M98 ADVERTISING Week 1: Captains of Consciousness John Keenan john.keenan@coventry.ac.uk

The blog http://m98mc.wordpress.com

Assignment Design a campaign for a made-up brand Analyse the campaign with theory.

Deadline M98MC: 2 May 2014

Hello. Who are you and what do you know?

Things you need to know this week Advertising’s ability to give objects and services meaning in order to sustain capitalism. What consumer culture is.

‘Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell, then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true’ Aldous Huxley

5 stages of advertising Leiss and Jhally Utility Branding Symbol Personalisation Lifestyle

Stage 2: Branding 1890s-1920s

Branding Guarantee of quality USP - Unique Selling Proposition

Mechanisation/Economy of scale = overproduction Global competition Reading 1: Kathy Myers Understains

Mechanisation

Pre-capitalist societies Production and consumption are linked Production is directly for use-value

Karl Marx 1818-1883 Capital Commodity Production Exploitation: paying people less than the products they produce Estrangement/Alienation: divorced from the goods they produce Forced to become consumers – produce goods others make doodle

CapitalismZygmunt Bauman Freedom Means-ends calculus Zygmunt Bauman Reading 2 Freedom Zygmunt Bauman Quotes 3-5

Henry Ford Frederick Winslow Taylor Means-ends calculus

3 mins 93 mins 15 million Any colour you like as long as it’s black

John Berger Ways of Seeing 1. Make the consumer dissatisfied ‘The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life..It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better’

‘Publicity begins by working on a natural appetite for pleasure ‘Publicity begins by working on a natural appetite for pleasure. But it cannot offer the real object of pleasure …The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that sea and the more remote the chance of bathing in it will seem to him’

2. Make the consumer envious ‘The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into and object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is and offers it back to her for the price of the product’

3. Make the consumer anxious ‘All publicity works on anxiety’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q0JvXiZw7o&feature=related 4.56 Watching 1: Ways of Seeing

Reading 3: Word in Ads by Greg Myers

Stage 3: Product Symbol 1920s-1960s Product given connotations through associations with other signs.

‘A key shift has taken place, from emphasising production and use of the commodity, to emphasising meanings associated with consumption’ Myers p.22

Semiotics Ferdinand de Saussure Sign: ‘basic element of meaning’ a sign occurs the moment something makes sense to us

Sign signifier (DENOTATION) signified (CONNOTATION)

c o t

Signs are polysemic. temptation Teacher’s pet Clean teeth healthy food

Connotations are arbitrary EVIL DEATH SOLVENCY STRONG

A product can mean anything Any product can have any connotations Advertising gives products connotations

Connecting an object with an object

Connecting an object with a world

Connecting the object with a person Reading: Decoding Advertisements Judith Williamson

Stage 4: Personalisation 1960s-1980s Adverts were targeted at types of people and the product was included in activity. Focus groups were more crucial to the creative process. Demographics, psychographics, life-stage targeting.

Stage 5: Lifestyle 1980s - present From the 1980s products were sold much more as accessories to a ready-made lifestyles. The whole way of life was shown, sometimes through ‘slice of life’ adverts and the product was a small part of this, subtly included into the narrative.

Utility - health drink

Branding Branding - cure headaches (USP); bottle differentiated; logo

Product Symbol

sex America Christmas

sex America Christmas world harmony

The first time, the first kiss Oh! what feeling is this? Electricity flows like the very first kiss The first time, the first Coke Oh! what feeling is this? Electricity flows like the very first kiss

sex America Christmas World harmony First kiss

Personalisation People connected to product, audience targeted more specifically, product given human qualities

Lifestyle Product made to seem like an essential part of a way of life

Consumerism To consume – to take in ‘the active ideology that the meaning of life is to be found in buying things and pre-packaged experiences’ Bocock, 1995: 50

Culture Raymond Williams High Popular Way of life

Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive John Berger 3.39 Watch: John Berger Ways of Seeing

The Jerk

‘constantly moving happiness machines’ Sigmund Freud Edward Bernays ‘constantly moving happiness machines’ Herbert Hoover29/4/2002 The Century of the Self Century of the Self

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Captains of Consciousness

mindcasting pp. Posting a series of messages that reflect one's current thoughts, ideas, passions, observations, readings, and other intellectual interests. . http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/09/facebook-users-union-demands-payment?INTCMP=SRCH http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ * http://www.wordspy.com/words/mindcasting.asp

Be Like No Other Pseudo-individuality Adorno

Who is our captain? Who is your captain?

I consume, therefore I am I am consuming my way into an identity and work allows me to do this. Think of the identities I could buy.

Me

TV characters places other cultures What else do I consume? books Food (object/meaning) musicians education films

“False needs” Raymond Williams Advertising: The Magic System (1962) Because of advertising we live in fantasy

We are what and how we produce and consume

Fighting the captain No Logo

Is there a way out? Watch: Noam Chomsky Manufacturing Consent