It's been said in recent years that the field of marketing/advertising has become an art form. The way companies convince us to buy their products has transcended from merely providing product information, to creating a narrative that resonates with us in one form or another. They set the tone for us to write their products into our own life stories, so that inevitably their products become a part of us. Advertising, in it's archaic form, was blunt force to say the least. It was typically a juxtaposition of 'our product vs. their product,' citing various reasons why the former is the better purchase. Ultimately though, it never convinced people why they needed said product over all others, and whether conscious, or subconscious, it never made the pitch part of the customers lives. Today, marketers use seduction to sell their wares. They create their advertisements like a piece of art, making you love it without exactly knowing why. Everyday, in offices all over the world, millions of marketers are crafting advertising masterpieces. These masterpieces might not affect you immediately, but the positive feeling their advertising instills in you will remain with you until the day comes, with a credit card in hand, that you have to make a spending choice.
If can make the leap from simply being a functional tool to sell a product, to becoming art (and a part of our culture by that extension) then it needs to learn how to transcend time, and like art, become 'timeless.'
What was art 2000 years ago, can still be viewed as art today. Not only that, but art made today by the same methods (sculpture, painting, etc) as 2000 years ago, can still be appreciated, and can still resonate with the people. However, the advertising practices of 2 years ago, when used today, are trite and in some cases extremely counterproductive.
For example, advertising online has become an extremely useful tool for companies in the past few decades. Since the internet has now become an extension of the human consciousness, marketers have been attempting to penetrate that consciousness. They methods they use don't connect with customers in a positive manner though. How many people actually view a 'pop up' window as a positive experience? I would hazard a guess at not very many. It's an inconvenience, and I would bet that a potential consumer isn't going to resonate with a company that first introduces itself in an inconvenient manner. Similarly, online advertisers that use video ads with sound, or ads that expand when 'moused over' and cover almost the entire browser window, immediately make the consumer look for the 'X' to close it out or the mute button to shut it up. Again, this is a negative experience right from the start, which is not a good way to paint a picture of the product, and by extension the company, in an appealing manner...which is essentially the goal of every advertisement.Take a look at the advertising on this very page...does it speak out to you? Does it even give you the faintest interest in what it's trying to sell? Probably not. Online advertising isn't art, nor is it even functional anymore. Our awareness over what advertising is, has allowed us to tune it out. We, as people, don't want to simply be sold something, we want something to identify with us, something to not define us, but to help us define ourselves.
Television commercials, on the other hand, have been making a few more strides in the battle to make marketing more effective...more cunning. That is, of course, if marketers could get rid of the DVR plague that is ruining their highly prized commercial spots.
TV commercials as of late haven't been as blunt force as they used to be. Though there are still some bad ones out there, such as commercials that use a timer for you to call them (fake buying pressure,) ones that are so low budget that you question the companies integrity, and others that spout so much 'small print' in 8 seconds that know a fair deal isn't part of their repertoire. Oh...and the classic bad sales technique of employing TV pitchmen to yell at you. I'm talking to you Anthony Sullivan.
Some TV commercials today have become artistic in nature and have drifted more towards creating a positive feeling in the viewer than rather than bombarding them in a firestorm of 'ego-productal' (yes, I made that word up) rhetoric. And, in some cases, this is even at the expense of telling the viewer what the product their pitching actually is. It's become, like art, a game of the subliminary, many layers, many meanings. This idea of creating an ambiguous form of cinematic art to sell a product, isn't necessarily to sell that product tomorrow...it's to buy a customer for life. It's to create a bond with the customer, be it through humor, awe, or in some cases, shock. Think of how many commercials your remember? Of the top of your head, probably not that many through active thought. But I'm sure you've caught yourself quoting funny commercials to friends, or humming a jingle from one while taking out the garbage. Because like art, this new wave of advertising is with you forever...like art, it can passively become part of your life and part of your culture.
Below is one of my favorite funny commercials in recent times....satire is the way to my heart.
