The Rhetorics of Creativity

The are nine Rhetorics of creativity.

"The rhetorics of creativity are given names which broadly correspond to the main theoretical underpinnings or the ideological beliefs of those who deploy them." Banaji, Shakuntala (2008)

Creative Genius
Democratic & political creativity challenge
Ubiquitous creativity
Creativity for social good
Creativity as economic imperative
Play & Creativity
Creativity & cognition
The creative affordance of technology
The creative classroom


As I have touched on this campaign briefly before, I thought it would be interesting to look at the Rhetoric which stands behind the...

The VW Fun theory

This campaign is a good example how creativity can be used for social good, and in the case of the fun theory it ties VW as a brand to a principal of improving human behaviour, experience and conscience in a way that will better themselves, their loved ones and the community.

Speed camera lottery - "The winning idea of the fun theory award, submitted by Kevin Richardson, USA. Can we get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do? This was the question Kevin’s idea answered and it was so good that Volkswagen, together with The Swedish National Society for Road Safety, actually made this innovative idea a reality in Stockholm, Sweden."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA
Fun belt - "Can we ensure everyone keeps their safety belt on by making it fun to do? This is another of the ideas that made it to the final of the fun theory award, created by Nevena Stojanovic from Serbia. The idea is being tested in Sweden in the hope it could be applied to all vehicles in the future."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AbQSE4ZKvk#t=31
Bottle bank arcade - Many of us return our plastic bottles and cans. Noticeably fewer recycle their glass. Maybe that's because we don't get any money in return, as we do for cans and plastic. Can we change this attitude by making recycling glass fun to do? So you are not just rewarded with a good conscience, you also get a smile. See the results here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSiHjMU-MUo
Piano stairs - "”Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do? See the results here"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw
Worlds deepest bin - "To throw rubbish in the bin instead of onto the floor shouldn’t really be so hard. Many people still fail to do so. Can we get more people to throw rubbish into the bin, rather than onto the ground, by making it fun to do? See the results here."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw


The idea behind the fun theory is that people will be more willing to change their behaviour if it is fun to do. Volkswagen use the theory to promote the use of their environmental cars. This campaign is a great example of a way in which advertising as an industry can improve its relationship with the public, along with improving the impact that its work has on the world, environment and obviously the people it reaches out to. Their is an underlying message of responsiblity that is attached to the brand in a way that doesn't simply scream "look at us making economic cars", It simply says "look at how we can make a difference."





Bibliography

Banaji, Shakuntala (2008) Creativity: exploring the rhetorics and the realities (available  at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27362/1/Creativity_exploring_the_rhetorics_and_the_realities_(lsero).pdf)

Simulacra, the problem of meaning and reality

Plato's cave brief summary.

Plato uses a simile of the projections within the cave to describe the reality that the public see. this is however not actually a reality, it is a simulacrum.

The movement through the writing describes how as each simulation is toppled by the discovery of what creates it, a new reality is born in the mind, because of a new, higher understanding of what reality is.

Plato believed there was a higher reality even than the one in which he was living, beyond what he called the world of appearances.

Visual Culture a brief summary.

This text discusses the flattening of meaning. It discusses the line between reality and simulacrum being crossed completely within art and media.

The point is made that this simulacrum has been produced through the forcing of meaning, within the media, to a point at which the reality portrayed is not actually a reality.

The viewers own sense of reality is changed to a hyper-reality produced by images being repeated without meaning, disconnecting from relevance to the audience, in a cycle that simply pushes itself further from any form of reality.

Jean Baudrillard : Simulacra and Simulation. Brief summary of text.

"To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have." Baudrillard discusses in the first section of the text, the divine irreference of images, how simulation is much more complicated than this initial discription. He uses the example of the simulation of illness. On one hand you have the person who fakes an illness by simply telling people they are ill, this leaving the "principal of reality intact." The dissimulator knows the difference themself, they are simply masking the truth. However where reality is put to trial, is with the simulator. If someone simulates an illness, they have produced the symptoms of the illness in themselves. Baudrillard states it is in this scenario that the "difference between the true and the false, the real and the imaginary" is threatened. Here the question of wether the simulator is ill or not is difficult to answer because in reality they produce the same symptoms as if they were actually afflicted with said illness. This scenario is translated to the loss of meaning through reference to medicine. If any symptom can be produced, then any illness could simply be simulated and medicine, which treats the "physical cause" for said illness, becomes meaningless because the line between what is really causing the illness, psychosomatic or physical, is blurred and you cannot treat a cause that is not there.

Baudrillard moves on to discuss the idea of simulacra in religion. Having looked at the iconoclasts destruction of worshiping idols, as they dissimulate god through representing what is supposedly represented in the conscience and cannot be seen. He questions whether god himself can be indeed just simulated, through being reduced to the signs that constitute faith. A good example for this is the apparition of God. Because the idea is given to those who hold faith in god, that he may appear to a person, or have a divine affect on said person, this supposedly being suggested as a sign of the reality of that faith, through the possibly dissimulated messages preached, from which origin of that religion stems, by the same idea of the simulacrum, any apparition or divine happening could have been simulated by the subconscious of the believer, that is to say that the subconscious may be simulating the sign from outside the physical control of the person, and this then questions whether God can be real or just a mass combination of dissimulation and the following simulation that has resulted in the simulacrum that is the belief in God.

In regards to the media, Baudrillard's hypothesis, within the implosion of meaning in the media, says that because of the way in which information is so heavily subscribed to in modernity, through so many different channels, there is a distinct loss of meaning because of the hyper acceleration of when, where and how it is received.
"Whoever is under-exposed to the media is desocialized or virtually asocial. Everywhere information is thought to produce an accelerated circulation of meaning" however instead the channels by which people receive this information are simply over saturated leaving no room for specific meaning, just a blanketed environment of mass information devouring its own content.

In Advertising ground zero, the idea of advertising having moved out of simple publicity, of a consumable product, is suggested. A comparison is drawn to the social. Where in advertising is said to have lost any form to a point where it does not have its own substance, through its consumer, but simply through the simulation of the modern social mechanism. Advertising is simulacra, much as the public domain is, meanings that have been dissimulated and simulated time and time over to the point where they drive themselves to more production of signs and meanings and the difference between what is real (information) and what is social simulation has been lost.

Social campaigns

Social campaigns are a method of attaching a brand to a message or idea that can be communicated, spread, discussed and acted upon through public interaction, most often spread through the use of social media sights etc.

An example i have collected to show the success of this relatively new method is the Volkswagen Blue motion Fun Theory.

The campaign has taken the fundamental idea behind the Bluemotion technology, making our planet healthier, and found fun, interactive ways of promoting the idea. The basic formula is that first you get people thinking about the aim of a healthier planet, and in turn there is then the connection made that Volkswagen care too, in fact they have made it 'fun' and easy to get excited about a change in lifestyle.
The reason for the success behind this approach to advertising is that it makes a connection between the brand and their audience, this allows a much more personal relationship and association between the two.
A big change that social media is bringing to advertising is a need to find new ways to connect with your audience in a personal way, getting people to not only see your advertising, but become part of it, feel included, and in turn agree with the brand on a level that they will go onto use their product.

Post modernism 1980s laundrette ad

The Livi's laundrette ad could be described as post modernism due to is use of parody and irony. It takes an approach that lacks any seriousness and made the brand much more approachable to the younger audience they hoped to capture with it. Above all the ad pushed boundaries and commented on social norms at the time.

I have chosen this burger king ad as a contemporary example of the use of postmodernism within an ad. The ad takes advantage of word play and implies connection with a slightly perverse theme. The ad embodies a post modern approach through its disregard for any seriousness and simply attempts to use socially shocking imagery in combination with copy that seeks to impress the audience with its sheer cheek.

1970s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gLCj9qXfp4

The Cadbury smash advert (linked above) gives good insight into the lifestyle of the 1970s. With fairly recent changes to the hierarchy and general working of society there were very high figures, in comparison to previous years, of women working, it was through this, a long with the fast pace of the 70's that people wanted to get home from work and prepare things quickly and easily.

The 70's were a time of futuristic design along with an obsession with space travel (the space race and recent moon landings) and it was for this reason that the now very humorous space robots were successful and enjoyed characters.

I have chosen to look in comparison at the 2009 eyebrows advert that Cadbury launched. While these ads are for different products, you can still see similarities in the brand's fun personality. The key difference is as can be expected with a hugely popular brand like Cadbury, the need to display the product is reduced. This allows more creative freedom as when you have a brand that everyone knows the importance on product promotion is less and it is more of a case of keeping up a standard of relationship with the public, reminding them that the brand is still here and still trying to keep people amused.

The real Mad Men

The the environment in the late 1950's into the 1960's was one of extraordinary flux. culturally the 'birth' of the teenager had added an entirely new group to the world. During this time there were the coming and going of millions of new ideas, creativity was exploding into the fore front of society and along with it the the rise of an era of change was occuring.

It is within this period of new ideas that advertisers like George Lois, Bill Bernbach, Jerry Femina etc where starting to really fight for a change to the idioms that were running the advertising industry. It was the bad name that advertising had been accoladed with, due to the dishonest and uninspired work of the account people, that drove people like Bernbach to make work that reflected what the public were feeling at the time, and communicate products with them in a responsible and genuine way. The creative revolution was beginning with Dane Doyle Bernbach (DDB) being recognised as an agency at its lead, only taking on work that they felt was justified, being honest about the product, and thinking about the public's needs and ambitions by understanding the cultural eruption that was occurring.

The think small campaign was without a doubt a risk. It not only went against the styles that cars were being advertised in at the time, but it was taking a product with a difficult job a head of it and being brutally honest about it. The interesting thing about the ad is the pure creativity and whit behind it. It was launched in the full swing of the 'creative revolution' and had people very nervous about launching it, causing much argument at the forward thinking DDB agency. I believe the reason that this campaign epitomises the creative revolution is what it stands for, Confidence and honesty, but above all the ad embodies the breaking away from the tried and tested repetition method being used by the old breed of advertisers. The industry was learning that fear of failure was holding it back, and this radical ad not only bewildered many with its success but went to prove that the age of risky creativity was coming and was going to stay.

Art & Copy

I think what was most interesting about the documentary is the raw and very revealing way in which the people interviewed speak about the industry.
The passion that people like Lee Clow and Dan Wieden have for what they do is incredibly inspiring. more than anything this film documents what the heart and soul of advertising really are. The film really allows you to see how advertising is an art form and an industry like no other. Highlighting the need for fearless, intelligent and honest ideas because of the huge affect advertising has within everybody's lives.