Subliminal seduction (advertising)
ellen lupton- postmodern interest
first design researchers this was her ground breaking work, one chapter of her book, design writing reaserch they explore idea of design advertising.
context...
lupton esay is trying to take issue with subliminal advertising with how its being done
gonna say even though she disagrees, thinks it indirecty tells us somehting that is important
the point is that the connotations of things are really important, it may point at something
a lot of it comes to the invisible effects of designs
interested not just in the direct imagery but as interested in unconsious effects of images
in context of advertising their explored in commercial sense
lupton
interested in multi perspecive thinking and interpratation (post modern)
structures of social control
both big things for post modernists so you expected her to be receptive to the idea of subliminal advertising but she dosent and shes critical, but think it locates an important truth.
sublinimal advertsing
depends on the way we read an image, a book by bryan wilson 'sublimnal seduction' he makes the case that advertising in the period had being coded to be explicit and tryng to arouse people but in an un obvious way.
an image may seem simple but if you explre it it;s explicit talking about the gin advert (Gilbey's)
start to pick out strange features- sexually
his point is that even though you done consiously register it, it influences you materially- semiotic connection, unconsious desire
lupton says about byran wilsons essay on this advert...
look at what he actually does in the book (passage)
she clams that he loathes the whole thing
she notes the connection between reading ambigious images and the wordplay of advertising (puns) postmodernists are intereted in the idea of double coding
but she thinks their is a form of persuasion
goes through his essay and sees how he is steering the atention, he says that the image is steering the atention but the thing that is actualy doing that is bryan wilson not the image itself
bacically claiming he constructs it in the first place
he ques us to lok for the letters, makes us think its there
its a clever stratagy to get us to read the form in a concretae fashion based on somehitng you cant and can see
after having established sexual content, he asks us to look for erotic images
he can only get us to beleive if he has got us to think about it in this way in the first place
-she casts doubt on the effecivity of subliminal advertising, it was bryans book that started the hype in the 1970's, but she says its not a document its somehting that constructs it in the first place. she thinks hes brought his own frame of reference to it and is selling books from it.
its not there is an image thats doing it, its the staging if the iage and how it works, she dsoent agree with the sublimary, but nt because of the images but because of the way they are staged.
in this ad, their is an illusion to sexual content, its implied.
the innocent staging of the ad, semitocally makes that idea
starts building on it..
wilsons book creates a culture of sublimary advertsiing that advertisers buy into and like because they think it works, campaigns that play with the idea of subliminary advertising
point is that you bring the frame of refernce, you deicde what you see. if you come with that frame of reference you will have heard of it and know.
they are dilibratly starting to do it, now they use more obvious subliminal coding
wilson constructs a whoe mode of advertisng when he talks about it already existing but once it has been done it has a life of its own and moves its way thrugh culture.
the posotive stage of her argument
- there are ideological/ subliminal effects if advertising to do with the stagig of somehting
the truth is the issue of repesentation
view point of somehting and how you put that in context
