As evidenced in prior posts, sex appeal, celebrity endorsements, and alcohol have long been standard patterns in advertising. However, recent decades have revealed the emergence of a new category of products—technology. Will technology be advertised in the same familiarity that soap and food were marketed after the transition into the industrial factory age? By analyzing these technological advertising, I hope to discover not only what they reflect about current societal values, but how culture has changed in the recent decades as it becomes more technologically integrated.
All of these ads appeal to a narrow audience—the emerging young man raised during the transition of technological integration. He is full of ambitions, possibilities, and insecurities (maybe comparable to the Joe Briefcases of society). Technology companies not only have to connect with him now, but establish a bond of familiarity (like the Aunt Jemima ads before the Depression). This bond needs to be strong since today's young generation is used to comparing products and is less likely to commit to a certain brand. Moreover, they need to ensure consumers continue buying newer products as software is constantly updated. I think the ads I have chosen represent this new technological advertising pattern in three ways.
The first two ads (Intel and Mac) play off of the young businessman's direct surroundings. They claim to understand his insecurities and promise him a sense of power. There's no doubt that this young businessman loves the idea of intellectual superiority. Maybe the Intel ad reminds him of his high school days when he wasn't the best athlete? Well, Intel's new software can help him turn the tables. Or maybe the PC in the Mac video reminds him of his boss? Mac reaffirms his already perceived notion that his boss's outdated strategies are no match for his youth and creativity.
The third and fourth ad (Sprint and AT&T) bond with the consumer on a deeper level. They play off of his childhood memories and yearning for imagination. Because really, technology and business have no obvious connection to the innocence and spontaneity of childhood play. Rather, they're almost complete opposites. These ads offer a deeper reflection into the consumer's unconscious values and dreams (which conveniently, they claim, technology can help to achieve).
The last advertising (Nokia) treats technology on an entirely higher level. It still targets the emerging self-entitled man because it makes technology appear so secretive, serious, and important that it deserves its own CIA-like research group. He is probably flattered to think of his cubicle job and Blackberry as that important. Yet as the ad reaches its climax with Ash saying “I am the medium! I am the message!” it reflects just how incorporated technology has become in our lives. But is this change in ideology something we should fear? According to Nokia, of course not! While Wallace argued that ads of revolution (eg the Ford Revolution ad campaign) stem from the age of the baby boomers, this ad shows that technology is our generation's revolution.
It is our platform and it has us hooked.
A very interesting selection here. It seems like the ads provide two divergent portrayals of technology (1) that it fulfills our dreams, these are human-centric commercials, where technology is the indefinite dream, and (2) that it has a life of its own. Machine-centric commercials. A lot to work with.
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