Design Context: Level 5 Essay - How have large brands and corporations affected how we look at design in advertising?

How have large brands and corporations affected how we look at design in advertising?

In this day and age everything we do is driven by the idea of consuming to fulfil our needs. Over the past 100 years it has now got the point in society where we cannot go a day without being exposed to some form of advert or media which is trying to sell us something which is supposedly meant to better our lives through purchasing and consuming of that very item. With technology having rapidly evolved and changed the way we go about our daily lives we are exposed to adverts in a lot more ways than possible in the past especially in this time where the current generations are growing up in a world where large brands and corporations are coming up with increasingly lucrative ways of marketing and adverting their products. This essay will be looking into how the consumerist society has led people to think that it is at the designer’s fault and how the way that people look at graphic design has changed over the past decades.

In the 19^th century advertising and promotions of products did not need as much branding as is used now. This is mainly down to the fact that during that time the only things being advertised and promoted were new things which had been invented, one of many authors have commented on this, N Klein best explains this point, (2000)

‘The first mass-marketing campaigns, starting in the second half of the nineteenth, had more to do with advertising than with branding as we understand it today. Faced with a range of recently invented products – the radio, phonograph, car, light bulb and so on – advertisers had more pressing tasks than creating a brand identity for any given corporation; first they had to change the way people lived their lives. Ads had to inform consumers about the existence of some new invention, then convince them that their lives would be better if they used, for example, cars instead of wagons, telephones instead of mail and electric light instead of oil lamps. Many of these new products bore brand names – some of which are still around today – but these were almost incidental. These products were themselves news; that was almost advertisement enough.’

It was the products which in fact sold themselves and the newness of the idea which was what people were buying, mainly due to the fact that the products there were selling actually would have made your life easier not how now in the present time when it is in fact the brand which you are buying into. Klein has commented on this as well, (2000)

‘The search for the true meaning of brands – or the “brand essence” as it is often called – gradually took the agencies away from the individual products and their attributes and toward a psychological/anthropological examination of what brands mean to the culture and to the people’s lives. This was seen to be of crucial importance, since corporations may manufacture products, but what consumers buy are brands.’

One of the main reasons as to why now advertising and marketing is such a lucrative business and plays such a large portion of selling anything these days is because of this, and how in trying to brand your product is not only about the product but is more about what benefits you would get from buying into it. It was this crucial moment when companies and large brands had started to think about what Klein was describing as ‘brand essence’. Berger in Ways of Seeing supports this as he states that (1972)

‘It is important here not to confuse publicity with the pleasure or benefits to be enjoyed from the things it advertises.’

This is also further supported by Olins in On Brand as he states (2003)

‘Branding has moved so far beyond its commercial origins that its impact is virtually immeasurable in social and cultural terms. It has spread into education, sport, fashion, travel, art, theatre, literature, the region, the nation and virtually anywhere else you can think of.’

This turning point in how large brands and corporations started to market and advertise their products was the start of this idea of buying into the brand. The way in which brands were successful in this method was because they were tapping into human needs, emotions and instincts such as desire for sex, money, violence and power. It was a way anyone of the general public could feel like they were part of something better than their current lives. This is further supported by N Klein (2000)

‘Scott Bedbury, Starbucks’ Vice President of marketing, openly recognized that “consumers don’t truly believe there’s a huge difference between products”, which is why brands must “establish emotional ties” with their customers though “the Starbucks Experience”. The people who line up for Starbucks, writes CEO Howard Shultz, aren’t just there for the coffee. “It’s the romance of the coffee experience, the feeling of warmth and community people get in Starbucks Stores”’

Publicity images are always suggesting things in the future tense and how you could be like this person, or you could have a life like this. J Berger backs this up as he explains (1972)

‘The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life. Not with the way of life of society, but with his own within it. It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better. It offers him an improved alternative to what he is.’

Looking at how adverts have changed over time and the way that they market their products, not a lot has changed but they are constantly needing to come up with new ways to push the items out and get maximum exposure to the public. N Klein supports this theory

‘This pattern is a by-product of the firmly held belief that brands need continuous and constantly increasing advertising in order to stay in the same place. According to this law of diminishing returns, the more adverting there is out there (and there always is more, because of this law), the more aggressively brands must market to stand out. And of course, no one is more keenly aware of advertisings ubiquity than the advertisers themselves, who view commercial inundation as a clear and persuasive call for more – and more intrusive – advertising. With so much competition, the agencies argue, clients must spend more than ever to make sure their pitch screeches so loud it can be heard over all the others. David Lubars, a senior ad executive in the Omnicom group, explains the industry’s guiding principle with more candor than most. Consumers, he says “are like roaches – you spray them and spray them and they get immune after a while”’

The ways in which adverts are created or the methods used in adverts have to be constantly updated is what Klein is saying in the quote above as we as consumers become immune to certain types of imagery after a while, and it will not have the impact which it once did after this happens. It has got to the point in society where consumerism is part of the system which we in the western world live in, and some of the reasons why this is the situation have only in recent years been publicised. For example one of the biggest ways that companies and brands advertise their products apart from general adverts, TV adverts and posters and so on is through product placement. Product placement had been happening for years on TV and in movies but had only in 2011 were the public being told when shows and movies were to be featuring any of it. This was due to a change in the TV regulations by Ofcom. This way of subliminally advertising products is seen to be one of the most controversial as it is not as obvious as your everyday adverts which we see everywhere we go but is just as effective as and at times even more effective than traditional methods of publicity media. This is mainly due to what N Klein was stating above about how brands do not only want to sell their products but something which the consumers can directly relate to, an experience or taste of a certain lifestyle, and with product placement there is no easier way for the consumer to think of what sort of benefits they could reap from consuming that very product. For example, the placement of a bottle of expensive men’s aftershave in a scene where a man has woken up to a beautiful woman in bed in a city apartment in New York would suggest that by having that aftershave you will be deemed attractive to women and also suggests a notion of wealth and success because of the apartment. This is an example of how adverts are designed to tap into basic human instincts of sexual desire, power, and wealth and so on. With the product being in the place you would see it if you actually had it creates a stronger impact than it simply being advertised on a billboard as automatically the person can relate to that situation.

N Klein (2000)

‘Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour’

Looking further into the idea of how adverts are designed to tap into emotions of the consumers as a selling strategy, N Klein here is stating what happens when we are to look at an advert. This sort of method is more commonly seen in use by fashion brands such as Dior, Gucci, Louis Vutton and so on. Looking at figure 1, this is a typical structure and design of a fashion advert. The first thing which the consumer would be drawn to is the large brand logo, in this case it is a well-known expensive clothing label and then the posture of the woman in the photograph would suggest ideas of independence, success and the fact that she is a well known actress gives it that sense of glamour, which links into N Kleins point above about the idea of being envied. Then the photo is suggested to be set in Shanghai and the sky scrapers once again give across the idea of sophistication and also wealth. The way in which this advert is marketing false needs, of having expensive designer handbags and an unrealistic idea of beauty in order to be successful or independent is down to the way the advert has been designed, the art direction, photography, visual communicators and graphic designers have all played a part in creating this advert. Some would argue that it is at the designer’s fault that consumerism has affected and changed the way society is over the past 70 years. Many factors need to be considered which have contributed to this increase in the consumerist society and a number of authors have spoken on this topic. N Klein from No Logo (2000) comments on when photography had first started to be used in advertising and publicity images, and how it had played such a crucial point in advertising itself and the effect it had on the consumers.

‘Both media use similar, highly tactile means to play upon the spectator’s sense of acquiring the real thing which the image shows. In both cases his feelings that he can almost touch what is in the image reminds him how he might or does possess the real thing.’

The debate of designers wasting their time and skill on advertising has sparked interest in the past numerous times and many authors have spoken on the topic. One of the most crucial being K Garland, First things First Manifesto (1964)

'We think that there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on. There are signs or streets and buildings , books and periodicals , catalogues , instructional manuals , industrial photography, educational aids , films , television features, scientific and industrial publications and all the other media through which we promote our trade ,our education , our culture and our greater awareness of the world.'

This can be supported by comments made by R Poymer who states in First things First Manifesto revisited (2000)

‘It is no exaggeration to say that designers are engaged in nothing less than the manufacture of contemporary reality. Today, we live, breath design. Few of the experiences we value at home, at leisure, in the city or the mall are free of its alchemical touch.’

This is evident looking at figure 2, an advert for Global well being organisation GreenPeace. The advert is aimed at raising awareness of global warming, which would be considered by most, a valid reason to design for and is seen to be an ethical purpose. Ethical due to the reason that it is something which will affect the general public and the world we will be living in the future, in comparison to figure 3, promotional image for men’s cosmetics Brand Axe/Lynx. Which is support of what R Poymer is trying to say that designer’s skills should be better used elsewhere, like they have been in figure 2. The argument people have with adverts like figure 1 and 3 is that they are not benefiting anyone else apart from the company or brand who is selling the product. Looking at figure 3 in more detail, which is an advert for men’s shower gel. The playful use of words would suggest a provocative tone but the photographs which have been used of young male and female portraits who’s faces have been covered in mud or dirt would try and suggest the more literal meaning of ‘dirty’, when in fact it is the derogatory meaning which will have more of an impact, mainly due to the target audience of the product, which in this case would be males aged 16-25. This advert is technically only promoting the idea of sexual activity, and that it is what you will gain from using that very product, which further supports K Garlands comment above.

Designers only partake in creating and designing the brand. Whether a brand is successful or not, is to an extent dependant on its logo and aesthetics but at the end of the day a brand is only made successful by the people who buy into it, and even then not all brands are successful, this was another theory which W Olins commented on (2003)

‘All this means that the brand is not really controlled by marketing people, despite their huge budgets, their research programmes and their panoply of branding, advertising and event managing satraps. The brand is controlled by us – the customers. When a brand is really successful it can take off in ways and at a pace which bewilders those who purport to be in charge of it; and when a brand gets into trouble the opposite can happen.’

Designers do play a fairly crucial role in this consumerist society we live in and have contributed to why it is in the current state it is, but expanding on what W Olins had said the designers only do what is asked of them from the people high up in these big companies and brands. The design of a brand logo there to give it something to be distinguished by, but in this current society for some of the big brands it is more than just a logo or item of clothing, it is a statement of who you are or would like to be. This is mainly due to something called brand extension, which is when the brand will start to create products which are sometimes not related to what the brand was initially about, this can be supported by W Olins (2003)

‘Many great brands are like amoebae or plasticine. They can be shaped, twisted and turned into all sorts of ways yet still remain recognizable. That’s why so many brands can be divorced from the products/services with which they were originally associate. The rugged, outdoor, cigarette – puffing Marlboro man now appears on rugged, outdoor Marlboro clothing. The relationship between Michelin tyres, Michelin green travel guides and Michelin red hotel and restaurant guides had on the other hand a certain logic. It’s not that different from Porsche whose name, originally associated with high - performance sporting cars, is now stuck on to watches and a wide range of expensive sporting goods, all of which have a Porsche feel. This is called ‘brand extension’ by the marketing people who create and sustain brands. We take it entirely for granted, but logically it’s absurd. Why should a cigarette maker be able to make tough outdoor clothing? In reality brand extension is a remarkable development, because it implies that the brand has a life and personality of its own and that, if the emotions surrounding it are sufficiently powerful, we will unquestioningly accept its functional capabilities.’

Ultimately the way that people look at design in advertising and branding has changed over time, to an extent due to big brands and corporations, but largely because brands have also changed over time and have eventually ended up extended into lines of products that, the brand was not originally associated with. Many factors have contributed to why consumerism has become such vital part of today’s society, but the way in which people look at design has simply adapted with this change in society. Current exposure of publicity images has simply become so much of a regular occurrence that it has now become a style of design in its own, in addition to being somewhat part of a mechanism of how we as a society go about our everyday lives.

Klein, N (2010). No Logo. 10th ed. Great Britain: Flamingo. 5,7,20.

Berger, J (2008). Ways Of Seeing. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Penguin. 132,142.

Olins, W (2004). On Brand. 2nd ed. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. 14,16,18.

Garland, K et al (1964). The First Things First Manifesto

Poymer, R et al (2000). The First Things First Manifesto Revisted