might have been better to have used the clip rather than the Colombian cycling team as the lead, the instigator, of the essay and use the image as an example of the ridicule (albeit self imposed by one of the female team). The furore over the Colombian women's cycling team's uniform coincided with the idea for the Assignment.

More generally, tutor appreciates the common sense approach, using the discussion around the black maid in Tom and Jerry cartoons as an example. We should be empathetic to the Zeitgeist of the time when material was written and created; it is not a question of the portrayal being 'wrong at the time', it is a question of what is socially acceptable in a more understanding, broad-minded society than existed 50 years ago. Discrimination of any kind (sexism, racism, anti Semitism to quote a few) devalues us as individuals and as a society, but it is foolish to pretend that what we now see as discrimination would have been seen as the natural order of things in the past.

Lastly, tutor considers my discussion of Simba might have benefited from more discussion of the relationship between Alan and Mary and how it 'helped to underscore the portrayal of racial differences.' Fair point, as a subtlety of the movie is the premise white people have loving relationships, whereas the only personal relationship between blacks in the movie is that between the liberal Dr Karanja, attempting to bridge the gap between the races, and his father, Simba, the local Mau Mau leader and perpetrator of much of the violence against whites. Having viewed Battle of Algiers first, I was more inclined to make the comparisons (as noted by tutor, in grid style) and the second movie eschews any significant personal angle.

Assignment 4: Visualising the Other

Assignment 4 may be viewed here.

The Nike commercial may be accessed by right clicking the link and opening in a new page or can be viewed here:

Reflections on Chapter 4

I knew from early on that Looking and Subjectivity would take some time to complete. The study guide suggests 110 hours of study time to complete this chapter, compared to 60 hours for Part 1; 5 for Part 2; and 70 for Part 3. There are eight projects, most of which are multi layered and therefore time-consuming; I certainly have spent many more then 110 hours on this chapter, which has taken five monthe to complete, partly it has to be said because of other commitments.

It is alos a complex area, covering some of the more difficult areas of visual culture, notably Freud, race, and the viewing of women, the last of which was used as a basis for my Assignment.

The chapter starts by revisiting Freud, this time considering the Oedipus complex. Because I had published the associated blog entry before tutor had considered assignment 3, he took the opportunity in his summary to consider my three objections to Freud: that his thesis is unprovable; that it is sexist; and that it has limited relevance to visual culture.

Broadly, with caveats, tutor agrees with the first two, though points out that Freud was a 'man of his time with many of the prejudices of his age'. That is partly my point; society has moved on since Freud wrote, and visual culture should surely reflect current Zeitgeist. 

It is the third argument where I boldly stepped on a banger.  Tutor points out that Freud is relevant because he is relevant to so many artists, just as Christianity was to earlier artistic generations. The implication is that one needs to understand Freudian thesis in order to understand the messages of artists who are influenced by him. That has to be right. My error was to take Freud too literally. I find it difficult to believe that little boys really do worry overly about their penis once they notice that girls do not have one, but that is not the point. What we need to understand is the fascination that artists (even recent ones like Sarah Lucas) have with the repressed subconscious sexual drive that Freud brought to our attention, and the impact thereof in their work. Freud's impact is broader and perhaps less tangible than I had accounted for.

I do not entirely give up on the point of Freudian relevance, however. Whilst I understand the relevance it has to the work of artists, that is only a part and, critically, I would say a much reduced part nowadays, of visual culture.  The study of artistic works is the highbrow end of the visual culture market - the 'legitimate sphere' in Bourdieu's terms. What we have now (and explore more in next chapter) is an explosion of visual culture resulting from the development of the internet, and fast streaming and social media in particular. These developments have led to our world being almost entirely visual. YouTube seems to have been with us for ages, but actually only started in 2005. Now we have video mashups, vblogging and many other visually related online media that are visual and definitely part of our culture, albeit at the 'arbitrary sphere' end of the market, again borrowing from Bourdieu. And I am not sure how relevant Freudian analysis is to a study of these media; perhaps the subject needs to define its boundaries in light of the extension of the visual into areas that were previously off the visual culture radar as they were technologically not possible. This is an area I wish to explore in Assignment 5 where we look at the boundaries between reality and virtuality, very relevant to the growth of visual social media. It leads too to discussion of whether there is a difference between entertainment and art, and if so what it is, and what this means to visual culture in an increasingly visual world.

Lacan's mirror phase was one attempt to extend and update Freud. It is difficult reading, not least because of the contorted and opaque language that I have criticised before. One ends up having to read what others think of the thesis before reading it in order to have any hope of unpicking the meaning.

Panopticism by Foucault was a very interesting article, and blissfully clear prose. The associated project was valuable; I thought about writing further on the topic for the Assignment as the topic of what I shall 'business use' of visual culture is not covered elsewhere. By business use, I do not just mean surveillance cameras in car parks, on buildings etc, but also as used in forensic police work (some photographers have studied crime scene photography), medical images, and detailed scientific images to name a few.

Three projects then focussed on the visualisation of women, taking Laura Mulvey's essay  Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and John Berger's Ways of Seeing as a base. The projects were challenging and varied; I particularly enjoyed the visual essay; as a photographer I find this genre interesting in light of my comment earlier that our world is becoming entirely visual. Henry Wessel's Incidents discussed in another post provides an example. The project to locate and discuss four female artists was interesting; I had not heard of Cecily Brown, Lisa Yuskavage, or Justine Kurland before rieviewing thier work, and selecting a piece from each to discuss inthe context of the course. Kurland in particular uses her gender to her advantage, portraying naked women in natural settings.

The last two projects contrasted black and white perspectives, based on writings by Fanon and Dyer. The Fact of Blackness by Fanon is a classic essay, but I thought rather dated. In White, Dyer attempts to set out a view of visual culture from a majority perspective, pointing out that the concentration of many writers on the issues of minorities may inadevertently make those issues seem larger than they actually are, that they are 'departures from the norm', while the norm carries on in a natural way. The implication is that the causes identified by the commentators may not be best served by being highlighted as departures from the norm.

The last project was very long, requiring both a review of media for a week noting and commenting on racial identity. I coupled this with a visit to Tate Modern, where I found two works to include. Watching the two films - Simba and Battle of Algiers - was an interesting and enjoyable project, exactly the sort of thing I would not have watched but for the course, but very glad to have done. Battle of Algiers  is an excellent movie, occupying 48th place on the Critics' Top 250 Films of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.

For the assignment, I selected the subject of the portrayal of women as the topic covered in the chapter to be discussed. Having an interest in sport, I combined the two topics into a visualisation of women in sport. I researched the topic in some detail, adducing  number of relevant essays (pincipally by women) and combined these academic studies with supporting articles and examples from the internet. 

As with all the chapters, I found Chapter 4 introduced me to many concepts and artists that knew little or nothing about. This was a principle aim of the course. having more time available now, I aim to complete the shorter final chapter in time for the March 2015 assessment.