Advertising: A Stable Diet.

Watching television in Britain in the 80s and 90s was quite limited. We had channels one to four - and sometimes Sky One if your aerial could pick up the signal. Two of those channels had commercial advertising.

Watching ITV or Channel Four meant only one thing, that when your programme was interrupted half way through or at least every 20 – 30 minutes you would play the ‘ad game.’ No one really invented it, it just happened. During every ad break there would be a race to see who could guess what the advertisement was selling before the product was revealed. Scores were kept and extra points were gathered by changing and adding rules.

I never really thought about it much at the time, but with hindsight, it’s almost terrifying to think that because of a certain song, or a certain character in an advertisement I would know exactly what I was being sold: the brand, the product and the object. I was receiving those advertising messages loud and clear, and I was also creating a bond with them.

I used to get excited about the next installment of the ‘Oxo’ family, and I wanted to see how Lurpack’s Douglas would next attempt to play his trombone. That is one of the many methods advertising uses to captivate the target audience. It encourages the viewer to feel a bond and an affiliation to a particular campaign.

I was once standing in Holborn tube station in London waiting for the next train. There’s not much to do on those platforms other than watch the mice, watch the people, or read the large advertisements strewn across the panels on the wall that you are ‘supposed’ to stand facing. I was doing just that, and I was enthralled in the wit, humour and relevance of a FedEx campaign that used their corporate identity to sell their services. That seems like a pretty obvious and common thing, but the manner in which it was executed was so clean, and clever that I instantly felt an affiliation to the brand. I felt like I had been allowed in to their ‘club,’ because I understood and deciphered the dual meanings of each of the posters in the campaign.

This method preys on our need to feel stability and belonging. Stability was provided through the continuous use of the corporate colours, and belonging provided by giving the viewer the chance to solve a simple puzzle. There are so many techniques that advertisers use, but it all comes down to the basics of type, colour, image and knowing the target audience.

Two further examples of knowing the target audience starts in my homeland, Scotland. Since I remember being alive I remember Irn Bru. One of the country’s most famous productions, which has maintained its orange and blue corporate livery has become a renowned and honoured piece of national identity and culture. Their advertisements have always been quirky, humourous and in par with the sense of humour shared by the majority of Scots.

My other example brings us to the underground subway system in New York. I was making a platform transfer somewhere in the middle of Manhattan, which involved a lot of stairs - moving and stationary. I remember reaching the top of one flight of stairs and being surrounded by eloquent but dirty tiles on the walls that were covered in advertisements that had been rawly affixed, so that the advertisements themselves had geometric bumps and grooves.

The one that struck me depicted a lone figure photographed in the middle of a sporting event, so he was kitted up (in Adidas), sweaty, and his facial expression appeared to emanate passion. Beside his image sat a large paragraph of text. The text was almost a mantra or a manifesto; a declaration to the world that sport was serious, and that everything was possible. The exact coined phrase was ‘Impossible is Nothing.’ I was impressed by the power of this campaign and the thought was embedded in my mind that Adidas are serious about sport, and help people to achieve the impossible. I returned home from that trip to see
a live advertisement on television, that depicted an athlete performing to their best and beyond, while a dramatic voice, filled with conviction, recited the mantra that I, myself, had read on that tiled wall in Manhattan. I felt close to the brand, I felt that somehow a 3000-mile gap between the United Kingdom and the East Coast of America had been bridged by Adidas.

I believe the ‘impossible is nothing’ slogan is still running after three years and still a synonymous part of the Adidas brand and promise, the promise that you can achieve anything as long as you choose Adidas.

It appears a little ridiculous now, but that was the power of that campaign in my life. Granted I didn’t run out and buy new clothing branded with Adidas, but I did start to respect the company to the point that when I would make my next sports good purchase I would seriously consider their brand, the one that helped me feel connected to the world.

Isn’t that what we all crave? It is a need, to feel stability and belonging and that is what branding and advertising provide. The problem lies in the fact that placing our ethereal needs in the hands of tangible products can lead to a reduction in the social interactions and experiences that would usually fulfil that need. And is life not just about that, experience? What do we honestly own or possess? What have the brands given us back? All we have are memories of how we used those products, how we interacted with them, and how others interacted with them. But at the end of the day, we will still have as many experiences and just as many memories with or without the products.