Week 6 Submission- Readings

Ways of seeing- John Berger

Publicity – Berger explains the idea of how the visual identity of publicity is used to influence the audience and buyer/owner.

The purpose of publicity is to use the spectator owner’s image to make the spectator buyer dissatisfied with their way of life. The owner offers an improvement through envy. The idea that the buyer is in envy and is influenced by the publicity of the the owner. This is seen today in various adds especially using celebrities that create the idea of perfection and pleasure. Publicity cannot however be about the product itself however if it is to be effective, as Berger explains the idea of the pleasure of the product is what creates effective publicity, the idea the buyer will experience pleasure once they become the owner. A current example of this is seen with many product such as iPhones and cars, that offer through their publicity and design create the idea of excitement and pleasure once owned.

Berger does however suggest how different strategies are required for the working class. Publicity’s goal in advertising to the working class is a transformation through the purpose of the product, rather than the atmosphere created by it like the middle class. This can be seen in examples such as tool adds for ‘tradies’ that suggest the lack of ‘manliness’ of the spectator buyer compared to the spectator owner, such as ‘Tradie Tools’.

Today there are many areas of publicity that utilize famous paintings to “suggest a cultural authority, a form of dignity, even of wisdom…” The advertisement by ‘Alliance Francaise’ utilizes Van Gogh’s self portrait to grab the audience’s attention and as Berger suggests, creates he idea of cultural authority but also parody. Berger states that through this idea the viewer perceives this publicity as cultural, with a sense of wisdom and superiority compared to the normal ‘vulgar’ content of other ads.