Advertisements are one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our life today. They are ubiquitous, an inevitable part of everyone’s lives; even if you do not need a newspaper or watch television, the images posted over our urban surroundings are inescapable.
By analysing advertisements and shops in the following, one can see how the concept of ‘lifestyle’ influence the way clothes are presented in these mediums.
“A Brand is a communication of names, slogans, logos, products design, packaging; advertising and marketing that together give particular products or services a physical recognisable form”.
Brands of products in advertising have different categories. Within these categories, there is very little difference. Therefore advertisements aim to distinguish a difference to another particular product within the same category. It does this by providing a product with a certain ‘image.’
The brands we choose depict an image for us as individual’s brands have meanings that are different to all of us. The question is how do they acquire those meanings and who makes them? To answer this, you have to look at how brands, gather associations and references, and what they might mean to the people that buys them.
Below are examples of characteristic behaviour that we can see in branding of fashion, lifestyle and what we may describe generally as ‘consumer brands’ that is, the item of everyday life in the High Street. Some brands can be complex, entities and the combination of characters mirrors the complexities of consumer responses. But like people, brands often have a predominant character that identifies their personality.
LEVI STRAUSS
Levi Strauss & Co., are the oldest pair of denim work wear, although several brands claim this title. Levi’s was founded in San Francisco in 1853 and has secured the role of ‘original’ jeans makers.
Levi’s history is written into the actual fabric of each pair of jeans. The Two Horse label represents (probably fictional) nineteenth century promotional stunt, where a pair of Levi’s jeans were stretched between two horses that expired before the jeans split. The seam-strengthening rivet was introduced in the 1880’s and refined in the 1930’s so it no longer scratched seats and saddles. Even the introduction of the orange thread and the double stitching can be dated and accounted for. Each detail indicates the strength and workmanlike value for money of Levi’s jeans.
Jeans have become associated with ephemeral work of fashion. Levi’s is associated with the American Dream. This is the lifestyle that epitomises Levi Jeans. Since the early twentieth century, Levi’s has been associated with cowboy Wild West imagery that its competitor, Wrangler has also associated itself with. By conquering America’s frontier, Levi’s became a symbol of America itself. And in a world increasing dominated by American values and imagery, Levi jeans became synonymous with the freedom and possibilities of America. Jeans are the most democratic of all attire, the uniform of the masses. Moreover, jeans are unisex. Each pair of jeans is genetically (‘jean-etically’) connected to American values and we see each pair of jeans – whoever made them as the offspring of Levi’s.
The lifestyle associated with Levi jeans is casual and for everyone. Everyone is most likely to own a pair of jeans or have worn one in their time. Jeans are worn by both sexes and are available in many brands. Levi is the top brand of jeans in its market and their advertisements depict this as they are fashionable and stylish and one pays more than you would pay for a pair of jeans with no brand.
Figure 1. Levi Strauss & Co., Jeans.
© Levi Strauss & Co. San Francisco. Courtesy Levi Strauss & Co. Archives, San Francisco.
Benetton
Benetton is an Italian clothing company notorious for its controversial advertising by the guidance of its art director Oliverio Toscani. Benetton clothes are conventional but promote it as provocative and often controversial. The brand is kept highly visible because of its contrary statements about the fashion industry. In 1984 Toscani initiated the ‘United Colors of Benetton’ slogan, allowing the brand to be inclusive of ethnic, cultural and other diversity. Benetton adverts do not always model their clothes. The most successful campaigns causing an outcry of media and public attention have been of people dying and of the new born.
This image is from a 1998 Benetton advertising campaign featuring children with Downs Syndrome. The message is that their distinctive appearance is counter to typical ideals of beauty and half formulised by the fashion industry. By commenting on conventional truths contained within branded messages and questioning our preconceptions, the brand appeals to the discernment and intelligence of the consumer.
Figure 2. Benetton Sunflowers Campaign, Autumn/Winter 1998.
© O.Toscani/Benetton.
Sports brand are associated with a particular lifestyle of sporting activities/however this is not always so as brands such as Adidas and Nike have become more of fashion items than a commodity for sporting activities. This is a prime example of how the lifestyle of a certain group of individuals who prefer sports cloths that casual everyday wear clothes. For example, jogging trousers may not be used for jogging.
Style plays a conspicuous role in our modern society which there is three general arenas:
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Style is a critical factor defining one self. As one interacts with other people –intimates and stranger alike- style is a way of stating who one is: politically, sexually, in terms of status and class. Style is an instrument of conformity, or of opposition. Style conveys mood. We are judged and judge people by style. It is often mistaken for subjectivity. “To ‘have a lot of style’ is an accolade of remarkable personhood.”
- The way we understand society has to do with style. In the process, substance becomes unrecognisable. Large corporations, employing thousands and exerting power on a global scale invest millions to cultivate a palatable corporate image and style. People who have to keep up a certain reputation in the public reply on style to build and maintain themselves to a certain high standard as they are seen and judged by others.
- Last, within our society, style has come to compromise a basic form of information. We live in a world which we inhabit and style is a powerful element of consciousness.
These three arenas have developed dramatically in the twentieth century American life. They are underpinned and continuously shaped by vast industries whose basic product is style.
“I create the image that people want to see. It’s up to me to fake people out… to in a sense…. Basically you lie to people. You create… you create a picture and they adapt to that picture. You can bring people up in taste level, you can bring them down in taste level just by what you create, what you put in it… And it’s just pulling together elements which work with whatever you’re trying to sell.”
This is a quote from an interview with a photographic stylist, James B. His work appears in major advertising campaigns. Here he describes that he creates style that his clients want to see. It is all about selling and how you go about selling by advertising successfully. This is connected to lifestyle because here James B creates a particular lifestyle to put in his advertisements that consumers believe they will get by buying the items they see in advertisements. It is about how successful they are advertised so that the consumer will want to buy that item as they believe a certain lifestyle will go with it which it may or may not depending on their social background. For example, someone who has a lower-class social status may be a fake copy of a designer item such as Louis Vuitton designer bags because they believe they will be recognised as a higher social group if they buy this item. This is because a particular lifestyle is associated with a particular brand in clothes and in shops of different price-ranges.
Instead of being identified by what they produce, people are made to identify themselves with what they consume. We are made to feel that what we are able to buy can effect how we can rise or fall in society. This however obscures the actual class basis which still underlies social position. Class differences are the fundamental difference in our society.
This overlay is ideology. ‘Ideology is the meaning made necessary by the condition of society while helping to perpetuate those conditions.” We feel need to belong to have a social ‘place’; it can be hard to find. Instead we may be given an imaginary one. All of us have a genuine need for a social being a common culture. The mass media provide this to some extent and can (potentially) fulfil a positive function in our lives.
We can analyse advertisements by what they mean and how they work. We can do this by looking at a sign, signifier and signified. “A sign is simply a thing- whether object, word, or picture- which has a particular meaning to a person o groups of people. It is neither the thing nor the meaning alone, but the two together.
The sign consists of the Signifier, the material object, and the signified, which is its meaning. These are only divided for analytical purposes: in practice a sign is always thing-plus-meaning.”
When a product is produced, firms segment their consumer markets. They are broken into five categories:
- Geo-demographic factors.
- Geographic factors.
- Lifestyle of psychographic factors.
- Benefits sought.
- Demographic factors.
This then helps the first to decide who their target market is. From here on, the advertising takes place and this is how the lifestyle of the advertisement is produced, by looking at the market segments for different categories for different types of clothes displayed in shops and advertisements.
There are characteristics of lifestyle groups which are taken into account when creating an advertising campaign for a particular product of clothing in shops and advertising. The characteristics are applied to the advertisements to attract a certain lifestyle group. This is different for every brand of clothing as each has a different consumer market.
Survivors 4 per cent
The most disadvantaged group. The old, poor, sick and those with little education.
Sustainers 7 per cent
Those who live on the edge of poverty. They do not suffer from the depression and hopelessness of survivors and aim to ‘get on’. Many operate in the underground economy.
Belongers 39 per cent
The large group who make up the solid middle class. They are stable, patriotic, conservative and content with their lives. Their key drive is to fit in and not stand out.
Emulators 8 per cent
They are ambitious, upwardly mobile, status conscious, competitive and want to make it big’. Mainly young, they have little faith in ‘the system’.
Achievers 20 per cent
These are the leaders in society. Mainly middle ages. Affluent, successful, hard working and materialistic, they would defend the economic status quo.
I-am-me 3 per cent
They are young, impulsive and individualistic.
Experiential 6 per cent
They are passionately involved with others and tend to be attracted to the strange, mystic or natural. Often the most artistic people.
Socially conscious 11 per cent
They have a high sense of social responsibility. Often do volunteer work and live simple, frugal lives. Ten to support causes.
Integrated 2 per cent.
They are psychologically mature. Self-assured. Well-balanced and able to see many sides of an issue.
Figure 3. The characteristics of lifestyle groups
“The basis on which good repute in any highly organised industrial community ultimately rests in pecuniary strength: and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.”
Advertising is a strong medium used to promote products. Particularly the way clothes and shops are represented through advertising emulate a concept of lifestyle through characteristics in advertising. These characteristics include brand image, identity, market segmentation and consumption of style. Each individual person has a different lifestyle. They choose clothing products according to their lifestyle. Advertisements are aimed at a particular lifestyle, be it for casual ware, formal wear or to differentiate the different social groups of which have been discussed.
Featherstone, M. “The Body in Consumer Culture”, taken from The Body: Social Process & Cultural Theory 1991, also quoted in Bocock, R, Consumption, 1993.
Willams, Gareth. Branded? Products and their personalities. 2000. P. 7.
Tomlinson, Alan. Consumption, Identity and Style. 1990. P. 43.
The interview comes from the oral history research reported in All Consuming Images: the Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture, New York: Basic Books, 1988. Quoted in Tomlinson, A. Consumption, Identity and Style. P. 51.
Williamson Judith. Decoding Advertisements. Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. P. 13.
Williamson, Judith. Decoding Advertisements. Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. P. 17.
Source: Adapted from values and Lifestyles of Americans, SRI International, 1983. Taken from Success in marketing and Market Segmentation handout. P. 78-79.
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Mentor, 1953, p. 70). Taken from Tomlinson, Alan, Consumption, Identity and Style. P. 1.