Advertising and popular culture

In addition to the drawings and other images produced directly for commercial use, a second relation of advertising to art was the appropriation of high art for use in advertisements. For example, John Everett Millais's sentimental painting Bubbles (1886) became a poster for Pears soap, but not without considerable critical uproar from those who wanted to keep "art" on a high pedestal above the crassness of everyday commercial appeals.

Even more significant, however, was the close connection between advertising and modern art that developed in the later years of the 19th century. Both advertising and the artistic movement known as modernism emerged about the same time--around 1860 to 1870. The stage for their collaboration was set by at least two factors: the development of techniques supporting the mass production of images, and an abundance of consumer goods hitherto unknown. Modernism dismissed literal representations in favor of freer modes intended to evoke the sorts of fantasies and emotions that marketers were coming to realize would help move products. By the final years of the 19th century, modern art and modern advertising were freely borrowing from and influencing one another.

The French advertising poster of the late 1800s marks the beginning of this crossover between advertising and art. For example, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced advertising posters, as did many other artists who are usually thought of as belonging to the "high art" tradition. It was Jules Cheret, however, who invented and perfected the advertising poster as a new genre that had no real precedent in earlier artistic traditions. His poster for the Folies-Bergere in Paris privileges movement over literal representation. Its bright colors also depart from literalism to convey the excitement of the spectacle of the Folies-Bergere.

Despite widespread use, the advertising poster did not always meet with universal acclaim. There were those who felt that filling the streets of Paris with advertising was a sure sign of cultural decay rather than progress. A conservative writer, Maurice Talmeyr, published an article entitled "The Age of the Poster" in which he assessed its impact on society.

[The poster] does not say to us: "Pray, obey, sacrifice yourself, adore God, fear the master, respect the king..." It whispers to us: "Amuse yourself, preen yourself, feed yourself, go to the theater, to the ball, to the concert, read novels, drink good beer, buy good bouillon, smoke good cigars, eat good chocolate, go to your carnival, keep yourself fresh, handsome, strong, cheerful, please women, take care of yourself, comb yourself, purge yourself, look after your underwear, your clothes, your teeth, your hands, and take lozenges if you catch cold!" Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik, High & Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture (New York: Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1990), 236.

The artist Georges Seurat became a great fan of Cheret and the style of his posters. He drew inspiration for some of his later work from them. Cheret's high-stepping dancers in Les Girard: Folies-Bergere, a lithograph from 1879, reappear a decade later in Seurat's Le Chahut (1889-90). Many similar links between "high" artists and the popular cultural artists producing advertising are recognized by historians of art.

In 1990, the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted an exhibition entitled High and Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture that explored the relation in such areas as words, graffiti, caricature, comics, and advertising. The exhibition catalogue noted: "[T]he story of modern artists' responses to advertising, and vice versa, is the most complex and tendentious of the various histories [the exhibition] addresses." The exhibition traced the link between art and advertising from the French advertising poster to the present.

An artistic movement based around "found objects" spilled over into advertising itself. The now familiar Michelin Man (1898) emerged from Edouard Michelin's observation that a stack of tires might resemble a man with the simple addition of arms. It was in such moments, where art and life come together, that many great advertising ideas of the 20th century were born. Another example is the RCA dog inspired by a real pet and an actual incident.

The influence between advertising and art moved the other way as well. Picasso, in his Landscape with Posters (1912) and Au Bon Marche (1913), and many Dada avant-garde artists incorporated images of ads or actual parts of advertisements into their productions. In the 1920s, Fernand Leger modeled his painting The Siphon (1924) on an ad that appeared in the French newspaper Le Matin. Examples such as these abound in 20th-century art.

The social theorist Michael Schudson has termed American advertising "capitalist realism" in order to indicate the similarity of advertising art in the 1930s to the propagandistic art forms that grew up in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at that same time. According to Schudson, each of these states celebrated the different local ideas of heroism (communist, national socialist, or capitalist) in styles that were "reassuringly legible and impervious to ambiguity."

After World War II, artists like Andy Warhol commented on modern life through references to advertisements. Warhol painted cans of Campbell's soup repetitively to comment on modern life--a world in which endless copies of mechanically produced products are available and serve to homogenize experience. (Ironically, Andy Warhol was later commissioned by Absolut Vodka to produce an image of its famous bottle in the Warhol style as an actual advertisement.) Artistic commentaries on the nature of capitalism, consumption, and a world populated with advertising imagery are mainstays in contemporary art.

The omnipresence of advertising imagery in contemporary society is surely one of the hallmarks of this period in history. When future generations look back on 20th- and 21st-century life, they will surely marvel at how little care we took to preserve the popular art of advertising--most of which disappears quickly. TV commercials are intended to evaporate, billboards to come down, and magazines and newspapers to be recycled. Yet, the mutual influence of high art and popular culture is one of the most salient characteristics of contemporary expressive culture.

Advertising and Film

Since the end of World War II, first Hollywood films and later TV scripts have frequently included advertising as one of their themes. The Hucksters (1947) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) tell stories about the lives of men who work in advertising, but the stories they tell are not flattering. In fact, they constitute the beginning of a long tradition in Hollywood to use advertising (often as a backdrop to a story rather than its central focus) in a highly stereotyped manner. The establishment of this screen version of advertising and its perpetuation even into the present has provided for members of the public--most of whom have never been inside an advertising agency and do not know anyone who works in one--their primary source of information about the inner workings of advertising. It is no different really from how the mass media has constructed images of lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, airline pilots, movie stars, and a host of other professions. Although these representations develop mythologies through repetition and are usually secondary to the main themes of stories, they nonetheless leave after-images that linger in our minds about what we have seen.

How does Hollywood represent advertising? For the purposes of this unit, a list of several films that deal with advertising in some way was developed. Then about half of these films were studied in detail for how they represent advertising. On the basis of this analysis, recurrent themes about advertising in the films were identified.

The themes that will be discussed in detail are the Hollywood representation of: (1) advertising as a profession, (2) the impact of advertising on society, and (3) the characteristics of people who work in advertising.

By setting a film in an advertising agency and/or featuring people who work in advertising, the film describes (albeit inadvertently) the profession of advertising. Films typically make advertising appear to be easy work. Creative ideas are not depicted in relation to strategy and research, but rather ideas seem to emerge while throwing pencils like darts at the ceiling or in a moment of serendipity. For example, a creative team in Nothing in Common (1986) invents skits and songs by acting out an idea for a commercial. The scene conveys a convivial, friendly, and fun atmosphere at work. Ray Liotta's character comes up with the perfect jingle in Corrina, Corrina (1994) while banging out notes in a piano duo with his housekeeper, played by Whoopi Goldberg. Many scenes show the fun aspects of his job as a writer for commercials for Jell-O and Mr. Potato Head. In the clip, the creative solution "just happens." In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Matthew McConaughey's character is engaged in a conversation with Kate Hudson's, who uses the word "frosting" to describe diamonds. He recognizes the originality and power of the description and develops the tag line, "Frost yourself," for a diamond company.

None of these representations portray the lengthy process that goes into making an advertisement nor the strategy that lies behind it. Rather, the most photogenic aspects of the creative process are selected and edited into the story about advertising that gets told through movies.

Another aspect of advertising's appearance in film is the glamorous lifestyle that surrounds the field. The collage of images in Figures 31-34 below shows advertising professionals dressing stylishly, working in beautiful offices, attending elegant parties, and living in extraordinary apartments and houses. For example, Ben Affleck in Bounce (2000) has a home whose large glass windows give a spectacular view of Venice Beach and the waves of the Pacific beyond it. Keanu Reeves in Sweet November (2001) lives in a high-ceiling refurbished loft in San Francisco. This early morning scene shows the elegant furnishings that include 12 flat-screen TVs. Mel Gibson in What Women Want (2000) lives in a Chicago high-rise apartment with a large balcony, elegant furnishings, and a killer view of the cityscape.

Offices are at least as impressive as homes in Hollywood's version of the lifestyles of advertising professionals. Offices are lively, colorful, interesting places to work. For example, Mel Gibson's office in What Women Want is filled with award trophies, leather chairs, and advertisements. Its dark woods and colors signify masculinity. By contrast, Helen Hunt's office in the same film is brighter and has lots of flowers and a more feminine feel. Her large office has not only a very big desk but plenty of other furniture and memorabilia of her career. The interior shots of the agency in the film show a large open space with many workstations where mid-level employees work. The architecture of the old building, complete with mezzanine and old ironwork, exudes style and good taste.

Advertising people attend lots of parties in the movies. Meg Ryan is shown below in a still from Kate & Leopold (2001). The setting is a business dinner where everyone is well dressed, all the tables have beautiful flowers, and the room itself is lovely. In a second clip from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the party is a gala evening black-tie affair; the occasion is the celebration of an ad campaign for diamonds, plenty of which sparkle in the room. In Picture Perfect (1997), guests attend a lavish dinner where canapes pass on trays and two models dressed as the product celebrate Gulden's Mustard.

Not to be outdone by their surroundings, advertising people dress exceedingly well in the movies. Doris Day's character in Lover Come Back (1961) steps out of a convertible only to be covered by a canopy leading to the door of a fashionable New York building. She wears a matching dress and jacket outfit that is complete with a fur collar. Cuba Gooding, Jr., in The Fighting Temptations (2003) is smartly dressed in a well-tailored, fashionable suit as he addresses attendees at a board meeting. Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold wears an expensive crushed velvet riding jacket to a business lunch in an uptown restaurant.

On top of the glitz and glamour that is advertising in film is a darker image that is repeated again and again. This is the notion that advertising is filled with lies and manipulation. The following clips from films are typical. Each of them conveys this idea rather directly. In The Fighting Temptations, Cuba Gooding, Jr., says in a conversation with his boss that deception is company policy in advertising. In Picture Perfect, Illeana Douglas's character, speaking with Jennifer Aniston's, remarks, "I didn't lie, I sold." Even more pointedly in Crazy People (1990), Dudley Moore describes advertising work by saying, "We lie for a living."

This notion dates back at least to the age of P.T. Barnum, whose exaggerated and frequently false claims, as mentioned earlier, gave the public a bad taste for advertising. It was not helped by traveling salesmen who drifted in and out of town in 19th-century America nor by the unrestricted claims about the benefits of patent medicines that were common well into the 20th century. When Hollywood began to depict advertising, all this plus Vance Packard's expose about motivational research had alerted the public to the idea of deceit in advertising. This is the image of advertisers that was laid down on film, and these stereotypes have remained largely unchanged though there has been little if any effort to offer evidence for them.

A second theme about advertising in films concerns its impact on society. The idea is that advertising generally causes people to buy things they do not need. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House features Cary Grant as an advertising executive who wants to move from New York City to the country. It is his success in advertising that provides the means to make this decision, but the work Mr. Blandings does is not respected by his children. In a particularly pointed statement, one of his daughters speaks of the social evils associated with advertising. In The Fighting Temptations, another indictment of advertising's social policy in the willingness of Cuba Gooding's character to exploit the public for gain and his condescending attitude toward them.

A third idea in the Hollywood depiction of advertising is that there is a certain kind of person who does well in advertising. This is someone who is willing to do almost anything asked of him or her, to put job before family and personal life, and to sell things that they might not believe in themselves.

An additional theme in some of the films is discrepancy between men's and women's jobs in advertising. For example, in Lover Come Back, Doris Day and Rock Hudson both work in advertising. However, she works while he plays. In What Women Want, Mel Gibson gets all the credit for Helen Hunt's ideas.

Advertising and Popular Culture: The Super Bowl

Each January advertising moves onto center stage in American popular culture. The occasion is the Super Bowl--itself one of the country's most watched TV programs. In the weeks and days leading up to the actual event, media hype about the game and the commercials predicts game outcome, celebrates fans, and promises ever more spectacular ads.

In 2006, viewers in more than 45 million homes tuned in to the Super Bowl, making it the second-most viewed program in the history of American television. More than 15 percent of these viewers claimed to be watching primarily for the commercials. National Retail Federation, "Fewer Young Adults Watching Super Bowl for Commercials, According to RAMA," news release, January 26, 2006, from http://www.bigresearch.com/news/bignrf012606.htm on April 8, 2006. As for the commercials themselves, they are among the most expensive to produce and air. It was reported that airing a 30-second spot could cost as much as $2.5 million in 2006. Having come to appreciate the appeal of Super Bowl commercials, advertisers are making their Super Bowl offerings available for video streaming online--for watching again, forwarding to friends, adding to personal web pages, and even downloading to video iPods.

In return for their investment, advertisers hope that viewers will remember their commercials and associate them with their brands. Nothing is more distressing than a viewer who says, "That was a very funny ad for light beer, but I couldn't tell you if it was for Miller or Bud." Despite the entertainment value of Super Bowl commercials (including the picking of winners and losers), these ads must still do their work of reinforcing brand loyalty, encouraging selection of their brands over the competition, or, more rarely, introducing new products or services.

The cost of airing commercials has risen from $42,000 during the first year to $2.4 million in 2006. The reach to homes and viewers has steadily increased during this period, making it a highly ranked and prestigious venue for showcasing ads.

A few spots from previous Super Bowls have achieved something of a cult status as best-liked ads. According to a poll conducted by America Online, the three best Super Bowl commercials ever were Coca-Cola's Mean Joe Greene (1980), Apple Computer's 1984 (1984), and Reebok's Terry Tate (2004). Each of these commercials struck responsive chords with audiences by focusing on themes like sports heroes, distrust of corporate giants, and work environments.

Newspapers, magazines, and above all the Internet reviews the ads after they appear on the Super Bowl. This publicity, if it is positive, is of incalculable value to the sponsors, but not all of it is positive. For example, the 2006 post-Super Bowl assessments included the following:

Let's start with the lowest of the low: GoDaddy.com. Talk about a $5 million vanity project (so bad they had to run it twice). This complete mess was what it took Bob Parsons 14 tries with ABC to get through.

-- Barbara Lippert, Adweek

A prehistoric air express delivery--of a stick, via pterodactyl--is stymied by a hungry tyrannosaurus, leading to the first-ever mailroom firing. Adorable and funny. Also, how can you fault a strategy (nobody ever lost his job for choosing FedEx) that's 40 million years old?

-- Bob Garfield, Advertising Age

Ah, now here's a show stopper that should have been our lead-in: Burger King puts on a Busby Berkeley musical number. Singing and dancing "Whopperettes" dress as various burger components (my favorite is the mayonnaise dress, followed by the beef-patty tutu). This was the only ad all night that was outsized and garish enough to be Super Bowl-worthy.

-- Seth Stevenson, Slate

Atmosphere BBDO developed an extension of Pizza Hut's Super Bowl promotion with Jessica Simpson creating a site that allows consumers to literally play with their food. The Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites site allows visitors to remix their own version of the Jessica Simpson Pizza Hut song, "These Bites Are Made for Poppin.'" With 28 musical tracks and 40 sound effects to choose from, people can watch and share their version of the song played along with the television commercial and see Jessica singing along to their creation.

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