The article aims to circumscribe, on the one hand, the origins of modern advertising and its function in capitalist economy. On the other hand, it intends to map the basic signifying frameworks in the history of advertising-communication from its fin-de-siècle beginnings to our present day. One of the article’s theses is that advertising was born to conceal the abstractions of capitalism (the quantitative and levelling medium of money and the impersonal distancing of market participants), so as to provide a more humane tone for the communication of products and brands. The analysis of the three communication strategies (“out there”, “in there”, “in you”) is based on the hypothesis that the foci and methods of advertising were determined by economic, socio-cultural and media developments. Through its history, advertising has shifted from the sensual but impersonal exhibition of material goods (“out there”), through the emphasis on brands’ live, historical and symbolic character (“in there”), to “pure” communication that relies on the consumer and his active and free interaction with the brand (“in you”).
Annamária Hódosy: Advertising and the Postfeminist Power Discourse
Many feminist critics of “postfeminism” consider the representation of the political and sexual “freedom” of today’s women as a way of making them internalize the needs of power in postindustrial society. Accepting the importance of becoming beautiful and sexy – which increasingly get connected to social and political agency in the media – individuals willingly become ”subjects” by complying with the demands of consumer society via buying and using the products of the beauty industry. The consumption of these products on one hand promises making them “free” and “powerful” members of society, while on the other hand aims at their (self-)diciplining themselves to become “good” subjects.. The advertisements of these products, which all too often apply the rhetoric and imagery of “freedom” and “power” to articulate the aforementioned promises, may therefore be interpreted as technologies of power in the Foucauldian sense.
Anna Keszeg: Written and directed by Karl Lagerfeld: the genre of digital fashion film
The marketing tool called the digital fashion film appeared at the beginning of the 21st century as a result of a collaboration between fashion, film and advertising industry and offered to fashion brands an opportunity of self-positioning by a branded content with aesthetic ambitions. Presented at fashion film festivals and shared on online platforms, many sub-genres of the main form came to light. The analysis focuses on a fashion film based on classic drama-plot directed by Karl Lagerfeld using the concept of neo-baroque spectacle of Angela Ndalianis reinterpreting Gilles Deleuze’s notion of fold. Reincarnation was presented in 2014 and refers to the myth of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The paper places the short film in the context of the genre’s history and of the Chanel House’s marketing strategies.
Orsolya Milián: Video clip stories and web.2 pop-promo
Almost no attempt has been yet made to narrate the history of music videos in Hungarian scholarly discourse. The present essay aims both at filling this gap in and marking out new research directions. Conducting a media archeological research, this paper examines the film and other creative industrial contexts in which music videos came into being. It also investigates factors in media history that lead to the birth of MTV and the breakthrough of music videos. The essay proves that a grand narrative of music videos does not exist – rather, we should speak about histories of music videos. Besides outlining some of these histories, the essay reflects on the changes in the production, distribution and reception of music videos due to digital and participatory media (in order to understand these alterations, one has to take MTV and the so-called ’television model’ into account). Since music videos typically are marketing tools of the pop music industry, the essay highlights some of the most efficient business and marketing strategies.
These days we frequently run into the concept of creativity in business life. In our constantly changing world one of the best possible ways to meet the challenges – besides getting adapted to them – is using our creativity. In our paper, after describing the concept of creativity, we introduce the results of the September 2014 survey held among the students of BGF-KVIK and KKK with a sample size of 240 pax. With the questionnaire we tried to find out how the young people define creativity, what they think creativity means in commercials, how creative they find themselves and whether creativity can be improved or not.
Anna Szlávi: Billboard definions of gender
The present study focuses on the communication of billboards, from an unusual perspective. We will not analyze the main messages of ads, that is, what they are trying to sell and how. Instead, we will attempt to reveal their byproducts: the social frames and hidden gender definitions they utilize when promoting their products. Advertising does not only build on social stereotypes but it also shapes them. The repeated representation of certain relations and phenomena reinforces and normalizes them, while its lack marginalizes and pathologizes those relations and phenomena. According to adverts, the main pillars of masculinity are physical power, activeness, rationality, work and (heterosexual) sex. Femininity, on the other hand, is defined by complementing the dominant male, by her weakness, passiveness, sensitivity, her care for the home domain, and her sexual objectification. The article will expose that the gender representations of billboards nicely fit the larger context of popular culture. However, due to their formal constraints and necessity to sell, billboards define gender roles in even more restrictive and suffocating ways.
Ákos Varga: The discreet charm of consumer society: Mad Men
This essay undertakes the analysis of the Mad Men series, on the one hand approaching it from the perspective of contemporary series-culture, and on the other hand presenting the cultural, political, sociological aspects of this television production. The history of advertising, questions of gender, as well as the narrative and visual tricks of Mad Men are also included in the analysis.
The paper presents the changes of marketing communications tools in the field of American blockbuster film production as a result of the new technical environment provided by Web 2.0. These changes impact the values of filmmarketing, project management and the elements of marketing mix. The author discusses these changes of marketing strategy planning as they are synchronized with the vertically integrated film production process (production, distribution, exhibition).
Raymond Williams: Advertising: the magic system
Raymond Williams’ article on the history of advertisement gives insight into those strengthening processes in Great Britain, which became notable in the XVII. century, and which were fundamental in the emergence of the advertisement industry. The author studies the interrelations between the political, economic, social and cultural context of advertisement, the development of the organized and institutionalized system of advertising, and the changes in the actual methods of the advertisers. In his argument he focuses on particular political aspects, institutional decisions, and changes in production and the market, studying the elements which made advertisement a significant factor in society, commerce, and the capitalist business organisation. The article examines the social recognition of advertisement, the criticism of advertising, the alteration of methods and tools of advertising, and the functions of Public Relations. Finally, Williams presents the critique of capitalism, based on the advertising traditions of the “quack”.
