Controversial Advertising Essay -- Subversive Advertising Media Market

IntroductionAdvertising texts and images seem to be the to the highest degree visible and ubiquitous icons of consumer society. The Advertising manufacture indeed has simultaneously become one of the most powerful and apparently most uncritical institutions of today as well as this, people seemingly have accepted billboard advertising as an usual part of their environment. Neverthe little there sometimes develop certain advertising campaigns undergoing general ideas about what ads are supposed to show and they hence awake controversial public debates. So called controversial advertising has often been claimed to somehow subvert conventional advertisings practice by the audiences, justice, advertisers, companies, advertising industrys self regulating institutions and so forth. This now rises the question how far industrial advertising as an institution that has to promote consuming goods, can be subversive.This essay will work out, that advertising hardly can be subversive, because it is to much characterised by its function. It nevertheless firstly is necessary to mouldulate a working-definition of subversion, a notion that has been used in very different senses, before two example-cases of controversial advertising can be investigated. The integration of ad-alien contents within the Benetton-campaign indeed will be analysed as a form of aesthetic subversion to subsequently question exactly the images ad-alien and supposed subversive form and content. Thus, it will be shown that Benettons subversive potentials are overshadowed by their functions as advertisements. This works second part will look at two campaigns veritable for French Connection. By investigating two campaigns it will be shown that the only form of subversion that might be claimed for advertising could possibly be expound as a temporary phenomenon of charming subversion.Controversial advertising subversive avant-garde or variations of conformity?The notion subversive has been associated with political issues and revolutionary activities intending to multifariousness the entire political, economic and hence societal order by slowly destroying the present system from its core. Simultaneously the notion has been used in a less ubiquitous sense, that might be more appropriate for this works purpose. Vogel for example in Film as a insurgent Art open up the notions of Subversion of Form and Subve... ...ox, Henri, A. (1994) Disturbing Pleasures - Learning Popular Culture. London, Routledge.Jckel, Michael (2002)(no title given) uniform resource locator http//www.uni-trier.de/uni/fb4/soziologie/faecher/amk/folien/ss02/folien4_m.pdf (Visited 12.12.03)McLuhan, Marshall (1968) Die magischen Kanle. Understanding Media. Dsseldorf, Wien Verlag der Kunst.McLuhan, Newton P. (1996) Care Fakers URL http//www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.01.96/corp-care-9605.html (Visited 12.12.03)Tinic, Serra A. (1997) Unitied Colors and United Meanings Benetton and The Commodification of Soc ial Issues. URL http//joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/47/3/3.pdf (Visited 12.12.03)Toscani, Oliviero (1995) Die Werbung ist ein lchelndes Aas. Kln Bollmann.Vogel, Amos (1997) Film als Subversive Kunst. Kino wider die Tabus -von Eisenstein bis Kubrick. St. Andr-Wrdern Hannibal.White, Roderick (2000) Advertising. Fourth Edition. Glasgow McGraw-Hill. Wilson, Neil (1995) A Study Of The Relationship Between Benetton And Its Franchisees And The Impact A Controversial Campaign Can Have On The connectedness And On Company Sale. Aberystwyth University of Wales, Centre for Business Studies.