Further ideas and development

Following on from the idea of 'Blank Advertising' that I had, I created some a rough basic layout for what I thought could be the start of my idea.

The idea is to isolate the product and for the ad to be free of any catchy slogans, celebrity endorsements etc. that might in someway influence the consumer to instead allow the product to speak for itself in a way.

Whilst developing this I thought of a way to potentially extend my idea, this would be to hopefully further reduce the influence of having just one particular brand per advertisement and instead to have multiple brands on one ad. The reason for this is that it gives the consumer more of a choice by showing them their available options as opposed to showing just one brand and their product which could still have an impact their decision.

After discussing with a couple of class mates, although on paper the idea makes sense there is still a problem with it; that being the fact that the brand itself will still in someway influence the consumer. The Golden Arches of McDonalds coupled with the signature red and yellow colour combination still plays a role in the decision the consumer will make in buying a product. This is because of the associations with certain brands (Chovanová, Korshunov, Babčanová, 2015) that are embedded within our knowledge, so there's no real avoiding brands having some form of influence on the consumer. Along with this seeing an advertisement, for example that might give the option for places to eat, e.g. Burger King, McDonalds, Subway etc. in the same style as the above ad, could create a need in the consumer for food that may not have been there before.

In the book Hidden Persuaders, Packard talks about how a group of ad men were asked "What difference really is there between brands of gasoline, tires, cigarette tobacco, orange juice, milk and what have you?... What is the advertising direction going to be when the differences become trivial or nonexistent?". He then points out that how can you make a logical sales talk to a prospect to persuade him to swear by your brand when in truth the brands are essentially alike in characteristics?

I think this is definitely a point to ponder and couldn't be more relevant to my project. Considering as well the book was published in the late 50's, both brands and advertising have come a long way since then, but there is still the underlying question of whether there is actually a difference in a lot of the brands that claim to be different/better than the competition.

Extract from Packard's Hidden Persuaders

The extract points out how in a study only a small percentage of smokers could identify the brand they are loyal to, the same applies for both beer and whiskey drinkers supporting my previous question of whether there actually is a lot of difference between the brand's products in most cases.

Maybe to question whether there is an absolute need for brands in the first place wouldn't be completely stupid. As previously mentioned, there's no avoiding brand influence, even when the advertisements for their products are stripped back, the brand itself and it's associations still shine through. To eliminate brands entirely would surely eliminate the influence that goes along with them, meaning that consuming would be not always done for the sake of it, but with purpose. This would maybe lead to consumers buying only what is needed, with no previous influence from advertising of particular brands and their products. My essay aims to prove that brands and advertisements promote a consuming way of life, buying products to fulfil in some cases false, often materialistic needs as we’re led to believe that buying this or that new product will make us happier (Abdallah, 2009). This in turn creates materialistic desires within the consumers and it's been proven that people who strongly value the pursuit of wealth and possessions report lower psychological well being than those who are less concerned with such aims. (Kasser 2002)

Sources:

Abdallah, S. et al (2009) ‘The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don’t have to cost the Earth’. London: nef (the new economics foundation). Available at: http://roar.uel.ac.uk/604/1/Abdallah%2C%20S%20et%20al%20%282009%29%20nef.pdf

Chovanová, Korshunov, Babčanová 2015. 'Impact of Brand on Consumer Behaviour'. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567115016767

Kasser, T. 2002. ‘The High Price of Materialism’. London: The MIT Press. 5-26.