Lauren Bennett: November 2010

Thursday, 25 November 2010

These are the top rated ads from each of the years on Campaign's website.

1983 advert for British Airways 'Manhattan' by Saatchi and Saatchi. Time: 1.31

1999 advert for Guinness 'Surfer' by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. Time: 1.01

2007 advert for Ministry of Transport Finland 'crash test dummies' by Publicis Finland. Time: 1.00

2008 ad Save the Children 'clever' by Wieden & Kennedy. Time: 0.31.

2009 ad for Hula Hoops 'A Hole World of their Own' by Publicis. Time 0.30.

2010 ad for Old Spice 'Questions' by Wieden & Kennedy. Time: 0.30.

It can be seen that the top rated ads do get shorter in length, however there are none up there that are less than 30 seconds long.

TV Commercials and Attention Span internet research

TV Commercials Adjust to a Shorter Attention Span

Ads longer than 30 seconds are intended to attract attention by giving more time to tell stories that would appeal to target audience.
Those shorter than 30 seconds are meant to have surprise value: they are usually over before ad-haters can skip past them.
The shorter ads cost less, advertisers can either save money or "increase the frequency of the spots with the same budget" that would have been spent on 30-second ads.
When television began as an advertising medium, the standard commercial length was 60 seconds.

Commercials Shrink to Fit Attention Span

With the invention of commercial-skipping digital video recorders (DVRs) and web enabled cell phones and laptops that instantly can stream live video, it's no surprise viewers have turned their attention away from traditional commercial advertising.
advertising budgets shrink and society's attention span becomes smaller.
15 second ad is more common today than a 30 or 60 second spot was a few decades ago.

The Gaze in advertising

This iPad advert uses some Suture (first person perspective) to enhance the experience of the product.

Calvin Klein. Uses intra-diagetic gaze. It also exhibits the power of the male gaze (the girl has her eyes closed), the audience does not obtain the power of the gaze, but recognises its power.

Advert for Lynx. Could be argued this is using Suture, as the call to action is written on her body, as if the viewer is able to reach out and touch her.

Dolce and Gabbana. Uses a contradiction of narcissistic identification and scopophilia.

Advert for Women's Aid against domestic abuse. Uses extra-diagetic gaze as if it asking us to help/act.

Advert for Victoria and David Beckham's perfume. Uses a combination of the extra-diagetic gaze, scopophilia and narcissistic identification.

Monday, 22 November 2010

This weekend I did 24 hours in Dublin. About 2 hours of this was at The Guinness Factory. They had an impressive collection of old Guinness advertising. I am pretty aware of the campaigns from the 2000s and 1990s, but it was the older stuff, since the start of their advertising until the 1980s, that caught my imagination.

The Guinness company was established in 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease on the factory.
In 65 years of advertising, Guinness has only been handled by 5 agencies- SH Benson, J Walter Thompson, Allen Brady & Marsh, Ogilvy & Mather and Abbott Mead Vickers.
The famous harp logo was adopted in 1862. It was adopted as the official trademark as it was once crafted as a rare Irish instrument and so became the official trademark for the Irish Republic, and so made sense for Guinness as well.
The first advert campaign for Guinness, in 1920s, from the first agency to handle the brand, SH Benson, had the proposition that Guinness is good for you. This was created through asking people in Dublin's pubs why they drank Guinness and they answered, "Because it's good for me". At this time, nursing mothers and recovering patients used to prescribed Guinness and it was also given to people who had just donated blood. Guinness was a popular alternative to a cup of tea. So this campaign worked well at that time.

Another signature style for Guinness' campaigns were the illustrations done by John Gilroy, which were first used in 1928. The posters designed by Gilroy really caught the imagination of their audience; he was so talented at bringing a character to life that he was contacted by Walt Disney who tried to get him to Hollywood to work in his animation cinema. Gilroy politely declined.
Gilroy's involvement with the Guinness campaigns coincided with the dawn of the TV ad.

John Gilroy's illustrations at the Guinness Factory.

Gilroy's advert, 'Guinness for Strength' was so popular that people started to ask for a 'Girder' instead of a Guinness when they ordered their drink.

The famous Guinness Toucan actually started out in 1935 as a Pelican; balancing 7 pints on his beak, the copy read,

"A wonderful bird is the pelican,

its bill can hold more than its belly can.

It can hold in its beak

Enough for a week;

I simply don't know how the hell he can."

Then, Dorothy L Sayers, a famous novelist at the time, was asked to write a new rhyme, in which she turned the pelican into a toucan. The copy read,

"If he can say as you can,

Guinness is good for you,

how grand to be a Toucan,

Just think what Toucan do."

'Tookie' as he was named then became the advert for over 40 years in TV, press and promotional material. He last appeared in 1982.

The 1980s saw Guinness take on a new campaign; Pure Genius.

Rumour has it that this advert campaign came around after 2 creatives from Ogilvy and Mather were locked in a hotel room and told not to come out until they had a winning campaign. After 3 days, they had nothing. On the third day, one of them wrote down on a piece of paper 'Genius'. This lead to Pure Genius. Showing that like Guinness, good things come to those who wait.

The 'Pure Genius' campaign then took on famous actor Rutger Hauer in 1987 to represent the brand. He looked just like the pint itself; blonde hair and black clothes. These adverts appeared on British screens for 8 years. It is said to have ended because Rutger Hauer started to embody the brand a bit too much. However, I couldn't find anything online to support that rumour.

PR News Wire (2010) Guinness Comes To Those Who've Waited [Online] Available from: http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=21223 [Accessed: 22nd November 2010]

The Independent (2005) Head of the Class: The Best of Guinness [Online] Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/head-of-the-class-the-best-of-guinness-745985.html [Accessed: 22nd November 2010]

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

Critical Positions on the Media

Semiology and Williamson

Semiology confronts the question of how images make meanings, and what they mean to a particular person or group of people. Semiology works by taking apart an image and, 'tracing how it works in relation to broader systems of meaning' (Rose, pg 74). Semiologists depend on a definition of science that contrasts scientific knowledge with ideology, this distinction is usually elaborated with reference to the Marxist theorist Louis Althusser. Williamson (1978) argues that advertising is one of the most influential ideological forms in contemporary capitalist society.

Marxism and Althusser

Marxism can be described as the 'economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' (All About Philosophy, 2002). Marx wrote in this book 'Contribution to the critique of Political Economy' (1857) that 'It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary it is their social being that determines their consciousness'. This quote is relevant to advertising, as through advertising a connection between the consumer and the product is created. Through this connection the consumer can identify with the product, and see how the product can affect their lives, and ultimately allow them to move up through the social class.
Althusser was a Marxist philosopher. He identified the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) as a method by which organisations propagate ideology, thereby producing willing compliance. In this way it is similar to the idea of the Panopticon, creating learned behaviour, compliance, that becomes natural without having to be forced, enforcing power. The flipside of the ISA is RSA, Repressive State Apparatus, where compliance is forced through institutions such as the police and the army.

The Press (News Corp) and Advertising

Popular media is deeply political, and those who engage with it need to be aware of this. In the case of newspapers, a strong voice can be created and used to communicate certain opinions and versions of the truth, taking advantage of the power of persuasion.
Rupert Murdoch's The News Corporation owns a huge amount of the worlds newspapers, television channels and other information services. In the UK alone he owns 'The Sun', 'The News of the World', 'The Times' and 'The Sunday Times'. With holding so much power over the 'voice' read by so many people across the world, the audience can be manipulated into complying with the belief systems of that 'voice', ultimately the owner of the newspaper. In this way it relates with the ISA, by propagating ideology and producing willing compliance, without the audience realising.
This was evident in the 2010 General Elections in the UK. Rupert Murdoch decided that all his newspapers would back a certain Political Party a few days before the election, by condemning the other parties and supporting only their chosen party. This had such an effect on the readers of the newspapers, that a few days later that chosen party won the election.
Many argue that advertising works in a similar way, but manipulating its audience and producing willing compliance; that is the difference between advertising and propaganda. Propaganda propagates opinions and belief systems with means of control, whereas advertising is about highlighting a choice.

Rose, 'Visual Methodologies', London, Sage Publications 2007

Williamson, 'Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising', London, Marion Boyars Publishers Inc 1978

Changing Minds, Ideological State Apparatus [Online] Available from:
http://changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/isa.htm Accessed: 17 November 2010

All About Philosophy (2002) What is Marxism? [Online] Available from: http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/what-is-marxism-faq-htm. Accessed: 23 November 2010.

Saturday, 13 November 2010

The Panopticon: Power and Advertising

Panopticism is a theory about institutional power.
The major effect of The Panopticon is the automatic functioning of power, through inducing a state of conscious and permanent visibility. The architecture of an institution, such as a prison, creates and sustains a power over the prisoner because the prisoner knows they can be observed at all times, without ever actually seeing, however they can never tell whether they are being observed at that moment. By using blacked out windows in the towers, the idea of observation is used without proving to the prisoner that anyone is in the tower. This would lead to feelings of paranoia.
The Panopticon is efficient as, "He who is subjected to a field of visibility... assumes responsibility for the constraints of power... he becomes the principle of his own subjection (Foucault, 1999, pg 66). So it becomes a learned behaviour which they don't have to force; they will be on good behaviour all the time, as they constantly feel they are being watched.
In places such as offices, schools, shopping centres etc the Panopticon can 'observe performances... to map aptitudes, to assess characters, to draw up rigorous classifications' (Foucault, 1999, pg 66) and so can do the work of a naturalist scientist, drawing conclusions on people's characters through observing them in their 'natural environment', living their every day lives. In this way, the Panopticon can make many places into a laboratory, so it can be used to carry out experiments, and through observation and character assessment, train or correct individuals behaviour.
In each of its applications, Panopticism can strengthen power because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, whilst at the same time increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised. It also makes it possible to intervene at any time, but the real power is that is never intervenes; that in fact is it exercised without making a big deal of it. It controls the masses with subtlety, in our every day existance, in the very foundations of society. Through only architecture and geometry, it acts directly on the individual and gives 'power of mind over mind' (Foucault, 1999, pg 68).
In a society made up on private individuals and The State, the Panoptic principle is particularly useful as it is the 'one thing' (The State) watching the 'masses' (the Individual). However, the effect of the Panoptic principle would be that the individual would be carefully fabricated, rather than suppressed. This means that instead of taking away their freedom, or identity as an individual, it becomes manufactured, and they do it on their own, as a learned behaviour.

Foucault, M 1999, 'Panopticism', in Evans & Hall, Visual Culture, The Open University, pg. 65-70.

Within advertising, it can be argued that the IPA (Institute of Practitioners of Advertising) has some panoptic traits. For instance, to utilize the full site, you must create a username and password, so that you are identified within the site. This also means that your movements can be followed. There is also the opportunity to speak in forums and join groups, so that your opinions and interests can be monitored. On the IPA website, you can view peoples work for competitions, as well as enter them yourself. This shows performance, from which you can assess aptitudes. The IPA has a department named IPA Professional Development Department, to whom you can contact for advice on professional growth and developing professional skills. It is evident from the IPA website, that they support the government, with an article titled 'IPA Welcomes new Coalition Goverment' 13/05/2010 and also has relations with them 'IPA welcomes launch of Government's strategy document for the creative industries' 22/02/2008.

What we can learn from The Panopticon is that power is not a thing. It is a relation between different individuals and groups that only exists when it is being exercised. Advertising is often considered to be a 'power' that is abused by the people in charge of it, ie us- the advertisers. This could link to my area of research as it is about the link between advertising and society. I think that it is hard to deny that the IPA has some traits of Panopticism, but no more than other social networking does, something that people use everyday without worrying about the observation. Because of this, I don't think that Foucault's theory of Panopticism is useful in particular for analysis of the IPA anymore than it is other social networking sites. However, it does have some merit in critically analysing professional institutions within advertising. The Giant Hydra idea does seem beneficial in Advertising, and working collaboratively as a group of creatives. It could be said that it would have panoptic traits as the naturalistic observation of how a group of people behave with each other. Personally, I don't think that in such a thing as Advertising design too much privacy and independence can be taken away through things such as the IPA and Giant Hydra. In this field of work, the adverts you create are intended to view by millions, so there is no real privacy to the work you are creating.

'Crash' West Yorkshire Playhouse 11/11/10.

Reading 'Creative Leaps' Michael Newman

"We have arrived, fellow communicators, at the over-information age. We are living inside an explosion. I have read estimates that a single edition of the New York times contains more information than a peasant in 17th Century England would have had available to him in a lifetime" (Newman, 2003, pg 27)

"If your brand doesn't make people feel better about their lives, their relationships, or their dreams, it doesn't matter what else you've got in your special ingredients. The medium isn't the message, the message isn't the message, the meaning isn't the message- the feeling is the message" (Newman, 2003, pg 19)

"Even if your finished TV commercial production is a fast-paced, visually rich, blockbusting extravaganza, the core thought behind it should really be reducible to an utterly simple, poster-like thought... Make it a habit to ask yourself, 'What is the poster for this idea?'...One visual should be enough to illustrate the idea...And a one-line headline should be enough to say it all' (Newman, 2003, pg 47)

"The over stimulation of the modern brain means that people have shortended attention spans. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa apparently took Japanese viewers in 1974 an average of only 10 seconds to take in before the queue moved on; Americans in 1964 took an average of 30 seconds to consume the work" (Newman, 2003, pg 49)

Newman, 'Creative Leaps', John Wiley & Sons Pte Ltd, 2003.