Advertising and Imagery

In today's culture, our senses have no respite from advertising and the images it produces. In two seminal movies made a half-century ago about the advertising industry–The Hucksters and The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit-we see Clark Gable in the former and Gregory Peck in the latter trying to make sense out of a business they see as mercenary and manipulative. As the titles suggest, they approach the subject from distinctly divergent perspectives but converge at an obvious point of inescapable reality that is even more pervasive today–that the purpose of advertising is to sell–to sell products, services, ideas, lifestyles, candidates, and everything in between. Advertising is a primary lubricant in a free capitalistic economy and the images it has created have become permanent parts of Americana.

In the fifty years that have passed since these movies were produced, the fundamental purpose of advertising has not changed, but there has been a deafening explosion in the media and in the techniques through which advertising has become such an enormous part of our everyday lives. In terms of media, certainly television has been the most potent resource in the advertising industry's arsenal of persuasive weaponry.

Besides television, we are subjected to a menu of other visual media such as magazines, newspapers, billboards, blimps, skywriters, book jackets, junk mail, packaging, displays, signs on cabs and buses, logos on athletes, and now, we have the Internet. Some hail it as the next great vehicle for learning and understanding while others see it taking its place next to television as a visual cacophony of annoying and intrusive sights and sounds. It seems that everywhere we turn, we are being informed, asked, persuaded, inspired, motivated, cajoled, recruited, influenced, challenged, reminded, pleaded with, surprised, and sometimes just plain shocked. As the Internet and digital communication in general become more sophisticated, we can expect more and more images marching across our field of vision selling us products that help us avoid tooth decay and others that keep our spine straight while we sleep.

As technology has provided new media capabilities, a basic creative technique of advertising continues to evolve in richness and sophistication-the use of characters, both real and imaginary, to sell a bewildering array of products and services. These characters provide the interest or identification that advertisers hope to turn into purchases and possession. And they are brought forth from every conceivable corner of human experience: history, mythology, legend, literature, religion, folklore, science, and even advertising itself. On any given day, we might be treated to the sight of George Washington selling cherry pie filling; Sam Adams selling beer; Cleopatra selling cat food; the god Mercury selling flowers by wire; St. Joseph selling aspirin; a tiger selling corn flakes or gasoline; Spider Man selling lunchboxes; ­and on they go.

The use of images or icons is fundamental to the advertising arts. They create message retention, they invite participation, they entertain, they match people with the objects of their appetites and desires, and they attach themselves to our collective and individual perceptions of the popular culture. They do what words alone cannot do. They stay with us long after the commercial is over. The things they are evocative of enhance and intensify the impact of the message they are being used to convey. And, coupled with modern miracles of digital communication, they are not only here to stay but haven't even begun to sell and persuade and inspire and evolve until the next great innovation comes along.