Two opinion writers debate whether marketing can be considered an art form
Yes: Ben Turner
What is art?
It’s a question that plagues scholars to this day. Is it defined tangibly — paintings, sculptures, photos, music, etc.? Or is it based on intent — what is the goal of the creation?
Can something be commercialized and be art? Are commercials and advertisements art?
I say yes, because I think art is a creation meant mainly to stir emotion. That doesn’t mean art can’t be practical and serve another purpose, even if that purpose is to sell a product. The main goal of marketing is to sell your product, but in order to do that you must first elicit an emotion from the consumer.
The best advertisements don't play to left-brained things like cost, efficiency or functionality. They play to emotion. Why does Sarah McClaughlin’s music play over pictures of dogs in need of adoption? Why does Old Spice use a muscular man on a horse? Why does Dos Equis introduce us to the most interesting man in the world?
Every good advertisement plays to some emotion — whether it’s jealousy, lust, sympathy, patriotism, humor or whatever’s needed to get the viewer to think and react.
Just because the end goal is commercial doesn’t mean the creation can’t be considered art. After all, do traditional artists not sell their paintings and sculptures?
Sometimes artistic marketing doesn’t even have to be commercial — non-profit ads like the “Crying Indian” and "This is Your Brain on Drugs" have sparked debate and action, and "We Can Do It" featuring Rosie the Riveter is part of the National Archives.
Visionaries have seen the art inherent in marketing. Andy Warhol’s pop art saw the value in labels, including his famous "Campbell’s Soup" painting. Steve Jobs has been hailed as a master artist with Apple’s "1984", "Think Different" and "I’m a Mac" campaigns. Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster now hangs in the Smithsonian. Norman Rockwell, hailed as a great American artist, drew ads for Jell-O.
Why do we idolize Super Bowl commercials? Is it because we seek to buy the products advertised, or to admire the visuals, be moved to laughter by Doritos or tears by Budweiser, and come together to appreciate art?
Sure, not every advertisement has great artistic value or quality. But neither does every piece of fine or performance art. A tagline, slogan or jingle may stick in your mind just as long as poetry, literature or music. Marketing, just like more traditional art, can be self-referential (Geico’s “everybody knows that”), powerful (Dove’s “real beauty”) or offensive (Nationwide’s “make safe happen”).
So the next time you see an advertisement think about what response the marketer is trying to elicit out of you. If it’s effective, appreciate it as a work of art.
No: Ben Crawford
The greatest trick advertising ever played is disguising itself as art.
Art, ultimately, concerns experience by proxy, change and challenge. Advertising is about making the consumer unfulfilled, addicted and discontent. Both can present themselves in the similar ways — with flashy visuals, emotional undertones and narrative — but their end goals could not be more different.
Advertising concerns manufacturing discontent and the relation of humans to objects, while art is concerned with the connections between human beings and contentment through struggle. Advertising creates need to
Art is the answer to humankind’s greatest failure: the inability to escape from the 500 or so square inches of grey mush that stores every memory, every experience and every imagined projection of future events we'll ever have. It is the only medium through which we can interact with the direct mental workings of other people. It is, as I have written before elsewhere, is a form of telepathy. An image, created in the mind, is put to the page through which others draw out that image, and re-creating it in their imaginations.
Advertising is the answer to one question: how do we get people to give away their money?
Advertising agents spend all of their time trying to find a way to chip at people’s sense of contentment and promise a quick and easy restoration through their chosen product. Don Draper of "Mad Men" says it best: "[The] most important idea in advertising is 'new.' It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion."
It’s true — art can be bought and sold. As Samuel Johnson, one of the most pithy men who ever lived, said: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” But the aesthetic experience of painting is the same whether one buys or steals it. Art functions as its own draw and cannot be advertised except through its own experience. (Remember, anyone who recommends or reviews a piece of art can only speak for their experience with the book, and cannot predict how you might handle it. No two people can read the same book.)
Art, like advertising, can also have intention. It can promote a specific ideology or thought or idea. The difference is that, in art, this intention is to challenge perception. Advertising is about reinforcing perceptions and relating objects to the reinforcement of those already-accepted ideas. When Coca-Cola tells its viewers to #MakeItHappy, they are using a universal goal “happiness” to further the product.
Art shakes us; advertising soothes. Art creates mountains and challenges us to flatten them; advertising creates the illusion of treasure behind a gate, and asks us to give parts of ourselves in order to pass.
This, if nothing else, are the two irreconcilable differences between the two concepts.