ENG 203 Essay, Fall 2011

American University of Beirut Advertising and Fashion: The Worlds of Exploitation Unit 1 Essay: Final Draft Name: Freddy Vartabedian Instructor’s name: Ms. Zane Sinno Section: 19 Date: Nov. 21st, 2011 Prompt: O’Neil says that “on one level, all advertising is about exploitation: the systematic, deliberate identification of our needs and wants, followed by the delivery of carefully constructed promise that we will find fulfillment or satisfaction by purchasing Brand X” (1998, 416). How are advertising and fashion similar in that respect? In other words, what are the similarities between the strategies used in advertising and fashion to reach these goals? In a highly capitalistic world, the aim of every business system is financial gain. Advertising and fashion, being no exceptions, are at the heart of our modern world and share the common ground of exploiting consumer weaknesses, wants and aspirations to reach their desired goal, namely, sell and sell more. Today’s consumer is surrounded by ads to the degree of suffocation, as he is obliged to adopt a certain image imposed on him by the almighty presence of the fashion system in every corner of his existence. Whether it is through a product he might use, or certain clothes he might wear, or even a certain style he might adopt, everyone wants the gratification of his needs and the satisfaction of his wants. It is man’s strife to assert his identity and to define who he is in a forever changing world, which gives the advertising and the fashion systems ample ground to grow and flourish. O’Neil states that, “on one level, all advertising is about exploitation: the systematic, deliberate identification of our needs and wants, followed by the delivery of carefully constructed promise that we will find fulfillment or satisfaction by purchasing Brand X” (1998, 416). Similarly, Lee ascertains that, “the fashion system is built on want” (2002, 454). Therefore, want is the cornerstone of the fashion system as it is the building block of all ads. As to how these two mega-powers achieve their goals, the similarity of the strategies they employ, whether verbal or visual, is amazing and certainly these strategies all converge into the irresistible promise of the satisfaction of our wants. By definition advertising is the art of using carefully chosen words in order to appear to be making a claim, while evading all responsibility, i.e. making no real claim at all (Lutz, 1980, 400). It is also the carefully engineered process, which combines the carefully chosen words to images (O’Neil, 1998, 411), in order to imply a message and appear to be making a promise (Lutz, 1980, 400); In other words, the main aim of this carefully structured complex is addressing human wants and needs. According to O’Neil, “advertising mirrors the fears, quirks and aspirations of the society that creates it” (1998, 418). It is the consumers’ weak points and motivations that give the advertising world its first strategy which is to address the satisfaction of these aspects through carefully structured promises. O’Neil’s words saying, “We charge ads with most of their power” (1998, 416), further assert this fact; Hence, it can be concluded that the role of the consumer through his wants is crucial in advertising. The fashion world is no different from the advertising world, where the consumer is also responsible for keeping the system going. According to Lee, “we allow a set of ridiculous, yet compelling rules to govern our wardrobes, our purchases, our desires, even our sense of self- worth” (2002, 449). Evidently, our need for acknowledgement from others, or our forever threatened self-esteem, drives us to get trapped in the world of fashion. Lee thinks that, “we dress to communicate our social identities to others” (2002, 452). The fashion system thrives on our need to assert ourselves in our “appearance centered world” (Lee, 2002, 452) and uses this aspect to involve consumers. Moreover, fashion, namely clothes, are a primary indicator of our personality, opinions, tastes, social status and even our interests and occupations (Lurie, 2008, 456). For Lurie, man, like a chameleon, has to change his skin in order to suit his environment (2008, 461). The choice of clothes determines the feedback a person receives, whether favorable or not. From here, it can be concluded that the fashion system, highly aware of the importance of style and clothes, the determinants of a person’s image, in our highly competitive modern world, uses these needs to involve consumers in its system and sometimes, even turn them into fashion victims (Lee, 2002). Therefore, it can be inferred that both advertising and fashion derive their clues from the consumer himself and address his wants, all the while hinting to their satisfaction. Another area where the advertising and fashion worlds meet is in their strategies to involve consumers in the long run. To do so, ads use various methods and stress on a variety of details such as superficial differences as in the case of packaging, the use of humor to attract consumer attention and even the use of social themes as in the Benetton ad featuring an aids victim (O’Neil, 1998, 415). However, one of the most important tools used in advertising is the use of symbols for involving the consumer in the ad (O’Neil, 1998, 416). O’Neil states that, “once we have seen a famous person in an ad, we associate the product with the person” (1998, 416). As humans, we always like to imitate the famous people we are fond of. It is no wonder then that a Slash fan will definitely switch to Black Death to be like his favorite guitar player. The fashion world is no different from the world of advertising when it comes to the use of symbols. Socialites promote dresses and styles (Lee, 2002, 454) and watching them or even looking at their pictures, deepens the involvement of the consumer in the fashion game, even if he is not up to it financially. These socialites resemble the symbols ads use to involve customers. Everyone wants to imitate these people or be in their shoes. For Lee, the use of symbols in the fashion system goes further to the use of sexy women or men, or any image associated with sex, in fashion ads (2002, 455), because fashion in reality sells an image and not only clothes. The symbol used surly contributes to the desired image. In this case, the fashion world, like the advertising world, appears to be making promises through implied sex messages and the consumer’s imagination is responsible for the rest. Just like the power of unfinished words that involve the consumer through filling in the left out words (Lutz, 1980, 407), so do these sex associated images arouse the consumer’s interest, grab his attention and trap him. In a sex oriented world, everyone wants to be attractive and is most probably ready to adopt the image propagated by the fashion system, as he is willing to try a product that promises him the same through an ad. The sex-symbol strategies and sex themes surly work well to promote fashion and to sell any product and thus involve consumers in the long run. However, the issue of sex images to promote products brings us to the issue of ethics in both the advertising and the fashion systems. Unethical means, whose sole purpose is, of course, achieving profit, are employed in both the advertising world and the fashion system. The Camel cigarettes ad employing the cartoon character of Joe Camel (O’Neil, 1998, 411) is no different from the use of the human body in degrading ways to promote style. For example, the socialite and her “out of control partying”, or “letting her Galliano gown slip” (Lee, 2002, 454), or even fashion ads featuring naked men and women is highly unethical and can only mean that advertising, like fashion, both consider that the end justifies the means and that their lust for profit knows no limits. Among the many other strategies used in advertisement and fashion is the use of logos and it is considered a very important tool for establishing brand contact and brand loyalty. Advertising aiming at kids especially recognizes this fact (Schlosser, 2001, 422). Schlosser states that, “children recognize a brand logo before they can recognize their own name” (2001, 422). He also believes that ads addressing kids guarantee brand loyalty in that pleasant childhood memories will lead to a life- long adherence to a product (2001, 422). Logos and brand names, of course, are an important part of establishing this bond in childhood and they are equally important in establishing brand awareness at all times through grabbing consumer attention. Nevertheless, the importance of brand names and logos in the fashion world is even more substantial, where brand names go even beyond the domain of clothes and acquire the power to sell any other item such as cosmetics, perfume, linen, cars or even chocolate (Like Armani) (Lee, 2002, 451). Logos, on the other hand, hook fashion victims who wear them proudly. Lee calls it “an act that’s tribal at its core” (2002, 453). A piece of clothing without a brand name or a logo is not considered of much worth. The brand name or logo can even cover up the flaws in a piece of clothing. Logos and brand names, in other words, are a way to be “in” or fit in the group. In short, brand names and logos are surly promoters of products in advertising, as they are in fashion and can thus be considered as strategies of great importance for marketing. No discussion of advertising or fashion can be complete without pointing to the effect of language techniques used in either one. Advertising language makes use of weasel words, simple and short words or sentences, unfinished words, slanting, and of course charged words. Each technique serves a specific purpose. For example, the weasel words help the ad avoid responsibility, yet state a claim (Lutz, 1980, 400). Unfinished words involve the consumer and lead him to fill the left out words according to his imagination and judgment (Lutz, 1980, 407). However, the techniques that best apply to both advertising and fashion are slanting and charged language. While slanting operates on the level of the choice of words, facts or emphasis to achieve the desired intention (Birk and Birk, 1972, 345), charged language puts feelings in words and gives them “attitudinal meaning” (Birk and Birk, 1972, 350). These tools are greatly used in advertising in order to stress a certain quality and draw the consumer’s attention from certain (weak) aspects of a product to the main message the ad is made to imply. These tools are of course not exclusive to advertising. The fashion system also recurs to them to achieve certain goals. Through the vast vocabulary of the universal language of clothes, such as color, accessories, make-up, hair-style, tattoos or any other fashion word (Lurie, 2008, 457), the fashion system is able to change the images it uses or to promote styles and items; i.e. through emphasizing certain aspects of clothing such as color, it tries to achieve consumer involvement. Any item can be slanted for and charged through the use of fashion language vocabulary and thus, meet the system’s aims in making promises of satisfaction or even set the consumer’s imagination to work; Hence, the role of slanting and charged language as a strategy to exploit the consumer in both advertising and fashion can be of major importance . Another pivotal similarity between advertising and fashion strategies is the exploitation of the power of the image. In advertising, the carefully chosen words are combined to images to make ads rich and arresting (O’Neil, 1998, 413). Moreover, O’Neil states that these images can be in the form of words or visual images. Their combination gives birth to a language that is unique in its kind, the language of advertising (1998, 413). Ads derive their power from these images that grab the consumer’s attention and establish brand awareness. The power of the image, mainly visual, is also substantial in the fashion system. Liotard talks about “tapping on the power of the image” which can achieve shocking results (2001, 463). He gives the example of the punks’ rebellion against conventional systems in England, which was surly emphasized by their rejection of the ordinary ways of dressing and that gave rise to their “charged self-image” (2001, 463). This image was of course, propagated to the rest of the world through symbols like top models or famous people, promoting new trends in body fashion, such as piercing, tattoos or other body altering techniques (Liotard, 2001, 463, 464). While many people around the world are now trapped in these new trends, under the influence of the power of the image, the fashion system is making its desired profits. Whether through the rejection of the “standardization” imposed by the fashion world in the West, or through the attempts to “fit in” of the less civilized world (Liotard, 2001, 466), the fashion system emerges as the ultimate winner. In a world where the power of the image surpasses any other, the influence of this power, evidently, cannot be ignored in neither advertising nor fashion, surly leading to its exploitation in every possible way. In addition, advertising and fashion, both being ways of communication that make use of visual images, surly need the media to propagate through and reach the consumer. In today’s world, these media vary between the papers, magazines, internet, social networks, cellphones, and billboards, only to name a few. The choice of the propagation medium depends on the item and the targeted consumers. Schlosser considers television as the most efficient for ads aiming at kids (2001, 425). For Janusz, social networks are popular with most age-groups and sometimes prove to be more effective in promoting products, because they provide direct contact with customers and consequently access their opinions; In other words, they use the consumers’ feedback to exploit them (Janusz, 2009). Advertising uses all these routes to reach and involve consumers. The fashion system, like advertising, relies on the same mentioned routes. Fashion TV is a perfect example of how the system uses television to enchant people with fashion. It is a very popular channel all around the world. In Lebanon, it is the choice of channel for most shops like hairdressers, boutiques, gyms and even some bakeries. Teen boys watch it to see the pretty girls, girls watch it to imitate the models and their lifestyles, women do to see the latest trends and envy the perfect models, so do the people working in the fashion industry. In other words, it is present everywhere, and through it the fashion system creates and addresses wants and reaches its targets. The internet is also another way to reach consumers in the fashion world. Liotard considers television and internet responsible for exposing the world to the various ways of how people view their bodies and to the recent fashion practices such as tattoos and piercing (2001, 466). He discusses the altering of one’s body as “a must for counting in the fashion scene” (2001, 464), and considers “Westernizing” the human body as a way to “fit in with globalization” (2001, 466). Evidently, he acknowledges the role of television and internet in spreading the new fashion trends; i.e. their role surly is creating new wants and expanding their markets. Moreover, just like in the case of advertising, social networks are also a very efficient way to spread the fashion practices of socialites and famous people. Their news reaches their fans faster than any other, thus involving these fans in the new trends. The role of fashion magazines also can’t be ignored and the variety of these magazines on library shelves is proof enough of their efficiency in serving the fashion system. It can be concluded then, that both advertising and fashion need and use similar media to promote their products and exploit the consumers, all the while entertaining them. In conclusion, and as O’Neil clearly stated, “Advertising shapes our perception of the world, as architecture shapes our impression of a city” (1998, 420), advertising is an unavoidable necessity in our times and can affect our lives positively or negatively. Fashion is also an integral part of our modern life, because it contributes to our identity and to how others perceive us. No matter what exploitation strategies are used in the advertising and in the fashion systems, it is up to the consumer to decide who the boss is. After all, it is “he” who makes the ad, and it is “he” who makes the fashion. Should he let ads exploit his wants and deceive him, or let fashion thrive on his weaknesses and dictate his identity, remains up to him to decide. References: Birk P. and Birk G., Selection, Slanting and Charged Language, 1972. Janusz T., Twitter, My Space and Facebook Demystified, 2009. Lee M., The Fashion Victim’s Ten Commandments, 2002. Liotard Ph., The Body Jigsaw: Borrowing Body Decorations from Other Cultures, 2001. Lurie A., The Language of Clothes, 2008. Lutz W., Weasel Words: the Art of Saying Nothing at All, 1980. O’Neill Ch., The Language of Advertising, 1998. Schlosser E., Kid Kustomers, 2001.