Assignment 7: due Monday,
April 6, 2009 at 5pm via bSpace:
Use Klein and McKendrick to answer the question: Does adversising
belong in a "History of Information" class?
Some exemplary responses:
Yes. For at least two reasons: (1) information and information
technologies have become entangled with the businesses that sell them;
(2) advertising itself is an act of information dissemination.
With respect to reason one, how a business can sell a technology
frequently determines the form the technology takes. Cheapness of
manufacturing materials (Nike shoes) or transportation methods (fragile
pots don't travel) might dictate the technology's form. On the
other hand, Klein's explanation of branding as more important than
function or price argues differently. Advertising seems like a
deliberate confrontation with social and technological
determinism. Somehow branding can change a product's image
without changing its form, so that it fits into, or over comes the
social and technological realities of a market.
With respect to reason two, from Wedgewood to present, advertising has
been an experiment in broadcast messaging. Wedgewood has
communicated the same message, "pick me", in numerous ways. Many
of these methods are still in practice. He used the celebrity of
nobility and royalty the same way movie stars and athletes are
presently paraded about. He used high prices to differentiate his
products the way high prices are used by Apple to sell computers and De
Beers to sell diamonds. -David B.
Before arguing whether or not the topic of
advertising belongs in a class entitled “History of Information”,
information needs to be defined. If information is the ability of
individuals to transfer communication freely, and to have direct access
to knowledge that would have previously have been difficult or
impossible to find, then advertising belongs in the class. Klein state
that “corporate obsession with brand identity is waging a war on public
and individual space: on public institutions such as schools, on
youthful identities, on the concept of nationality and on the
possibilities for unmarketed space.” Advertising is ubiquitous;
individuals are constantly bombarded with images from ads. Advertising,
more so than anything else, is constant free transfer of communication,
and the strategy of “branding” provides identities and knowledge of
companies’ identities that, before advertising, had not been defined.
For example, it is no accident that when an individual sees “Nike” they
think star athlete or “pushing-the-envelope”, this is knowledge and the
dissemination of it are what companies invest in heavily through the
use of advertising. McKendrick’s article on Wedgwood and his pottery is
an example of advertising making knowledge of what is fashionable in
any given culture available to a mass audience – Wedgewood marketed his
product to the leader of fashion in the belief that the rest of society
would follow, and they did. -- Andrea
While the average advertisement may not be guaranteed to provide true
information, advertising belongs in a History of Information class as
much as the Greek alphabet. Like the alphabet, advertising allows for
the conveyance of information and the creation of new ways of thinking.
It promotes the product or service, informing the public about its why,
where, and what. But more significantly, advertising’s invention is a
prerequisite of brand commercialization, where people and business
think in the term of brands rather than products. As Klein mentions,
tennis shoes become Nikes and alcohol becomes Absolut. Advertising
divides the general from the branded, suddenly making the branded the
desirable. As McKendrick demonstrates in his chapter about Wedgwood,
advertising can come in all different forms. From the standard
hand-bill or bill board to celebrity endorsement from the Queen of
England. Not only do people gain knowledge about products and services
through advertisements, their perception is modified by them.
Wedgwood’s pottery becomes popular not only because of their quality
and style, but because of the “conceptual added value” that he builds
through advertising. “Information” is closely related to perception,
knowledge, and communication- the very three aims of advertising.
-Elaine
The Klein and McKendrick readings show the paramount importance that
advertising plays in the development and popularlization of techology
throughout the twentith/twenty-first century. McKendrick's focus on the
success of Wedgewood china is important because it is the first major
example of brand equity. In the article McKendrick states, "it was
never [Wedgwood's] practice nor his intention to sell cheaply. .. his
selling policy relied on quality and above all fashionable appeal, and
wedgewood believed that high prices had an integral part to play in
such policy". By creating a brand dictated perceieved image rather than
price, Wedgewood overcame his competition by becoming synonymous with
'the best'. Why buy cheap generic china when you could spend a bit more
and get Wedgewood china. This brand equity has dictated the success of
certain products and the demise of others in an economic setting where
consumer availability is so great that price or quality alone is not
enough to guarentee product success. While Klein is against the
popularized use of advertising, her evidence shows that few companies
in the twenty-first century have met real succuss without using such
methods. As Klien notes, "Logos were tailored to evoke familiarity and
folksiness, in an effort to counteract the new and unsettling anonymity
of packaged goods." During the twentieth century, people shift away
from buying goods to buying brands. People no longer buy tissue paper,
but Kleenex. People no longer copy, they Xerox. In a History of
Information setting, one cannot look at technology today without taking
such notions into consideration. -Steven W.
Both of these articles are evidence for advertising being considered a
form of information and important to the history of information.
McKendrick discusses the commercialization of ceramics in his article,
showing that advertising, niche marketing, and brand creation have been
around since the 1700s. Wedgwood understood how to market his product
to various groups of people for different purposes, and succeeded
through securing initial patrons and supporters for his products. This
is a clear example of modern product placement and sponsorship. The
argument made in this piece is amusing in contrast to Klein's article
as she claims the brand is a somewhat new phenomenon. McKendrick shows
that brand ideologies have been around for centuries, and that, most
likely, the brand will never die. I do agree that branding lends itself
to the growth of corporations, and that the ease of sharing information
in the 20th century allows these companies to transmit information to a
larger audience with less work. It is important to look at advertising
in the history of information because we can trace parallels like that
of ceramics and brands today. -Sarah W.
In considering the question of whether Advertising belongs in a History
of Information course perhaps some initial objections crop up – for
instance it may be said to be only corporate utilization of mediums
already well studied in this type of class – however upon further
thought it is clear to be an essential and unique phenomenon. To
understand why, let us look at the modern corporate reality. Klein
states that “ … today's best-known manufacturers no longer produce
products and advertise them, but rather buy products and "brand" them …
“ because “ … successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as
opposed to products”. Advertising may utilize existing mediums, but its
implementation has lead to a very new and powerful sort of information
that has massive impact upon the current state humanity finds itself
in. This information is brand, it is corporate identity (personality
even) and the ethereal “value” of things predicated solely upon these
now all important specters endlessly conjured by corporations big and
small. The origins of this critical data developing in the public
conscious is traced by the McKendrick and realized in the Klein, where
we also perhaps find hints of the eminent death of the question this
prompt poses in the entirely new information media advertising is
spawning. This is the juniper scented theaters and other brand
“performance art” that, as developed further by corporations, will
surely result in undeniably unique and pertinent mediums for the study
of the information scholar. Before that happens, though, perhaps we
should not ignore the ever more relevant cries from Neil Postman's work
in consideration of the new information upon us. -Andrew B.
As evidenced by Klein's quotation in No Logo of a Starbucks executive
saying, "Consumers don't truly believe there's a huge difference
between products," one could justifiably think that today's advertising
has little to do with information. Goods and information about goods,
from Wedgwood's creamware to Intel's Pentium processors, have—from a
marketing perspective—gone the way of the dodo. Advertising has become
a vehicle for product "fashion" rather than product "merit"
(McKendrick). Creamware--an informational term--became Queensware,
appealing to the aristocracy. Intel's Pentium processor ads feature the
Blue Man Group, which says nothing about the chips--but it does convey
that Intel is for contemporary, innovative people. And when companies
do advertise the commodities themselves, like Old Navy does, it is in
the name of fashion—it’s an appeal to the retro more than an appeal to
a product’s quality. Advertising today is at its least offensive about
stylizing information—creating narratives ("Starbucks Experience")—and
at its worst it is the practice of selling you a lifestyle that has
nothing to do with the product at all (Intel). But it wasn’t always
like this, which is why advertising belongs in an information class.
There is a history to read on the subduction of information under
narrative and fashion, and both Klein and McKendrick give evidence that
the history of advertising is a history of the transformation of
business models based on information into business models based on
images and narratives. -William B.
Without becoming bogged down in the definition of what information is
or waxing philosophical, I believe advertising is necessary in a
History of Information course. Whether one perceives advertising as a
simple informative tool or demonizes it as an invasive marketing force
which is now “waging war on... schools, on youthful identities, [and]
on the concept of nationality” (Klein), it is irrefutable that the
pervasiveness of advertising and the influence of branding in our
everyday lives has a profound impact on the way we receive information.
The notion of branding and the importance of image has been apparent
since the 18th century (McKendrick). However it was not until the
mid-latter 20th century that we experienced a paradigm shift, where
corporations began to project the image of their products rather than
the articles themselves (Klein). With an ever-increasing demand for
advertising outlets and brand presence spiraling upward (and out of
control, as Klein notes), we are faced with more forms of ads
everywhere we look. No longer confined to the canvas of billboards and
screens of televisions, brand “philosophies” pervade our everyday life
as companies attempt to interweave the idea of their products with our
everyday experience. For good or bad, the flurry of advertising in
today's world certainly affects the way we sort, prioritize, and
process information we receive. - Mark D.
McKendrick's article seems more about the history of Wedgwood's pottery
and advertising techniques, rather than something that is relevant to a
history of information class. Similarly, Klein's article focuses on
branding, which McKendrick talks about as well with Wedgwood's concept
of “fashion”, and the ad campaigns that various companies have used to
sell their products to the world. None of which seems relevant for a
history of information class. I base relevance compared to other solid
parts of information. Such as the telegraph, it fundamentally changed
the transmission and reception of information, and caused a giant shift
in the culture of the time. Advertising, branding, and marketing,
however, while interesting to learn about seem to be irrelevant for a
course on the history of information. Now one could argue that it was a
way of communicating certain messages to the public, but at best it is
a cultural log that future generations can look upon to learn something
about what cultures were like at that time. In that way it is relevant.
Advertising, branding, marketing could all serve to provide some sort
of information about a certain time period. But the question is whether
that is relevant, or important, enough to merit including it. It most
certainly does not outweigh the telegraph, television, the Internet,
even the postal system. All have more to contribute to a class on the
history of information due to their importance to the world in terms of
the change they have brought. -Pratik
I think unquestionably a history of information course should deal with
the practice of advertising. The history of information is really a
history of human expression and communication; that history would be as
dull as a listing of annual temperatures if humans had not our tendency
to lie, dissemble, and promote ourselves at every opportunity. Besides,
advertising tends to motivate new forms of information technology and
new methods of transmission - in Wedgwood's case, it necessitated "one
of the most brilliant and sustained campaigns in the history of
consumer exploitation, (104)" in which he targeted specific classes,
issued placement instructions to shopkeepers, and set up showrooms
across the country, among many other innovations. Naomi Klein's
argument that corporate advertising is a plague of the senses and a
culturally destructive force signifies only that it is important, and
merits study. Whether or not branding and advertising lead to
homogeneity of culture or artificially high prices or economic
inequality is secondary to whether or not we should count them as
informational practices. I say they are, and very important ones. That
said, professors probably ought to reject offers of class sponsorship
if they have the means to avoid it. -Ryan S.
Since advertising influences how information is spread and the type of
information that is communicated, it certainly does belong in a
“History of Information” class. McKendrick described how Wedgewood’s
aggressive business strategy of utilizing high-society associations
improved the “fashion” of his wares. His marketing techniques caused
his business to become notorious; information about his achievements
and new products spread through all classes of society and across
national borders. One of his advertising strategies was to make
publicly available a copy of a traditionally hidden Barberini vase.
“His reproduction of the vase caught the imagination of the whole
continent. Every detail of the mythology behind the case was eagerly
discussed and Wedgewood’s name circulated through every European
court.”(114) Wedgewood also controlled the method of information
distribution; “certain forms of advertisement he would never
countenance. He banned his showrooms from using handbills,”(123-123)
while encouraging the use of “personal introduction in the shape of
traveling salesmen.”(126) In her article, Klein goes beyond mentioning
new methods of information distribution (billboards) to discuss a new
type of information storage – branding and logos. Having started as a
marketing strategy component, a brand or a logo now communicates to a
consumer an incredible amount of information about the personality of
the company and the quality of the product. It is interesting to see
that brands convey so much information that “Philip Morris purchased
Kraft for $12.6 billion - six times what the company was worth on
paper” (Klein) because they perceived the brand name to be worth so
much. Advertising, like other social forces, shapes the development of
information in many ways. -Frances
Advertising and the production of brand names falls into the umbrella
of "information" as they, at the core, deal with communication and
distribution of information. The idea of associating messages with and
the power of brand images is similar to the use of ideograms to
represent and convey ideas. In Klein's paper, she notes how advertising
is often referred to as "experimental communication", which shows ties
of advertising to communication and information technologies. She also
refers to the "brand identity" and "corporate consciousness", which has
influences on "commercial culture" and the public sphere.
McKendrick's description of the commercialization of pottery shows the
effect that advertising have on the public sphere. McKendrick points
out that Wedgwood's products are "considerably more expensive" and have
high production costs. He argues that Wedgwood's success centers on
market strategies and "capturing the world of fashion". Using the
prestige of royal patrons, Wedgwood was able to convey a sense of
nobility to his wares, and was able to sustain the "costly enthusiasms"
of the pottery craze. The dissemination of information, i.e.
communication, the power of the public, and the importance of ideas,
i.e. those imbodied in brands, are all keep themes in the history of
information. Advertising is an excellent example of the interaction
between these ideas, and should therefore be examined in a study of the
history of information. - Yiding
Advertising does belong in a history of information class. While Klein
focuses on the ‘brand’ and the aggressive marketing strategy pursued by
advertisers as only one ‘part’ of a complex culture, the fact that
advertising itself saturates the culture enough to call “sponsored life
a truism” makes it worthy of being called information – although it is
irritating, useless, information that attempts to influence consumers
into buying often non-existent products using “ingenious
gimmicks”. McKendrick takes a more society-centered role in
his article, showing how the new affordability and potential
acquisition of pottery caused society’s crazed appetite for Wedgewood
pottery, and how Josiah Wedgewood himself skillfully exploited the
masses, changing attitudes from the “pursuit of ceramic luxury by the
rich into the pursuit of useful…pottery for the many” (Pg. 103) through
not only noble advertising, as evidenced by Louis XV and cream-colored
‘Queenware’, but also by choosing to pursue a fashion, not a single
product or product line. Innovation and quality alone were not enough
to corner the market, due to cheap imitations, but with intelligent
advertising behind him, Wedgewood could – and did – become a common
household name, with the sales to prove it. Therefore,
advertising does belong in a history of information class. - Diane
Advertising belongs in a history of information class because
information plays a critical role in the consumption of products and
the creation of a market for a product. For example, McKendrick
indicates how Wedgewood pottery became reknowned through the
circulation of information. Wedgewood pottery, though higher priced
than many competitors, used "proper and noble introduction" by arbiters
of taste to become an aspirational brand. Even if people could not
afford the more costly Wedgewood products, the association with
nobility raised the status of more humble products created by the
company. In addition, information played a role in the design of
products, with Wedgewood creating pottery inspired by historical events
and cultural tastes. Klein's description of the rise of branding, which
shifted the focus from the product produced to the image of the brand,
also shows how information plays a role in advertising. The creation of
a successful brand is primarily a matter of spreading information,
about the way that a product can contribute to a person's lifestyle,
and by associating the brand with an aspect of personal identity or a
desired experience. - Jessica M.