Advertising
Current Affairs, Pop Culture, Psychology February 20th, 2008A quick, anecdotal case study of adverts seen in the last week:
Example advertising: A car is driven recklessly along a street as an obvious computer game reference to Grand Theft Auto. The driver comes to a halt, steps out of the car and walks into a shop. The man behind the counter feels threatened but the driver takes the product (Coca cola) and pays for it. He then walks around the neighbourhood doing various good deeds in the opposite manner to the computer game – catches a thief, gives money to a busker, etc. The song with lyrics “give a little love and it all comes back to you” is playing. The slogan “the Coke side of life” is shown.
Message of this advert: the brand coca cola is associated to generosity and optimism. The song states that generosity or love will be reciprocated. There is no direct claim is made for the product.
Example 2: A hand cream is applied to a celebrity’s body. The voice over claims the product can taughten skin, remove wrinkles and make you appear younger. (L’Oreal)
Message: Use this product and you will look beautiful (and perhaps more like a celebrity).
Example 3: A man enjoys driving a car through computer generated pretty scenery. Cool music is playing. (Masda/Kia/etc)
Message: Use this product and you will be happy.
Example 4: An envelope is opened and a laptop is pulled out. The laptop lid is opened to show the Mac desktop and logo. (Apple)
Message: The product has desirable properties (thinness in this case). Note that this is not a functional property.
Example 5: A man and a women are shown on split screen talking to each other by mobile phone. They discuss family issues. The driver collides with an unseen object and knocked unconcious. The person on the other end of the conversation is traumatized. (Public information advert – the product in this case is a behavior)
Message: Talking to people who are on their mobile while driving may be upsetting (if they have an accident).
My observations: Advertising typically shows a person (or a character you are likely to identify with) enjoying the product in question. In the more abstract adverts, the product is part of a lifestyle that would be enjoyable. Often the characteristics of the product are secondary to the enjoyment (cars, coca cola). When characteristics are discussed, they are typically aesthetic (thinness, sleek, young, beauty, etc).
Very occasionally the inverse argument is used: product X will cause you unhappiness and should be avoided.
The purpose of advertising is to persuade people to buy the product. Therefore their full message is: product X will make you happy (or beautiful) and you should therefore purchase the product. This unspoken message contains two fundamental flaws.
1) Product being linked with happiness does not imply we should take any particular action. It does not logically follow that we should buy the product.
2) Studies indicate that our level of happiness is mainly physiologically determined. Our conscious choices only have a limited effect on our happiness (including mediation, medication, etc). Happiness is largely outside our hands. We should ask ourselves do certain behaviors cause happiness, or do happy people more likely to perform certain behaviors? The answer seems to be the latter.
This expressed by the master of debunking hollow ideas as:
The most general formula on which every religion and morality is founded is: “Do this and that, refrain from this and that — and then you will be happy! And if you don’t…” Every morality, every religion, is based on this imperative; I call it the original sin of reason, the immortal unreason. [..] An admirable human being, a “happy one,” instinctively must perform certain actions and avoid other actions; [...] In a formula: his virtue is the effect of his happiness. Nietzsche
This argument also applies to advertising. This quote is literally true if a brand has replaced religion in a persons mind. My concern is the proliferation of advertising in society is causing the spread of “immortal unreason” where thought and discussion are impaired.
As recently reported by the BBC:
Clinical psychologist Oliver James claims in his new book The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza, that “selfish capitalism” (the kind of capitalism we have in Britain) is making us sick. Literally. BBC
For further reading, I recommend Adbusters. They seek to move people beyond the tired concept of everyone being a “happy consumer” and toward being a participant in the real world.
Update: Of course advertising was never meant to be a logical argument but an appeal to the emotions.
Anti Citizen One
February 20th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Footnote: I noticed the new IKEA advert is using a 3D lettering that appears to hovering in space (along with products appearing from thin air). This was first used, as far as I know, in the film Fight Club which was fiercely critical of IKEA and was actually spoofing IKEA adverts when they showed these visual technique!
Life imitates art…
AC1
February 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I’m generally in agreement with the sentiments posted here. Although I don’t recognise Nietzsches critique and would offer an alternative Kiekregaardian and Mystical Via Negativa one.
However on the more important point of advertising I had these thoughts.
The method of product placement in advertisement and the grandiose archetypal messages of happiness and fulfilment and so on are symptoms of economic competition.
Economic competition itself is a byproduct of product diversity.
Thus we have a genealogy here of product diversity – competition between producers – ever more grandiose adverts to promote their products.
This genealogic model actually can be appropriated to any number of disciplines (not merely product placement in consumer economies) and one can think of how a similar process occurs in nature and evolution (the ultimate marketplace!!)
Thus we could comment that competition and diversity can be a positive force for “good” sometimes – it can lead to “innovation.”
As Feyerabend was fond of reminding people, and as most postmodern philosophers contend though innovative development does not necessarily equate with moral progress.
So in the case of psuedo-religious and crypto-salvific product placement in adverts such as those mentioned (and numerous other examples) it is more often than not irreveocably linked to corporate greed. Wherein “progress” is defined not by some external reference such as the common good but by how quickly and how substantially the pockets of their investors and shareholders can be lined!!
But with regards competative diversity and innovation – advertising in its broadest sense is not objectively bad.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] define themselves in accordance with the expectations or demands of others? (Refer to AC-1’s post on advertising for some examples of modern herd [...]