Final Intervention Project KA

Here Comes the Airplane!

 

Overconsumption Outcome

   

Brand Friends Forever (BFFs)

How Many Ads?

For my final intervention, I created a fake advertising campaign to address the issue of consumer protection. This series of ads focuses on how various aspects of consumers’ rights, such as their health and safety, are directly impacted by poor business practices and harmful promotional materials. One of the aims of my intervention is to encourage the audience to be more intentional with their purchases and to actively consider the larger impact of certain purchases, like when buying a product they will soon discard or supporting a company that does not provide fair wages for their employees. Another goal is to prompt audiences to reflect on how often they are bombarded with ads. Physically and digitally, across all forms of media, and in almost every environment, we are now used to ads being virtually everywhere, “We are now so accustomed to being addressed by these images that we scarcely entice their total impact. [...] one has the impression that publicity images are continually passing us, like express trains on their way to some distant terminus,” (Berger, 130). Just like with the goods we buy, it is important to question the intention behind the ads we see and how they affect us.

I decided to choose this topic because I am currently taking a marketing class about consumer behavior. I have learned about the psychology behind human behavior and how it translates to consumer decisions, as well as how to predict and influence these behaviors. The learning materials have discussed multiple concepts and theories, including examples of their real-world applications, and how unethical marketers take advantage of situations and use this information for their own gain. I have begun to think about how frequently consumers are manipulated for a brand’s benefit, and whether things would change if the average consumer were more aware of the negative impacts of promotional materials. This connects to the common purpose of images within promotional materials to influence and place pressure on consumers to make unwanted purchases, “Images which idealize (like most fashion and animal photography) are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness (like class pictures, still lifes of the bleaker sort, and mug shots). There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera,” (Sontag, para. 8). I have also learned that these implications are not just constricted to advertisements, but relate to the adverse outcomes of certain business methods and processes. Once again, I have wondered what social change would come about if more people were knowledgeable about how these decisions directly impact themselves, others, and the environment. This project has given me the opportunity to help inform others about these harmful marketing tactics and the outcomes of choices made by businesses. Additionally, this project ties into a part of my professional aspirations since I am majoring in Psychology and Education with a minor in General Business. I am not completely sure what career I want to go into, but I am interested in continuing to learn about human behavior and analyzing data about marketing and advertising.

The form of outreach I chose was to create fake advertisements. Similar to how art has been used to commentate on other works and forms of art, I decided to use ads to criticize and subvert other forms of advertising and promotion. The self-referential nature of the pieces is likely to provoke interest and reactions from an audience, which will begin their participation in the intervention. To reach my audience, I posted this series of fake ads to my stories on social media for my followers to see. A set of questions followed the ads for the audience to interact with and further be engaged in the raised issues. These questions were “How many ads do you think you see per day?”, “Do you follow any brands on social media?”, and “Have you bought something from an ad on social media?”

After 24 hours of collecting responses, I measured the results from the quiz and poll questions. The question asking my audience about how many ads they believe they see per day gave them the options of 1-99, 100-999, 1000-1999, and 2000+. Less than 3% of respondents correctly answered 2000+, while around 65% selected 1-99 and over 30% guessed 100-999. According to Simpson (2022), research suggests the statistic for ads seen per day is around 4,000 to 10,000, but the tool I used limited the range of answers that could be included. The results for the answers to the poll questions were more rounded, with about an overwhelming 80% of participants confirming they follow at least one brand on social media. Responses to whether or not they have purchased goods from ads on social media were close to a tie as 55% of those who responded revealed that they have, while 45% stated they have not.

 

Some of the artists and projects that influenced my work include Spoof Ads by Adbusters, Brandalism’s 2015 campaign, Drive Under Water as Sea Levels Rise (2020) by Hogre, and MY AD IS NO AD (1980) by John Fekner. The activist group Adbusters have created many fake advertisements that are parodies of real advertisements for various brands and products. Each advertisement incorporates elements of brand staples, such as recognizable logos or familiar ad imagery, along with humor to criticize the promotion of harmful products and our overexposure to ads in general. These spoof ads inspired my overall approach to the fake ads I created, and made me consider how to make them visually appealing to an audience.

Brandlism’s 2015 campaign is another collection that inspired my project. In 2015, Brandalism, an international collective of artists and activists, put up hundreds of artworks across Paris criticizing the major corporate sponsors of the United Nations’ summit on climate change, as well as many of the world leaders attending the summit. The pieces that were focused on world leaders combined photos of them with negative imagery related to the environment, while those directed towards big corporations combined advertisement formats with text to inform the audience. Brandalism specifically called out the individuals and companies who were either ignoring issues surrounding climate change or directly contributing to them, “In contrast, the value of meme protest art lies not in the authenticity of the image, but in its undermining of the original source and the assertion of a different truth,” (Fison, 8). In a similar way, some of my fake ads took aim at specific issues and the brands that are tied to them, while others emphasized the relationships between the culture of consumerism and global issues.

The work Drive Under Water as Sea Levels Rise by street artist Hogre similarly utilizes established advertisements to directly criticize Ford and its hand in the progression of climate change problems. This piece cleverly and creatively employs Ford’s ad format and fear appeals to convey the negative effects of car emissions, the part of cars in increasing ocean pollution, and more. Hogre’s work connects to my own through the use of real images, an ad-inspired layout, and aim to draw attention to pivotal and current controversies.

Artist John Fekner’s MY AD IS NO AD was one in a series of “word-signs”. The piece was created using cardboard stencils and spray paint on the front of a billboard. Fekner’s piece connects to my series because he installed his in a public space to create awareness and draw an audience’s attention. He uses a space designated to display ads for the purpose of protesting the nature of them in a similar “meta” style as the previously mentioned works. 

Link to my website: https://sites.google.com/view/consumer-protection-finproject/home

References 

BBC News. (2015, November 29). COP21: Eco activists Brandalism launch Paris ad takeover. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34958282

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing (1st ed.). BBC/Penguin.

Bogost, I. (2018, September 7). Why Brands Are Friendly on Social Media. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/brands-on-social-media/568300/

Fison, L. (2017, February 7). How Memes Are Making Protest Art More Powerful. Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-memes-making-protest-art-powerful

Research Archive » Blog Archive » My AD is No AD 1980. (n.d.). John Fekner. http://johnfekner.com/feknerArchive/?p=1220

Simpson, J. (2022, April 14). Finding Brand Success In The Digital World. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/08/25/finding-brand-success-in-the-digital-world/?sh=8519c06626e2

Sontag, S. (1977). On Photography. Susan Sontag. http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml

Spoofs | Adbusters Media Foundation. (n.d.). Adbusters. https://www.adbusters.org/spoof-ads

Steal This Poster. (n.d.). Steal This Poster. https://stealthisposter.org/poster/5e7a5143a972cc23e5bff98f/

Truth in Advertising. (2022, January 5). Several Brands of Baby Foods. https://truthinadvertising.org/class-action/several-brands-of-baby-foods/

Weather, A. (2022, March 30). When Brands Started Trying To Be Your Friends - The Startup. Medium. https://medium.com/swlh/when-brands-started-trying-to-be-your-friends-3ea33fd5a639