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Nick Rice at Strategic Design brings us the first Marketing (r)evolution Carnival of the year.

As you enjoy the articles, consider how today the language about products and services has replaced the language about all other subjects. Think about the ubiquitous: "Can you her me now?"

While the language of commercialism has grown louder, the language of culture has become softer.

We anticipate "and now a few words from our sponsor..." We have a hard time completing Wordworth's verse "my heart leaps up when I behold a [...] in the sky." Many know Laurence Olivier as the guy in the Polaroid commercials.

Over the long weekend, I watched Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and was entertained by the seamless progression of advertising and programming presented in front of the live audience. It was clear which part was the ad, and which was the regular programming even though everything was part of the show.

We see about 5,000 ads per day on average. Today the struggle is more to get through than to make a point. What do we know about the language of persuasion? In the coming days we will talk more about it. Welcome to 2007.

Comments

[Richie]

Hi Valeria,

I found your blog through a comment you left on the "more minimal" blog.

After just a brief scan of your site, I can say it looks very interesting and I look forward to reading through all the articles you have here.

In response to your above post, it is very worrying that advertising has actually become culture.

In the past art was art and commerce was commerce, the difference was clear: Shakespeare did not write Romeo and Juliet to advertise perfume.

Today, however, we are accustomed to programmes being sponsored, stars with their own line of accessories, and musicians having their songs appear in T.V. commercials.

Is this good or bad?

Certainly artists perceive themselves to be working in a higher realm than that of commerce. However, the realities of the modern world are such that if Shakespeare were alive today he may well be writing, "To beer or not to beer--that is the question."

[Valeria Maltoni]

Welcome Richie. And thank you for your thoughtful comment.

I was having a conversation with an architect friend recently and she pointed out how she had to make a conscious effort to think of her work as business-- and not art. Why?

Because, in her words I hope to represent correctly here, an artist associates a certain sense of purity with their work. Purity that needs to be accessed 'as is' even when purchased. And purchased on the merits of it alone.

A businessperson needs to produce something that has meaning to their audience-- to solve a business problem. And that is what they are getting paid to do. So a certain amount of massaging and compromise is often present in the final work.

Back to the issue of cultural impact. Advertising, at least the good work is produced to generate conversations and to be spreadable/repeatable. We talk about ads that resonate with us. They become part of our language.

[Richie]

For me the difference between art and advertising is that art has no other message than itself. With advertising, no matter how entertaining how enlightening the advert, the message is to buy a product or service.

Of course, to be effective, great advertising has to use the tecnhiques of great art--chiefly some insight into the human condition.

When an advert gives us something new, something fresh, even if it's just a good joke, that's when people take the message to their hearts.

[C.B. Whittemore]

Valeria, thanks for your comment. I was admiring your approach to the carnival, so appreciate your nice words. Re: the other comments above.... Art originally developed as a form of advertising - to promote religion and honor religious donors, to capture royal figures... and certainly to appeal to the purchaser or patron or sponsor of the art. No? Shakespeare created Romeo & Juliet to entertain, to send a message to his audience and had to connect with that audience to communicate effectively. Very happy to experience your blog thanks to the carnival and the Z list. Happy 2007!

[Valeria Maltoni]

I think CB here might have a valid point. Art is a form of expression (visual storytelling and narration) which in an of itself is meant to further a message.

Richie, I am thinking of my favorite poet, Dante Alighieri. He wrote the "Comedy" in a new style and language (of the people) to spread a message about how he viewed the liberal times he lived in. Alighieri was a conservative who eventually had to go-- he spent his later years in exile, a condition he much regretted and for which the characters of his time, and work, paid dearly in Hell and Purgatory.

The Comedy was called Divine and studied as a work of art, but it really was a modern manifest during Alighieri's lifetime. I won't go as far as calling it a blog, but indeed it was a vehicle used to lament a condition and make sense of the world and political climate of the times.