Thoughts on my new idea

From the feedback session I got the suggestion to revert back to one of my older ideas of 'Blank Advertising' but with some changes, that being the fact that I would create a new brand to advertise for that would have no previous associations with it. All of this would be done to take away the influence both the brands themselves and their advertisements have on us as the consumer.



As examined within my essay, the Coke advertisement 'open a Coke, open happiness' is an example of an advertisement that uses clever catchy slogans that promote the idea that this product could improve your life in some way (Leonard 2010). I've noticed that there is a reoccurring theme throughout the fizzy drink advertisements, which is that they all suggest ideas of improving your life in some way or another. As the Pepsi ad below directly says 'Refresh your world', suggesting that the Pepsi drink could do exactly that. It's for this reason that I think producing a new brand of drink(s) but using this style of 'Blank Advertising' could be a good way to set an example, not just to other drink brands but also to other product brands.

The Coke ad below also plays on our needs of companionship by suggesting to share the drink with friends and family, creating an association of lovingness that would normally shared amongst family and friends now associated with Coke.

My aim is to create a no frills brand that promotes what the product is and nothing more, promoting it based upon what the drink is. The advertising to go with it will be blank, only showing the product as opposed to using slogans, endorsements etc. to sell it to consumers. Almost like in a way turning a new leaf in the world of advertising, a fresh start.

Sources:

Leonard, A. 2012. ‘The Story of Stuff. New York: Free Press. 149.

Feedback

I presented my current ideas to a crit group to get outside opinions and views on how plausible and logical my ideas are at this moment. Although there was no huge criticism to my current idea of having one consistent clothing line, there was a couple of suggestions for potentially expanding some of my other ideas.

One idea was to potentially sell products by their purpose as opposed to by their brand. So for example running shoes rather than having the Nike swoosh would just be branded as running shoes as their most basic form.

Another idea and one that I think will work to emphasise my point the best is to take my idea of 'blank advertising' and to start completely fresh. The issue I originally had with my ideas was that although there was no background noise that would influence the consumer in some way e.g. celebrity endorsements, the brand itself still has associations with it that would influence the customer in some way. So the idea instead is to create a brand from scratch that would set an example for how advertising could potentially be more ethical by displaying the products as opposed to selling them. Creating a brand from fresh would mean that there would be no previous associations to the new advertisements like McDonalds would have already for example. Instead it would be a clean slate to make an example to the advertising world of how it could be done in a much more ethical way, a way that doesn't glorify consumption.

One consistent brand & results from questionnaire

To try and understand more about my audience and their thoughts on branding the influence it has on us, I sent out a short questionnaire asking for people's opinions.

A lot of the responses suggested that brands are a key factor in deciding what product to buy for people. Considering as well the majority (83%) of the people answering were young (between the ages of 18 and 29) it's safe to assume that a lot of people are bothered about what brands they were and how these represent themselves. More specifically clothing, after asking a couple classmates what products in particular they bother with the brands about it was what they wear. This is something I think is prevalent today especially within younger people, the brands of their clothes are most important. I think this is what I could focus my attention on as I feel it's a much bigger issue as it's linked to people's own personal identity and how they look.

The main reason for their choice of considering brands when they shop is down to the quality that is associated with that brand that they've experienced from past times of shopping with that one brand.

The issue I have at this point with my idea is that the brand itself still in some way influences the consumer, even when the advertisements are stripped back to it's bare essentials, the product and brand name. But from the results of the questionnaire, a big reason why the brands are chosen over others is because of the associations with them, a big one of those being the quality of the brand.

From this an idea stemmed, if I was to hypothetically eliminate clothing brands and instead create a system in its place based around the quality of the clothes. In the same way that if you wanted a pair of jeans that don't cost the earth knowing they would be lower quality, you would maybe go to Primark or H&M but if you wanted a nicer, higher quality pair you'd maybe go to Levi's or All Saints. I think instead possibly having a number system 1-3 of the quality level this would eliminate the brand influence it has on people. Instead they would be purchasing clothing for a reason, not for the brand; either the cost that they can afford or the quality that they desire.

For Example:

1: Best Quality - Expensive
2: Good Quality - Mid range price
3: Average quality - Cheap

A problem with this that was pointed out was that there would still be the level of judgement between peers that there is currently with people aspiring to wear the better, more expensive brands that their friends might have and vice versa, those people looking down on others for wearing cheaper brands.

Instead an idea that was put forward to solve this was one clothing line for all, all consistent pricing and with that consistent quality that people would normally buy particular brands for. The styles of clothing wouldn't be any different to how it is now, the difference would be is that there wouldn't 5/6 different brands of the similar style jeans, instead it would be one non-branded pair of jeans just in different styles and colours e.g. black, blue, grey. Ripped, skinny, slim, boot cut etc. This eliminates the need for brands whilst still providing the quality that people want from their favourite brands. It would also hopefully reduce the judgements that people impose on other people for the cheap brands, low quality clothing which is seen as less desirable to most.

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.

No-Noise @ Selfridges 2013

A couple of years ago Selfridges did something different and new by creating The Quiet Shop, a small shop within their big chain stores in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The aim of this store was to bring peace and quiet to people's everyday life, which is typically clustered with visual and audible noise.

Considering that everyday we're exposed to a lot of brands, Selfridges wanted to create something which reduced the noise of everyday life. Famous brands such as Heinz, Levi's and Marmite recreated their most famous products, minus the usual branding as a way of reducing this noise.

This sparked my interest as it's in a way similar to what I aim to do with my practical piece, reducing the visual noise whilst also having an underlying reason for doing so. Although this was more to make a point of how we're overwhelmed everyday with noise such as brands, my idea is to reduce the influence brands and their ads have on us as consumers. Applying this technique could be a way in which to emphasise the point of my essay and practical piece.