Media as Performance
“In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message”
“Waste - the perceived extravagance of an advertisement - contributes to advertising effectiveness by increasing credibility”
Another week and another stunt has been doing the rounds on social media. This time, The North Face and JD Sports have used the power of generative AI to wrap The Elizabeth Tower in one of TNF’s trademark Puffer jackets.
It’s been interesting to stop and examine the reaction to stuff like this. Alot of people are keen to emphasise the fact that the imagery we see is not real. Plenty of the advertising and marketing messages we’re exposed to on a daily basis aren’t real. Ronald McDonald is not going to sell you a Big Mac any more than the The Meerkats selling you your home insurance. There isn’t a benevolant Venus Fly Trap in existence which will dole out christmas presents. We accept these brand devices for what they are; characters in a loose ‘narrative’. A story being told to us to dramatise or accentuate a feeling or association that the marketing team want a consumer to make in their minds.
These characters have (largely) been established in the context of the TV ad break. By contrast, the use of Generative AI or other forms of CGI and the content these systems are being tasked with producing are often distributed by social media. A channel with a very different set of cultural codes, cues and ultimately expectations to other channels such as TV. At a time where people are concerned about the spread of false information - largely via social channels - do we fear, not unreasonably, that these ads represent a ‘trick’ or worse still, a sort of scam?
Another view - one suggested by Phil - is that these sorts of activations don’t create a meaningful connection with people because they’re percieved to be easy. That we (the audience) know how powerful the suite of tools involved is and we know how easily these sorts of things are to produce with tools like Midjourney: that they lack the ‘chutzpah’ and ‘gumption’ of those brands who commit to delivering these sort of stunts ‘IRL’.
This observation raises a good point about the value of waste in brand communications. The level of perceived waste or effort , implicitly communicates an awful lot to consumers. I guess the question which needs to be explored is this: Do consumers perceive ‘things’ where no cost of failure exists to be less valuable (impressive, memorable, attractive etc)?
With the technology now available, in theory, a brand like Red Bull could fake a man jumping from a vessel approaching the edges of our atmosphere rather than going to the trouble of actually doing it. But, is it important for a brand which organises itself around the idea of extreme performance to go to take risks and actually carry out the stunt? Of course it is.
Communication, in all it’s many guises, is an expression of a brand’s body language. Media is a performance. And the way a brand chooses to perform is a big signifier of what it holds to be true about the world, what it values, it’s culture. As Rob Campbell tells us: nothing says who you are like what you do.
The rise of Generative AI and the rapid democratisation of the tools and platforms associated with this technology will undoubtedly provide brands, creators and artists with a new and powerful tool kit through which they can express themselves. But, as always, the interesting issue will be when and how we choose to deploy them. Generative AI has the potential to flood the market with a certain type of image (Wes Anderson reimagines Marvel, Wes Anderson reimagines Harry Potter, Wes Anderson reimagines Lord of the Rings…. ) but also a certain type of ‘reality’ defying stunt: jackets on public landmarks, Motorised Handbags and the like. A set of things which, far from inspiring awe, may end up eventually inspiring apathy.
