Prop it up

This post will address the idea of propaganda as art and advertising. There is even something greater under the surface for propaganda, though, because it spreads a message. Not just any message, but one that seeks to seep into your soul and psyche, playing on your affiliations and affinites. Propaganda is most invasive when used to promote a war cause.

Historically, we think of propaganda as the Uncle Sam poster shouting “I want you!” with his emblazoned patriotism and defiant accusatory stare. Or we may of World War 2, sitting in a movie theatre, eating popcorn and soda, when before the movie begins, a war film reel begins to nobilize the heroics of our boys in the face of peril and danger. This stuff really worked. Would it work now? I’m not so sure.

We are more global; we have all the information we could want at our fingertips through a simple Google search (which is determined by advertising dollars, but nevermind that for now). We can dig deep and investigate the real reasons behind war, and hopefully be more critical when facts or images are thrown in our faces.

Well, you would think we could do all these things. We can; but we don’t accept them. Emotions play over rationale every day. That is why propaganda is so effective.

President George W. Bush, yes that gem of a man, waged a propaganda war against the American public when he initiated his War on Terror with the invasion of Afghanistan. His mission: to rid the country of the Taliban and al Qaeda. His poster child: the burqa-clad, helpless woman.

After the initial declaration of “war on terrorism,” a more subtle propaganda spin war needed to be waged on the American public. Patriotism was high, people were mad and willing to take action, and the time was ripe for shaping perceptions. Action demands actors. According to this article, these actors came in the form of four women advisers: Karen Hughes, counselor to the president, Charlotte Beers, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, Victoria Clarke, chief Pentagon spokeswoman, and Mary Matalin, chief political adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney . President Bush focused on feminist discourse and surrounded himself with these women to embed feminism into the war (in Hunt and Rygiel’s book “Engendering the War on Terror, 52-53). His advisers, in a unique role high up in the Bush administration, focused on gender-centric issues to facilitate the war for Bush and gain public support. It is only natural for them as females to be drawn to women’s rights, but they did it in a context of war, so what were perhaps individual genuine intentions became politically and economically-charged. Press operations, under a newly formed umbrella group called the Coalition Information Center, highlighted issues like the Taliban’s treatment of women that cast the Afghan leadership in a negative light, and Laura Bush, as a motherly figure, became the advocate for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

As you can see, both Hughes and Beers come from the world of spin. They are not using forceful posters now, though, but social and political cues to shape a message- and isn’t that what the crux of advertsing really comes down to?

 

trick or treat to Tweet

As anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows, Twitter is the new big thing- a possible killer app- on the Internet.

I have no idea why. It seems completely pointless. And annoying.

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have one myself. I love Twitter. It’s addicting. 

This post does not have that much to do with physical art in advertising, I suppose. But it will address the art of conveying messages and design aspects of Twitter. So here goes:

For those unfamiliar with it, when first starting Twitter, it is difficult to begin navigating the page. A user must find people using keywords or names- there is no giant browsing tool or anything like that. Also, many people do not use their actual face as their profile photo. Once established, a user can update their status anytime they want, but there is a catch. Their statement can only be 140 characters. So if you have a point, make it quickly. Also, Web sites can be linked in as tinyurls. I suppose that is where the art lay- the ability to craft a statement that others would want to read in a very short amount of space for our ADD generation. 

Relating to advertising, big media head honchos’ ears have perked up to the accessibility and proliferation of this application. They have been wondering how they can manipulate Twitter to their advantage, namely, use it for advertising. 

The platform seems inaccessible to advertisements. It is a pretty straightforward set-up. The design of the Web site is aesthetically pleasing, and a user is able to place their own backgrounds and photo. It would be sad to see banner ads plastered on the side of the Web site, even for me. It would make it less personable and make me question ethics of it. 

Well, too bad. Because business and ad execs are plowing on with the strategy.

When I went on Twitter about a week ago, I noticed a feature called ExecTweets. I thought it was an established part of Twitter, but apparently it is brand new, according to an article by Peter Kafka for All Things Digital: http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090323/looky-here-actual-revenue-for-twitter-courtesy-of-microsoft/. (WordPress is being annoying again, so I can’t link anything. I don’t know why.) Anyway, Kafka categorizes this as “a fairly cautious step into marketing.” Microsoft is sponsoring the page, which displays executives at corporations who use Twitter. For me, it was pretty boring, though. As Kafka alludes to, the fun of Twitter is finding bizarre or noteworthy Tweeters, and it all has a sense of randomness. It is rather implausible that the average Tweeter would go out of their way to search for an executive or brand on Twitter. 

According to this article, http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2008/tc2008095_320491.htm, “Apple, Comcast, Dell, General Motors, H&R Block, Kodak, and Whole Foods Market are among a handful of companies haunting Twitter to do everything from burnish brands to provide customer service.” I did a quick search of Twitter and also found Motrin, Wal-mart, and Cold Stone Creamery. Sen. John McCain is on there too- I just think that is funny. 

So what is the future of ads on Twitter? I don’t think anyone really knows. Personally, I don’t think it can ever be too pervasive unless they change the layout of the site.

Oh, if you want to follow me on Twitter, my user name is adsavo!

 

Guerilla Warfare

In the current economic recession, advertisers must attract wandering eyes whose minds are more busy on balancing their checkbooks than looking to buy more.

Although advertisers have turned to digital advertising, they experienced the most success in the year 2000, and lately the trend has been downward. According to StateoftheNewsMedia.org, “Traditional media having trouble transitioning to the new landscape may be heartened by the fact that the advertising world is also not changing business models as fast as consumers are adapting to new technologies. Asked how well the advertising community is adapting to change, Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group, responded, ‘Badly. The structure of the agency business has not kept pace with the needs of marketers.’” In traditional media, five people might be responsible for spending $100 million in network and cable television to ensure the commercials get to the networks  and measuring traffic. “In digital media, those same five people might be responsible for a budget of only $1 million that involves 1,000 ad placements, the buying of 5,000 keywords on search engines, and tracking and changing the campaign based on the data that come back.”  So it is more of a challenge in the vast world of the Net to track ads’ effectiveness and permeability.

So if there is less spending out there, as well as less advertising, those who are advertising must create simple, yet effective ways to strategize. Some have tried the in-your-face approach of guerilla advertising. Even though it hits the viewer as strange, and catches their attention immediately, they do not register at first that the ad is actually, well, an ad.

I discovered two pages on the Web site FunnyMos.com that address and portray examples of guerilla advertising. Here is the link for the first and the second.

I want to now describe some of the examples of the guerilla ads:

- A beer can around a pole on a bus, so whoever is standing up is forced to place their hand on the beer can and observe the brand

-A billboard for a McDonalds’ shake that is upside down and the straw is the entire length of the pole all the way to the ground

- An ad for Mr. Clean that places a perfectly white strip down next to dirty strips on a crosswalk

-A casino ad in the airport that made the luggage carosel a giant roulette table

-A bendy straw advertising a yoga center with a woman doing a stretch when you bend the straw

-Placing a red  suitcase next to monuments of historical figures for Virgin holidays

- An ad for quitting smoking with a person face and hole for the mouth with the exhaust smoke coming out of it

An article in Advertising Age, titled “‘Hacking’ Facebook Photos in the Name of Guerrilla Marketing,” describes the guerilla marketing technique where people are repeatedly tagged in photos for objects people wish to promote. It has not really caught on yet, but could possibly an effective, yet annoying and unethical, advertsing technique.

I am not entirely sure if these advertisements work, but they are certainly creative. They are effective by catching peoples’ attention and sort of tricking them into looking at the ads.

 

Public place, public space, public face

The other day, I pulled into a parking spot in the College Avenue parking deck. I was in a rush, as always, and hurriedly turned off my car and grabbed my bag. As I was exiting my car, something on the wall in front of me caught my eye. It my a red stencil on the concrete blocks that said, “Place Ad Here.” (You can see the bottom of this post- I will upload the picture- and I also am using half of it as my header at the top). I don’t know if anyone else has seen this. But it forced me to stop everything I was doing and take a photo of it with my phone. It got me thinking- What is the social commentary of the advertising industry? Does it even exist? Of course it is not so pervasive as the business side, especially now in a faltering economy. What actually goes through our minds when we look at an ad? How are we triggered into looking up anyways? These are pretty tough questions, and I’m sure some psychology and in-depth research are required for the answers, which I am by no means qualified to answer. 

First off, I will address advertising as a social good. The Ad Council is a private, non-profit organization that has existed since 1942. They are responsible for such campaigns as Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear Forest Fire prevention, the Safety Belt Dummies, and McGruff the Crime Dog. Many people make fun of PSAs, or public service announcements. Some are rather corny or outdated. People may question the need for PSAs at all. After all, is advertising a wrong in society the best way to go about preventing it? In response to this, as long as the ads are pervasive enough, they can be rather memorable and get the message through some Americans’ thick skulls. The Ad Council maintains that PSAs are effective. There most recent campaigns focus on healthy eating for children by using Disney characters for myPyramid.gov, preventing reckless teen driving, and preventing digital dating abuse. 

Most public service ads appear late at night. They simply cannot compete with prime time space, and do not have enough support in the commercial sector. The attitude is probably “do-gooders be damned,” as more investments are needed in products that actually make money. Also, advertising is suffering all across the board. Has anyone else noticed the increasing amount of strange commercials on TV lately? They rarely have actual human beings in them; probably so the producers can cut out an actor’s paycheck. I suppose the networks are getting ads wherever they can, no matter what the content.

In an article from the New York Times, “These days, Ad Council campaigns receive exposure in forms like Internet video, e-cards from American Greetings, taxi-top signs and video kiosks in stores. Google supports the campaigns through a grant program that allows nonprofit groups to secure keyword search terms; when Web surfers enter searches for those terms, links to public service ads appear next to the regular search results.” I personally never recall seeing a PSA-type ad while searching the web, have you?

I am a firm believer that advertising does play an integral social role, and it is very hard to find concrete statistics on public service announcements’ penetration. I think it is possible for consumerism to coexist equally with socially benefitting ads, but perhaps I am just being optimistic. 

 

Reflection=noitcelfeR: Inspired by the past

So I was not intending to post about fashion advertisements again, but when I received my February issue of NYLON magazine, I found a section devoted to what I was referencing in my first post. This will not be a reiteration of that post, but a reflection on it. I will try to incorporate some art history to back up artists and their influence on advertising. 

First, the images, since they express the point clearly without words:

The magazine photos deftly incorporate styles and techniques the artists – Gustav Klimt, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, and Rene Magritte- used in their works. Below are examples of their artworks, respectively, to give a broader contextual view. The images used are Klimt’s The Kiss, Lichtenstein’s Girl with Hair Ribbon , Pollock’s Convergence, and Magritte’s High Society. 

Unfortunately, apparently WordPress only allows one giant block of images, not separate ones, which is completely ridiculous and goes against the points I wanted to make in this post, and probably future ones. Oh well, I guess I will have to adapt to their form as everyone must adapt to the different emerging technologies. Nothing is perfect, and maybe someone can give me feedback if WordPress is changing this or not.

Anyways, back to business. So if you  look down at the bottom of this post and notice some of the fashion ads have ads for similar products next to them. This is by no means revolutionary. However, one must question if it is a reflection on the actual fashion of today or if we are being primed to believe these accessories are not just picked to illustrate the point the magazine is trying to express. Obviously, it is probably the latter. Intention does not create meaning, after all.

I want to talk a little about art history and its effect on and also influence by the advertising industry. I will focus mainly on the Pop Art period. Pop Art was a movement in America in the late 1950s. It is a direct reflection of the seemingly new incessant bombardment of advertising at the time. When most people hear the words Pop Art, they think of Andy Warhol. Warhol, in the 1963 article , “What is Pop Art?”, by Gene Swenson, draws the connection between pop art and advertising. He says, “…like the shoe I would be drawing for an advertisement was called a ‘creation’ but the drawing of it was not.” He is saying that both forms can be considered art. In the same article, Roy Lichtenstein, when asked what is pop art, responds, “I don’t know- the use of commercial art as subject matter in painting. I suppose… it is an involvement with what I think to be the most brazen and threatening characteristics of our culture, things we hate, but which are also so powerful in their impingement on us.” 

I think the two art forms are inseparable. Why should they be so different, after all? Both are creations of the mind, both have potential to be widely disseminated to audiences, both kind of “sell-out” in a way to create a profit. Although advertisements are much more “in your face” and art is supposed to be pure creativity, don’t both forms have characteristics of the other? If you would once again turn your attention below to the images, I have found Roy Lichtenstein- inspired images for Tide ads. Also, to further illustrate my point, I found a good article, albeit long, comparing Magritte to advertisements, here.

 

 

The Heart of the Matter: Annonces avec le coeur (Advertisements with heart)

American ads often have no soul. They reflect a capitalist economy and mindset of “buy,buy,sell,sell.”

I am frankly getting sick of the plethora of ads that lately are emphasizing the floundering economy. I can think of ones from T-Mobile or Cingular – I forget which company – with a mom scolding her teenage son for wasting their minutes, materialized as little orange clocks, by selling them at a garage sale. The mom sneaks in the phrase, “…especially in this economy…” at some point. 

The other commercial I think of is from the Charles Schwab commercials. They are the rather creepy ones, with roughly animated individuals moaning about the state of their money, before the reassurance, “Talk to Chuck” is presented. Of course, these ads are taking advantage of the heightened anxiety and nervous mindset of the American public as our deficit increases and banks were closing at breakneck speed. 

In France, however, I think the ads reflect the ideals of democracy, sensuality, and pretentious nature of of the nation. The New York Times article, “In France, Ads Aim at Heart, not Wallet,” stresses the contrasting nature of French and American ads. Money is not central in French ads, and they are often more concerned with poetry and artistry than hard facts to illustrate products.

“To us money implies corruption, and moreover, because we consider ourselves the inventors of freedom, never mind if that’s not true, we still consider advertising as a kind of manipulation,” Jacques Séguéla, chief creative officer for Havas, the country’s second-biggest advertising agency, said. “This explains why television commercials started so late here — essentially because leftist opposition saw ads as corrupting the soul.” He figured out that  ”American commercials go from the head to the wallet, British ones from the head to the heart, French, from the heart to the head.”

The earliest form of French advertisements perhaps were posters created by such artists like Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. These were mostly advertising cabarets and other risque behaviors. The most famous of these is Cabaret du Chat Noir, by graphic designer Théophile Alexandre Steinlen. Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters include Reine du Joie, picturing a man and woman nuzzling at a table, a poster publicizing Victor Joze’s notorious novel of lust and prostitution, and also Moulin Rogue- La Goulue, a poster advertising a night long dance at the notorious cabaret.

 France did not start showing television commercials until 1968, much later than their American counterparts. Last month, President Nicolas Sarkozy banned advertising from 4 French stations during the evening, and he plans to cut them from 2 more stations. These channels are public French television. This shows that France actually cares for its public channels as a service to the people, not as another way to make money. 

However, France does rely on shock value- or what is considered shocking from a puritan American point of view- to spice up their ads. Many would never, ever be even thought about to be shown to a US audience. For example, the article mentions a rather lengthy  perfume ad that only consists of a nude man and woman wrapped around a gold sheet, twirling in the air. The video can be found here, and be warned, it is rather graphic. However, apparently, it does not particularly shock the French. “We stress sex and within our ads because that’s our culture,” Martin, the union chief for the French union for television advertisements, said. “Advertising is about presenting an idealized view of its audience. And this is who we would like to think we are.”

 

Fashioning Art through Advertisements

For my first post, I will focus on the art perspective of advertising, before delving into the more nitty-gritty aspects of the advertising industry in later posts. 

Fashion reflects art in many ways. I think this is visually obvious for most people. But is there a deeper meaning for fashion advertisers to reference art in their ads? Do they want to pay homage to the artists who may have shaped them, as they will continue to shape others? Or do they simply want to attract the most people to their ads? Im going to go with the second, more callous, less idealistic option. Perhaps, subconsciously, when consumers see an ad that looks like or reminds them of a piece of art, they can equate that product with the art. It does not even have to be a particular artwork, but maybe a reference to a painter or a general style or an era of art. When consumers see the ad and think of the art, they either accept or reject it based on their emotions about the art. 

Relating this all to fashion ads, when you flip through a magazine like Vogue, for example, at least half of the printed material are advertisements. High-fashion ads do not consider themselves ads at all. Many of them seem like they should be simply eye-candy. One does not think of the months of planning, exorbitantly priced models and photographers, and what it actually took to get that one “perfect” shot. When you look at any ad in Vogue, the viewer does not feel like a certain message is forced into them. It is subtle, because it is hidden under the guise of being art. The message is there however. I think it is, 99 percent of the time, “Look at me! I am better than you! If you want to be haute-couture, or even have any fashion sense at all, this is how you should look!”. 

Last year, I started noticing more and more fashion ads with “splattered art” techniques incorporated into them. In particular, Dolce and Gabbana ads and runway fashion harkened Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists. The models were even set in a studio-like scene as background. These ads scream energy and force, just as Pollock’s paintings do. The models’ dresses are almost like actual wispy brush strokes. Both the art and the advertisements elicit specific emotions for the viewer. See for yourself and make the comparison: 

A New York Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/fashion/08ROW.html, opens with the lede: “SHOPPING, these days, is a political act. If you are brave enough to buy a $2,000 Prada handbag, you might rationalize that you are helping to stimulate the economy. Solidarity, people!” Saks Fifth Avenue has recently launched an ad campaign that reflects Soviet-style art to, in a sense, rally the people in the battle for our sinking economy. Blocky text and red and black colors mimic Communist style, and bags emblazoned with “Want it!” get the business message across.

Fashion gets its inspiration from art. At the same time, fashion is art for the body. Many can only express their true personalities through fashion or art. Advertising is the way to reach people. It can be appreciated as an art form, just as it pulls its content from famous artworks.

 

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