Great Garbo Image Elements

Name
Keller gives naming guidelines (p 147) that include being easy to spell and pronounce, being familiar, different and distinctive. Greta Garbo as a name is all of these as well as an alliteration, has consonance, is a slant rhyme and is composed of the plosives b,g,t, which according to Keller (p 152) makes names more easily recognized. Finally, I contend that her name taps into “existing knowledge systems.” Keller believes (p 149) this makes them easier to recognize and remember.The word Garbo is what I call a compositional homonym. Greta Gustafson (her birth name) and Mimi Pollak (her college friend) derived the name Garbo based on first and last name elements they researched. I have no reference that they intentionally based it on Clara Bow, but the word Garbo would tap into knowledge already existing for Clara Bow. In Sweden, Clara would be pronounced KLAR-a. Garbo would be distinct from Clara Bow but is close enough phonetically to have a familiar ring to a world that already knew Clara Bow. Clara Bow was a talented and rising star in the film world in the early to mid-20s.

Style
Keller (p 143) lists four aspects of style. For Garbo, the complexity aspect of her style is minimal rather than ornamental. Her representation is realistic not abstract. Her acting is subtle, and understated when everyone else of that era used exaggeration in movement and gesture. She acted from inside out (see Paris, 1994, p 33), realistic but not the stark social realism that is as equally contrived as the vaudeville drama of the American studios and more pretentious. Her perceived movement was still, while her potency, to juxtapose Keller, was soft and strong.

Theme
Her theme was an application of her style to a formula and look. Her formula was the new woman in an love triangle. This woman was ahead of the other two in the triangle and ultimately drove its resolution. Greta Garbo refused helpless or dizzy female roles. Anymore, the interest in her today is the independence and acumen of her female characters. The theme has proved adaptable over time.

An additional thematic element is her look: languorous eyes, outdoorsy physique, graceful and athletic movement, and the Rembrandt lighting. Her wardrobe on set was done by top designers of her choice and created expressly for the film and the times, elegant in the 20s and plainer in the depression of the 30s. The Rembrandt lighting technique (see Guardian) was distinctive from the North-Lite approach used for her competition (see Cinematographers )

Slogans
A set of slogans, such as The Swedish Sphinx underscored her need for privacy, her avoidance of Hollywood parties, premiers and other events, and her mysterious power of attraction. According to Keller (pp 159-60), slogans reinforce brand positioning through descriptive or persuasive information about the star, and the desired points of difference. Unlike most of Hollywood, she was not a party animal who burned brightly then burned out.

References
Keller, K (2008). Strategic Brand Management. Pearson/Prentice-Hall.

Paris, Barry (1994). Garbo. University of Minnesota Press.

Analyzing Greta Garbo by Six Image Criteria

Keller uses six evaluation factors to study and define a brand image.

Memorability
The name Greta Garbo is easy to remember being easy to spell, pronounce, and having the linguistic characteristics of alliteration, consonance, slant rhyme and plosives to help with recognition and recall. Her style and theme is unforgettable, anyone who has seen her look in photographs or film finds out who she is and remembers. Louie B. Mayer did, writers did, leading actors did, critics and so did the general public (see Vieira or Paris throughout).

The slogan The Swedish Sphinx balances the plosives in her Name with sibilants. Sibilants start with s or soft c and are associated with the romantic, which is also the nature of her films. Again the slogan uses linguistic devices such as alliteration to aid recall. The fashion is classic so always contemporary, familiar and easy to remember.

Meaningfulness
The name Greta Garbo gave her initial meaning because it was familiar and discreetly associated with the existing knowledge system on Hollywood films. Clara Bow up through the mid-20s was a rising and charismatic star (see Noir Dame, 2008, p1 or Rhodes, 1994, p 191). Furthermore, Garbo’s theme advanced that meaningful start with a formula that is a primal, fundamental human relationship that can be applied to many situations. In her style, she was not the stereotypical female of the time, but rather now considered to be the first new woman. She expressed the spirit of freedom that pervaded the 20s. In retrospect, she was in the genesis of recognizing that freedom for women in the United States.

Likability
Keller (p 142) explains this as consumers finding the image aesthetically appealing, “Is it likable visually, verbally and in other ways.” Persuasive brand image elements reduce the burden on other marketing communications. In the film industry, the benefits of watching a particular film are less concrete than most other business transactions. Keller tells us (p 142) that in such cases “[all] the more important is the creative potential of the brand name and other brand elements to capture the intangible characteristics of the brand.”

Her look was attractively appealing so that movie goers would see her films three times instead of once (see Paris, 1994, p 119). Her Name and Slogan had drawing power from an association with pleasing films, and with a sense of mystery and romance. Her theme was a captivating expression of the balancing act between the traditional and the modern in those times.

Transferability
Transferability is the ability of the image elements to support line and category extensions (see Keller, 2008, p 142). For Garbo, line extensions would be new films, her brand image elements applied to different roles. Rhodes (1999, p 191) notes that by the 1920's many had realized that the stars rather than the stories were selling the movies. He says that "This change often took the form of storylines that thematized the relationship between the new stars to the publics upon whom they depended for their success." Garbo, more than anyone before or since, established a lasting brand.

The drawing power of her brand elements in terms of Keller’s progressive criteria (2008, p 140) have been detailed in the sections on Memorability, Meaningfulness, and Likability. They apply as well to one film or role as to another because they are related to the actress, and as Keller notes (p 142) the less specific the element to a line item or a category item the more transferable it is.

Adaptation
Keller defines adaptability (p 143) as the ability of brand elements to change over time as consumer opinions and beliefs change or just to remain contemporary. This happened to Garbo as silent film gave way to talkies and the roaring twenties gave way to the great depression. The brand name Greta Garbo did not change but with the introduction of Anna Christie, her first talkie, a slogan for the movie was able to play off the old slogan. “Garbo Talks” was a humorous extension to the “Swedish Sphinx” and its alluring silence.

Her unassuming and minimalist style was changed slightly as well as its application to a theme, adapted for the changing communication medium and economic milieu. In Ninotchka and Grand Hotel, her performance became more ornamental in complexity, less minimal. One of them was a comedy. Additionally, more of her films reflected the gritty existence of the times and made less use of elegant fashion and more of plain clothing. There was also adaptation to historical dramas such as Queen Christina. The formula was also adapted so that governments in several instances replaced the older man in her iron triangle. The Swedish crown in Queen Christina and the Soviet government in Ninotchka are examples.

The 30s Greta Garbo was substantially the 20s Greta Garbo but with some adaptation of the brand elements, which proved to be very successful at that.

Protectability
Keller categorizes two types of protection for brand elements: 1.) Legal; and 2.) Competitive. A personal name such as Greta Garbo can be trademarked especially when its unauthorized use is a bad faith attempt to mislead the public and misdirect trade and economic livelihood from a corporate body that has invested in that name for commercial purpose (see Trademarked and MirrorOfJustice).

Furthermore, all the brand elements have always, even today, proved competitively protectable. Her style and art have proven impossible to define precisely enough for anyone else to repeat her effect on screen. The iron triangle formula can be copied but her theme based on it cannot because that theme is the application of her style into the formula. The slogans applied to her would be empty today if applied to someone else, a cheap rip-off.

References
Gaines, Jane (1989). The Queen Christina Tie-Ups: Convergence of Show Window and Screen. Quar. Rev. of Film & Video. Retrieved on October 22, 2008 from EBSCOHOST.

Keller, K (2008). Strategic Brand Management. Pearson/Prentice-Hall.

Noir Dame (2008). Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) - Clara Bow, Marguerite Courtot. Retrieved on October 27, 2008 from http://www.noirdame.com/index.php?crn=206&rn=609&action=show_detail

Rhodes, Chip (1999). The Star System and Modernist Identity Formation in the Silent Film Era. Strategies, Vol 12, Number 2. Retrieved from EBSCOHOST on October 27, 2008.

Greta Garbo, an Enduring Image

Greta Garbo still sells, some 80 years on. By my calculations, her movies earn approximately $200,000 annually on Amazon, Borders and Barnes&Noble. What is more, her items have a high response rate showing resonance with the audience (see Signature Series ) In EBSCOHOST, there are 12,152 articles about her or that reference her, with 4,816 written in the past five years. The mystique is as much about her lifestyle as her films.

Greta Garbo had the resolute spirit that Ayn Rand, who admired Garbo, tried to capture in the fictional character John Galt. Unlike Galt, however, who ran away to work apart from the system, Garbo turned the system inside out and made it work for her. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that the other major stars of the era were overwhelmed by the system.

Three of the biggest were Clara Bow (the It girl), Rudolf Valentino and John Gilbert. Rhodes (1999, p 197) notes that both Valentino and Bow, stars of first rank, had no control whatsoever over their movies or the public presentation of their image. Garbo, on the other hand, ended up with complete control over all production – choice of director, writers, script, co-stars, schedule, all aspects of production, including release of image building communications (see for example, Vieira, 2005, pp 164,167, 173).

Hollywood was having difficulty establishing a continuing female role type that was attractive to women of that day. The virgins like Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, the vamps like Gloria Swanson and the flappers like Clara Bow were losing traction at the box office (Paris,1994, p 112). Garbo did not play into stale role types but instead became the embodiment, as she is now characterized by feminists, of the “new woman” (See Fischer, 2001, p 90).

I have seen most of her movies and there is a triangle, a brand formula or theme in them all – she is married to an older, overbearing man and having an affair with a younger man (see for example Vieira,2005, p 8). When discovered in the act, she is neither embarrassed nor repentant but instead is contemptuous, weary or angry with her older husband. Conveniently for her character and to the relief of the audience, he is killed or dies off, leaving her to her virile suitor.

After her first films proved extremely popular and profitable, she challenged the MGM power structure. She ignored studio dictates, refused to participate in staged publicity and premiers, did not wear traditional foundational garments beneath her clothes, and was in general insubordinate, all of which created a growing tension. It reached the tipping point when she demanded seven times her salary to become the highest paid actress in the business and refused to do the film Women Love Diamonds because she thought it foolish (see Paris, 1994, pp127-8).

MGM finally detonated, finding her in breach of contract, and issued her a cease and desist letter. She went over their heads to Loews Inc., the parent company, and focused on the factual errors in the letter (see Vieira, 2005, pp 45-8). It was also observed that had MGM listened to her they would not have lost $30,000 with Women Love Diamonds (MGM went on with it using a different actress). Loews agreed, and MGM was forced to capitulate to the 21 year old girl. The humiliation of the best brains in a place like MGM rocked Hollywood (see Paris, 1994, pp 129-30). She was given the salary and creative license and for the next decade produced a series of extremely profitable films.

Eleanor Boardman who suffered the one-sided nature of Garbo's friendship, summed up the enduring interest: "You gave, Garbo took, she never said thanks, but she was fascinating."

References

Corbis (2008). Mysterious Woman Photo displayed under arrangement with http://www.corbis.com/ the copyright holder.

Fischer, Lucy (2001) . Greta Garbo and Silent Cinema: The Actress As Art Deco Icon. Camera Obscura 48, Volume 16, Number 3.

Fischer, Lucy, et al (2002). The Feminist Reader in Early Cinema. Duke University Press.

Gaines, Jane (1989). The Queen Christina Tie-Ups: Convergence of Show Window and Screen. Quar. Rev. of Film & Video. Retrieved on October 22, 2008 from EBSCOHOST.

Noir Dame (2008). Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) - Clara Bow, Marguerite Courtot. Retrieved on October 27, 2008 from http://www.noirdame.com/index.php?crn=206&rn=609&action=show_detail

Paris, Barry (1994). Garbo. University of Minnesota Press.

Rhodes, Chip (1999). The Star System and Modernist Identity Formation in the Silent Film Era. Strategies, Vol 12, Number 2. Retrieved from EBSCOHOST on October 27, 2008.

Vieira, Mark (2005). Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy. Henry A. Abrams, Inc.

The Mass Ornament

Siegfried Kracauer’s book The Mass Ornament has essays with his observations and analysis of Weimar Germany in the 20s but it also seems relevant to America today. Kracauer is like an Amoriam sage in his narrative analysis, which is not the linear, sequential layout of an argument customary in the U.S. Instead, nuggets of information are dispersed throughout his exposition to be discovered, interpreted and formed together into a relational whole through reflection. In further observance of this tradition, he uses symbolism. The term mass ornament is an example. I apply my own definitions to these symbols in this interpretation of his essay The Mass Ornament from the book of essays by the same name.

In architecture, an ornament is a decorative detail that embellishes a space, and over time it becomes an archaeological marker for a culture. Kracauer extends the concept to embellished social spectacles or enactments and uses these to understand a culture as revealed in its current events. He holds that everyday social ornaments represent aspects of a culture without mediation and are better evidence for understanding its essence than its own pronouncements.

The mass ornament is the term he applies to such capitalist spectacles, capitalism derived as it is from mass industrial production, mass consumption, highly synchronized, interchangeable processes and parts. The outcome of its Ratio, the logic behind its processes, is efficient production, consumption, finance and war.Kracauer sees a regressive/progressive struggle between nature and reason. Myths represent past reason and the understanding of cultures that have failed, but their myths nevertheless offer insights into how real people should relate to nature. Capitalist Ratio is the logic of our current system of mass production and how it deals with nature.

Although it has been far more successful in some regards than earlier organized interaction with nature, Kracauer maintains it does not satisfy our humanity. Its consideration ends with production. Unlike the other liberal thought leaders of the 20s, Kracauer sees the failing of this Ratio as not enough analysis or reason rather than too much. It does not fully include the humanity of mankind into its reckoning, only efficiency of production and consumption.

According to Kracauer, the mass ornament in modern capitalist culture is “muted nature.” It has no foundation to build a true knowledge base (edification complex) about nature. As such, along with the basic inhumanity of its overwhelming focus on efficient operations, mankind is unfulfilled by capitalist Ratio. To compensate they turn to pop practices, rhythmic gymnastics in his day, yoga or martial arts in ours. These pop practices advance into the void, each with its own mythology.

Reason is not pursued as the true link between man and nature because of these retreats into pop mythologies. The result is “irreality.” Additionally, the cultures conjured by these mythologies have, by and large, already succumbed to Ratio thereby leaving the mute nature of mass ornamentation even more prominent and influential. These pop myths already discredited by Ratio only serve to highlight its pre-eminence.

Ratio is an iron beast that breaks all before it into pieces and grinds the residue into dust. Its only weakness is its feet of clay, its foundation based on an endless race to the bottom, the cheapest, the most exploitative and the most risky practices. Unseemly risk, whether credit default swaps today or some future scandal, and its inhuman foundation will prove its undoing.

Kracauer on Photography

Siegfried Kracauer was a cultural analyst and member of the applied social sciences group at Columbia University. His work laid the foundation for modern film criticism and he is the author of several works including Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. One of his first essays on photography appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920’s and was latter published in The Mass Ornament.

Underlying Kracauer’s analysis was his tenet that the inconspicuous, quotidian expressions of a culture reveal more about it than its own self-pronouncements. Everyday phenomena such as photos or the nature of popular literature and film are unmediated representations of a culture. Drewniany and Jewler (2008, p 185) remind us that in creative design, a picture is worth a thousand words. Kracauer extended his analysis beyond film into advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance.

Regarding the photograph, he observes that if we enlarge its resolution, we can make out the dots in it, which are matrixed together into recognizable shapes. However, Kracauer observes that the photo attempts to be more than just a reference to the dot matrix shape. It tries to represent the subject matter of an event, which it can not. Without a supporting history or a memory that is associated with the subject matter, the shapes on a photo are not adequate to recreate an understanding of the event.

He believes that photos are a history lacking context or meaning. They are particularly unlike memories, which are retained because of some personal significance. Someone organizes memories according to the personal significance of those memories, while a photograph is an inventory of every spatial detail of a place at a moment. Memories are never only spatial and the significant information in a memory is usually not spatial but in any case cannot be fully condensed to the simplicity of a spatial representation.

There is a variance between photos and memory. Memories are only incomplete fragments to the photographer and often without a spatial representation. They appear as fragments, though, only because a mechanical process like photography does not understand meaning and so cannot incorporate it. However, when memory fragments are associated with a common meaning they become a relational whole.

Memory in turn has reason to doubt a photo. Photo’s usually contain irrelevant litter, and are a jumble of relevant and irrelevant detail. Often the irrelevance is spatial in nature and not just a lack of meaning. [The need for photographic editing software attests to this.] A photo by itself is a suspect truth. It ignores the history of the subjects before the scene. Here there is a partial correspondence between memory and a photo. A person’s memory likewise omits characteristics and determinations of a history, but only those which are not related to the reality the person perceives in their activated consciousness.

A photo is the attempt to reduce the entire circumstance into one graphic image from one viewpoint. An artist using a camera can surmount the abovementioned shortcomings of photography by adding meaning or theme to the elements in a photograph. An artistic composition fashions the elements of a photograph “to a higher purpose. “

The artist uses different rules than the photographer, whose main concern is with the technical details of the process. The Art rules use associations to penetrate the surface cohesion of the photograph to give it a meaning. The photographer, in contrast to the artist, generally does not explore the elements or create a composition to highlight their associations. The result from a photographer is a stockpiling of unconnected elements. Without a substantive understanding of the elements in the composition, photographers are dilettantes who ape an artistic manner.

Can a photograph become timeless? Kracauer quotes E.A. DuPont, “the essence of film is the essence of time.” Because photography is a function of time, then its implications may change depending on the timeframe applied to it. In a new time period, the understanding of the scene in an old photograph is difficult to reconstruct, or as Menander put it “You can never step into the same river twice.” The subjects have moved on or the associations have changed so the image no longer recreates the desired effect. An old photo is then a diminution of its previous essence.

Kracauer argues there is a correspondence with how time affects photography and how it affects fashion. Both a photograph and a fashion are transparent when modern and empty when old. It is only the very old that obtain attention as having the beauty of an antique. Antique is beautiful because it is different in a world where there is a constant selling of newness that is the same. There is a risk with the recent past that the meaning of the composition has changed because the associations or the elements themselves are now outdated. While such is just as outdated as the very old, it still claims to be alive but Kracauer concludes it is merely ludicrous instead. It painfully tries to hold ground that is already lost. In contrast, the antique has surrendered that ground.

References
Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Stratgey in Advertising. Wadsworth.

Kracauer, S and T. Levin (2005) The Mass Ornament. Harvard.

The Law of Requisite Variety Applied to Semiotics

Jakobson proposes a communication model different from Shannon's, one that refects semiotic functions in communications (Cobley and Jansz, 2004:147). The elements of Jakobson's semiotic model are the following:

Different signification functions have dominant influence depending on which element directs the communication. If the focus is the addresser, the emotive function drives the system, usually with interjections. The conotative function are commands when the addressee is the focus. When contact is emphacized, establishing or maintaining communications through the phatic function dominates the system. Likewise, metalingual with code and referential with context (ibid:148-9).

My work experience and academic training is in cybernetics and information theory. A principle of cybernetics I would apply to the Jakobson model is the Law of Requisite Variety. Ashby (1956:202-18) says the variety in a system must be at least as great as the environmental variety against which it is attempting to influence. One message doesn’t fit all.

As an example, Weick (1979, p 188) focuses on the addressee in his photography metaphor:

• A photographer has 5 subjects each at a different distance from the camera.
• The photographers camera must have 5 distinct setting to capture all subjects with uniform density and clarity
• If the camera has fewer than 5 settings it lacks requisite variety and will not register with sufficient detail to depict with accuracy

Wallace (1963:129) suggested a variety of segmentation strategies based on modal personalities for the addressees. A communication will have different levels of influence and effect on different modal personality types. To understand our target, we must identify the modal personas and according to the Law of Requisite Variety, have an expertise in understanding each.

This would be something I would add to the Precede-Proceed Model in communciations (Glanz and Rimer, 2005:36). They recommend there to understand a “target audience’s needs at multiple levels of a [need].” Our system must have the requisite variety to reach all our target audience's needs.

Applied to another element in the Jokobson model, Ethos is a general cultural context. The ethos of our generation is different than previous generations. Wallace (1963:103) contrasted the Dionysian and Apollonian ethos and the transition he sensed to have occurred. For a quick overview of Dionysian and Apollonian see Ethos.

The desire for the Dionysian is personal experience, while that of the Apollonian is moderation. For the Jakobson model, consider a communication for the addressee to begin exercising. I don't think an appeal to exercise because it is immoderate to be a couch potato would be effective with our generation. However, if we made an appeal that exercise increases your personal experiences and your potential for personal experiences, that might work.

Cybernetics examines a system of interrelating parts such as the Jakobson model to establish the extent can we control the relationships between the constructs.

References
Ashby, W Ross (1956). Introduction to Cybernetics. John Wiley.

Cobley, P. and Jansz, L. (2004). Introducing Semiotics. Icon Books.

Glanz, K., & Rimer, B. (Spring 2005). Theory at a Glance. National Institute of Health. Retrieved on November 1, 2009 from http://www.nih.gov/.

Wallace, A (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.

Weick, Karl (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill.

Ethos, Themes, Values

Understanding our target audiences and targeting content to them is a fundamental aspect of web design. Scott (2007:33) advises us to identify and articulate each target audience and develop content specific to each. He recommends creating a persona for each target audience.

What information do we need for content to appeal to each persona? In his book, Culture and Persoanlity, Wallace (1963:101) recommends knowing the themes, values and ethos of a group to prepare appealing content. A theme is how the group sees the world. Wallace suggests a good way of discerning this is a review of the literature or theatre the group patronizes. What books or movies are their favorites?

He catalogs several themes in literature:

• The “western” – hard to find good people must fight tirelessly to bring order to a chaotic world


• The “detective” – idealists disillusioned with the existing order do the right thing for the wrong reason


• The “mystery” – clever and logical heroes politely work to maintain what they believe is a righteous order


• The “action” – well intentioned brutality


• The “drama” – heroes not concerned with social welfare, seek gratification of private desire.

Ethos is a style or form of emotional experience. Ruth Benedict, the grand dame of the cultural and social study of groups and a professor to Margaret Mead (Wallace, 1963:103), distinguishes two type of ethos for groups: Dionysian and Apollonian. The desire for the Dionysian is personal experience, while that of the Apollonian is moderation.

Finally values (ibid:101) are concepts or mental images that motivate a group to action. They are either positive or negative, moving a group towards or repelling them away from some idea. Health, membership in a prestigious group, leisure, and affluence are examples of such motivational food pellets.This type of information should be stored in our customer database in addition to the raw data on demographics, and so on to help formulate a meaningful appeal after we have segmented target audiences.

References
Scott, D (2007). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Wiley.

Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.

Bounded Rationality

Karl Weick (1979:20) discusses the concept of bounded rationality, a concept that is applicable to communications and to information systems. Bounded rationality means that all of us have perceptual and information processing limits. We may always intend to act fully rational but usually we act on easy to get to knowledge, use undemanding rules to search for a conclusion, and take shortcuts whenever possible.

This implies that we need to assume that the decision makers in our communications or information systems may use limited rationality. They form attitudes and opinions, or make decisions in terms of familiar facts and abbreviated analyses.

Weick’s discussion of Bounded Rationality extends earlier work done by Simon. Simon (1960: 80-84) analyzes the limits of rationality. He finds that behavior is not objectively rational for three reasons:

1. Rationality requires complete knowledge including the anticipated consequences


2. Consequences are future events so impacts can only be imperfectly anticipated


3. Even if all possible alternatives are known, it is unlikely the decision maker would be able to recall all of them in the decision making process

The needed abilities for objective rationality are at odds with the usual reality of fragmented knowledge. Objective rationality also runs counter to the devious consequences of indirect influences in a casual map. Finally, it is not reasonable to assume that all possible alternatives could be considered in a reasonable timeframe, even if they are known.


Simon concludes that

“Human rationality operates, then, within the limits of a psychological environment. This environment imposes on the individual as ‘givens’ a selection of factors upon which he must make a decision" (ibid:108).

The implication of this, according to Simon, is that a deliberate control of the psychological environment can manipulate even “rational” choice or decision.

References
Simon, H.A. (1960). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. Macmillan.

Weick, Karl (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill.

List of Figures
Portrait of Herbert Simon, retrieved on November 18, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon

Semiotic Analysis of the BMW We Built TV Ad

The Ad and Some Background Research
The quiet clarity of the guitar picking in BMW’s We Built commercial (Bimmer: We Built) immediately grabbed my attention when I saw it on MadMen. The elegant and attractive work is a .30 TV spot.

The guitar score is lifted from Jackson Browne’s These Days track from the mid-60s. These Days is emblematic of the pop music of that time (Amazon_30_sec) and it has “lasted for decades as a classic of [blue] introspection made even more remarkable by [Jackson] Browne having been only 16 years old when he wrote it.”

Music can stimulate creativity and is also a fundamental aspect of creative advertising. Dr. David Allan (2006, p 435) says the value of music in inspiration as well as its use in creative advertising campaigns is a heightened arousal. Arrangements similar to We Built would seem effective appeals to baby boomers of higher income and education levels. The demographics of this style pop music has a bias for higher income and education levels. Likewise for BMW’s demographics (for example see BNet).

Signifier, Signified and SignsIn this advert there are several signifiers: words and a series of video clips. BMW has captured a fundamental psychological mazeway, according to Zaltman and Zaltman (2008 ,p. 145), the deep metaphor of Resource for automobiles. Deep metaphors are seven unconscious lenses that “shape what people think, say, hear and do.” They are widely used in marketing and if you own a deep metaphor for a category, the way Budweiser owns Connection in the beer market, you have powerful advantages.

Griffiths (2006, p. 3) says that the effects of marketing are based on a reward from the product, and this can include “deeper psychological motivations.” A Resource is an enabler. It is the giver of many rewards.

Since the 1970s, BWM has beat this drum, and kept the same slogan “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” The signified is being enabled with this ultimate machine. There is a sequence of seven video clips that lead up to the presentation of the text, “The Ultimate Driving machine.” The words before each clip say “We did not start out to …” but the unspoken completion from each video sequence is “however, our cars enable it.” The seven sequences in the video are:

• Mastery (skilled driving)
• Artistic Expression
• Subculture inclusion
• Pop culture inclusion
• Mastery (racing)
• Social inclusion
• We provide the resource (we just make the car)

The sign for the first six video signifiers is an iconic contrast. The words “we did not start out to” form a contrast to the video conclusion. Griffiths (2006, p. 5) notes that contrast can accentuate a sign, in his case individuality, in our case Enabler-ing. The video clips are themselves semblances of various cultural touchstones. Stultz (2009, p. 1) informs us that with iconic signs “the signifier resembles the signified, e.g. a picture.”

The last, 8th scene is a presentation of the text “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” This is a symbolic sign: conventional English words. Stultz (2009, p. 1) again tells us that symbolic signs are culturally specific (like English words) and represent a conventional relationship between signifier and the signified. The BMW machine is our resource to fulfill our desires.

As a final thought, Stultz (2009a, p. 8) informs us that the application of Semiotics to marketing involves more than just signs and symbols. It must also consider social context. The ethos of our generation is different than previous generations. Wallace (1963, p 103) contrasted the Dionysian and Apollonian ethos and the transition he sensed to have occurred. For a quick overview see Dionysian/Apollonian. The desire for the Dionysian is personal experience, while that of the Apollonian is moderation. “The Ultimate Driving Machine” would not have appealed to an Apollonian culture, while it does to a Dionysian.

ReferencesAllan, David (December 2006). Effects of popular music in advertising on attention and memory. http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/sound%20advertising.html.doc

Griffiths, M (2/16/06). A Semiotic Analysis Of Diesel Print Ads. Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from WVU IMC 625 Week One Readings.

Stultz, Larry (2009). Semiotic Terminology. Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from WVU IMC Week One Readings.

Stultz, Larry (2009a). Lesson 1: What Does Your Idea Look Like? Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from WVU IMC 625.

Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House

Zaltman, G and L Zaltman (2008). Marketing Metaphoria. Harvard Business Press.