branding

Advertisement may be the most telling precursor for the brimming sentiments of the collective esteem. It carries the capacity to project the unarticulated yearnings of the collective culture. This, because advertisement enables the most basic appeal of trade. It utilizes persuasion. How to sell you. How to scare you. How to entice you.

Along with the longings of the collective esteem, the context of persuasion is ever-changing. Advertisement always has to be a step ahead. In a way, it's the most conniving, disingenuous, and perverse art form. In another, it may be the most apt and championing. To persuade is to understand, to exploit a sense of empathy.

There has been a transformation in the ad world in recent years, especially in commercial advertising. As some of the more contemporary consumer powerhouses are commissioning their campaigns out to trendier ad houses, we see an influx in commercials being made as art. This corresponding with directors such as Roman Coppola, Spike Jonze and Gondry being open to the advertising medium. As a result, we see commercials that are more abstract expressionist pieces having little to do with the actual product. Take the iPOD campaigns for example, they have less to do with selling you the iPOD, and more with reminding you that it's Apple-made.

As the Scientologist call it (worked at ArcLight for a couple months), the smart companies aren't trying to force feed, but rather 'clock-building' -- branding themselves, sustaining for the future. Advertising is unavoidable. Everything can be commodofied. And everything is. Consumer branding is inevitable. Branding is inherent in us. Hello, my name is Erik Ta.

I'm attaching an exemplars below. The first example's of abstract branding. The latter was a commercial by Cisco for their "Human Network" campaign which uses hope, idealism, responsibility, and collectivism as its main appeals, but it's been removed.