So far
• 5 stages, 3 appeals, semiotics• Consumer culture• Targeting: demographics, psychographics,
lifestage, lifestyle
Problematise Complexity
• The sign• The audience• The methods
This week
• New audience• New media• New methods
Today..
1. Theoretical Account
i Identity
Ii Metanarratives
Iii Simulacrum and hyper-reality
Iv Trust
2. Style:
i Refusal of meaning
ii irony
iii bricolage
iv pastiche
v intertextuality
Postmodernism is both an aesthetic style and a theoretical accountJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58
Also today
• Write the campaign• Record video explanation of one of the
readings
pre-modernist times
Postmodernism
Modernism
THE IDEA OF PROGRESS
Creation of Metanarratives
Rational Thought
History
Voltaire (1694-1778) - ordered history and set it in a time frame and judged it by a fixed morality and scientific laws
Science
Newton (1643-1727) - science. 17th Century onwards: ‘science became the major aspect of human life…science could only move one way, forward’ SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20
Philosophy
Descartes (1596-1650): I think therefore I am
Pascal(1623-62): ‘men…as one man, always living and incessantly learning’ cited in THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20
doodle
High Windows
When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he's fucking her and she'sTaking pills or wearing a diaphragm,I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder ifAnyone looked at me, forty years back,And thought, That'll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hideWhat you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slideLike free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question… The question was, ‘What are angels?’
Postmodernism: identity
All that is solid will melt into airBerman cited in Hebdige, After the Masses, in New Times, Hall S and jacques (Eds),1989: p.76
We are swimming in a sea of signsJean Baudrillard
Postmodernism
Postmodern culture is a fragmented culture John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold p.56
Post-modernism
Lyotard - an incredulity towards metanarratives
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 1
Science By understanding the world we will control it
The universe was made by a Big Bang
People evolved from apes
People keep improving life
We exist to make the world better
(progress)
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 2
History Cavemen were wild
Civilisations like The Romans controlled them but were violent and dangerous
Kings established a secure civilised country
Democracy came and gave us power
We live to maintain this progress
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Metanarratives 3
Church God creates world
People go bad
Jesus dies to save people from Hell
Repent and go to HeavenLife is a trial
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 4
AuthoritySome people have special skills
These people should use them to serve society
We must respect those who serve for our good
Life is about knowing your place in society and serving where you can
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 5
State I am born an Englishman
I like roast beef, drink pints and show no emotion
These values I will fight for my children to have
I exist to maintain the natural way of life of my people
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 6
Marxism We are all born equal
We must take from those with more than they need and give it to those who need it
I exist to ensure that the world becomes fair
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Some have more than others, some starve
metanarratives 6
Feminism Women are oppressed by men
I exist to make the world fairer for women
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Women need to rise up and take an equal place
High Windows
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
A culture with
No progress
No common ideology
No common meaning
We are free.
We are lost.
The loss of metanarrativesPostmodernism 1: Metanarratives
The loss of meta-narratives
Dick Hebdige
3 Negations
Against totalisation
Against teleology – designed for result
Against utopia
As if (1950s) As if (2000s)
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
‘Consumers use these symbolic meanings to construct, maintain and express each of their multiple identities’
Elliot and Wattanasuwen 133
Postmodernism: identity
‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’
Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements
Adverts give products meaning for use in our social identity
Conspicuous consumption
Thorstein Veblen 1953
William H White The Organisation Man
inconspicuous consumption =
not consuming is an anti-social act
I consume therefore I amI consume therefore I am
‘The self is conceptualised in post-modernity not as a given product of a social system nor as a fixed entity which the individual can simply adopt, but as something the person actively creates, partially through consumption’
Elliotand Wattanasuwen p.132
Postmodernism identity
‘the individual endeavours to construct and maintain an identity that will remain stable through a rapidly changing environment’
Elliot and Wattanasuwen p.131
Postmodernism identity
Amir Khan
British - accent
Northern - down-to earth
Muslim - prays to Allah Pakistani - supports
them at cricket
Male - watches football
Teenager - wears a baseball cap
Sporty - Adidas
Postmodernism identity
Amir Khan
Who am I?
rural
green
rich
Who am I?
I am powerful
I am sporty/be the best
I am independent/art above science
Who am I?
Educated and liberal
Fashionable/active
Young and sociable
‘The individual is offered resources to achieve ‘an ego-ideal’ which commands the respect of others and inspires self-love’
Elliot and Wattanasuwen p.131
Who could you be?
Who could you be?
A pool of possible selves
‘Culture and commerce are now fully intertwined’
Davidson M, The Consumerist Manifesto, 1992, London: Routledge, p.191
‘The self is a symbolic project, which the individual must actively construct out of the available symbolic materials’
Elliot, and Wattanasuwen p.131
Advertising and the post-modern condition
Hyper-reality
Jean Baudrillard
‘Our society is image saturated…In one hour’s television viewing one of us is likely to experience more images than a member of a non-industrial society would in a lifetime…we live in a postmodern period when there is no difference between the image and other orders of experience’
John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.56
Postmodernism: hyper-reality
There is no authentic reality for us to experience
New York
Postmodernism: hyper-reality
image=reality; reality=image
Postmodernism: simulacrum
Images escape referentiality
a copy of a copy of a copy - no original
Simulacra = the image has no relation to any reality whatsoever
Today..
1. Theoretical Account
i Identity
Ii Metanarratives
Iii Simulacrum and hyper-reality
Iv Trust
2. Style:
i Refusal of meaning
ii irony
iii bricolage
iv pastiche
v intertextuality
Postmodernism is both an aesthetic style and a theoretical accountJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58
Postmodernism: refusal of meaning
2. New styles of advertising : Intertextuality
Think
‘Postmodern images…not only escape referentiality and ideology, also escape textual discipline exerted by organising concepts such as genre, medium or period. They can be and are culled from any genre, any medium, any period’ John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.57
2. New styles of advertising: bricolage
2. Postmodernism: pastiche
The shift is not one of significance but spectacleJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58
Next 30 minutes
Work on campaignCreate 10 minute video
New MediaNew Methods
Source: Ofcom 2005-10
5 years
1. The digital age
1981
=
1. The digital age
=0011001010
E.g. cd
=
1. The digital age
Optic-fibre cable
1. The digital age
4G
Advertising is dead….
Long live advertising
1. Go Global2. Focus on PR3. Go below the line4. Go online5. Direct marketing6. Sponsorship7. Buzz8. Viral9. Banned10.Don’t advertise11.Go guerilla
‘One sight, one sound, one sell’
Coca-colaization(Hannerz, 1992:p.217 cited in Howes D, Cross-Cultural Consumption,1996,London: Routledge, p.3)
1. Global branding
Global branding
GilletteGillette
Global branding
‘Differences between Brazilian and Arab sensibilities to scantily clad men and women playing on a beach require shooting different versions of the commercial so that each version will fit local cultural values’
O’Barr, 1994: p.200
..
Global branding
Now a brand manager has an entirely different responsibility. Their job now is to create and maintain a whole meaning system for people through which they get identity and understanding of the world. Their job now is to be a community leader
Douglas Atkin, The Persuaders, PBS
Helping people build a better world
WOMAC
Global branding
Corporate social responsibility - CSRhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/business/cif-green/2010/nov/09/niger-delta-shell-crisis
Corporate memory
Nike – ‘irreverance justified’
Global branding
And the conclusion was that people whether they are joining a cult or joining a brand do so for exactly the same reasons they need to belong they want to make meaning we need to figure out what the world is all about and we need the company of others.
Douglas Atkin, The Persuaders, PBS
Global advertising communities
Roland BarthesMythologies
When you listen to brand managers talk you can get quite carried away in this idea that they actually are fulfilling these needs we have for community and transcendence but in the end it is a laptop and a pair of running shoes and they might be great but they are not actually going to fulfil these needs
Naomi Klein, The Persuaders, PBS
Travelodge
Ann Summers
Above the line
Traditional mass media
Below the line
Leaflet folder brochure catalogue timetable postcard stationery diary pelmet dummy pack wire stand clock trade figure display stand crowner sticker sample coaster ashtray shelf edging sky writing sky banner airship projection calendar CD DVD carrier bag t-shirt sweatshirt cap pullover scarf umbrella tie jacket sash towel flag playing cards matchbooks paperclips badge sticker
3: Move Below the Line
4: Move online
http://www.emarketer.com/BrowseResearch.aspx
5: personalised adverts
Sponsored link
Rich media interactive billboards
Banner ad
Loyalty card
‘The time has long passed when buying and selling was an unmediated activity that took place in a market..we are now accustomed - and often jaundiced - to commercials … homogeneous messages may be on the wane. More narrowly focused messages that are better fitted to our consuming profiles are on the rise’
O Barr, 1994: p.200
TextTill receipt
ATM
Facebook/MySpace
Google stores all the information. Acxiom uses information
6: sponsorship
Buzz marketing
2-step flow
The Alpha Pup - P-O-X
7: Buzz advertising
8: Viral Marketing
9: Get banned
10: Don’t advertise
11: Go guerilla