A picture is worth…

I just trolled the net and found these culture jam examples.

Just so you all get a better idea of exactly the types of jams that happen and to what extent they deconstruct an existing advertisement and implant a new meaning with the same media tools.

Most of these are American ads – Walmart and Calvin Klein.
One theme targeted often is  portraying realities where people are imperfect and “obsessed” to look as good as the figure on the ad.

I particularly like the ‘branded baby’, highlighting from the moment we are born, we exist in a world of brands and products and those are what identify us as a person.

Mac 1 – Ashleigh 0

We grow up living in an environment that appears natural to us – it’s something we’re used to so we don’t question a thing. I am talking about the existence of advertising that constantly shows us the way, what product to be interested in, what to buy and where to buy it through its permanent residence in our mind/world. It feeds us what information “we need to know” to pay attention and result with an action; usually a purchase. This is marketing and advertising, and of course us (Communication students) are now aware of this and the certain processes and models each product campaign follows to succeed.

Fast forward the latest phone and a mp3 player later, and we come to realize “was this my choice, do I really need that?” . I admit, for several years I was anti Apple/Mac (Dave can actually vouch for this!), then all of a sudden when my whole environment was saturated with cool images and features of iPods and iPhones, something sparked off inside me that made me yearn to have ownership of such a senseless product that I had despised earlier.  What made me impulsively change my mind?

Now even though I love my iPhone as much as my iPod, I think strategically it comes down to the driving advertisements, especially on my television saying “I’m a Mac (cool) and I’m a PC (not cool)”. Where I will confess, I was embarrassed to even be associated with a ugly, heavy, suit nerd. This shows the power [Mac] advertising had on my brain and the perceptions it helped create against brands. Mac 1 – Ashleigh 0. I am a victim of media consumption that filled my empty void with a product that made me happy.

Since when are your eyes for rent?

In the video below, Carly Stasko, a culture jammer questions “we’re just ‘spose to sit back and take in like all the streaming commercials and television and messages and I’m just ‘spose to take it in… and it’s all ‘spose to stay inside?? no way!”

Carly discusses the point of creating a dialogue where there isn’t one; something I did not do.  Our environments are filled with messages and it impacts us as people, but sometimes we should impact back with a response.

Like most teenage girls, Carly felt terrible whenever she looked at a teen magazine; “buy this lipstick”, “wear size 8 miniskirts”, “look sexy”. Do advertisers really want a mindless tramp army of teens? Well I guess if they’re selling their products (and making sales!), that’s all that really cares (to them).  This is where culture jamming comes into play.

In order to jam an ad, you have to understand it so you can manipulate it to speak in the same language.  This is something I was lucky enough to learn in my third year of my undergraduate course – deconstructing an ad, understanding the semiotics of it. Everything in an ad is there for a reason. Sometimes this reason can simply be to portray an expensive taste to a product, right down to hiding macro issues of the company or product itself, take for example Nike.

Nike was under fire in the 1990’s when it came to light their products where manufactured in sweatshops in third world countries. These people were underpaid, worked in terrible poor conditions, whilst the products themselves would sell for hundreds of dollars. This may have been one of the most recognisable culture jams to the world, as it played on memes that anyone anywhere could understand the restructured message to the brand.

One more important thing Carly brings up is the term “Mind Share”. This can be explained as the constant war for brain territory, that companies are more concerned with their mind share in youth population and exactly how you perceive and recognise their brands/logos. For me, Mac certainly now how a segment of my mind share, invading my own privacy to thought and decision making. With culture jamming, it threatens these companies’ mind share to consumers, as it makes individuals think for themselves and become educated about issues and facts that are often hidden and not discoverable on the front of an advertisement.

So since when are your eyes for rent? As it appears, they always have been. Always on the lookout for another catchy tenant who will pay the bills with product lines and the oh so great feeling of consumption.  But once that consumption is overfilled, it’s only a matter of time before the landlord / YOU can step up, kick them out and have a say back, in a form that only that tenant understands.

Let’s do the Culture Jam

“ We will wreck this world”.
— Kalle Lasn, in Culture Jam.

Culture Jam – sound familiar? It probably doesn’t… not in Australia anyway, but perhaps that’s a good thing!

I’m sure Australians’ would have at least seen some culture jams in their life time, but probably not aware of this. Take this for example, a spin on Absolut Vodka’s poster campaign:

As you can see, Culture Jammers’ take an ad,  manipulate it using the same media channels, and embed a brand new meaning (usually about social, political, ethical and other issues) that are not publicized by that particular brand or corporation behind it. The Absolut Vodka example plays on the fact of excessive alcoholic drink (binge drinking) can have impotence affects on males… This is something that Absolut does not advertise at all. Culture jamming, however can be in a variety of forms in bumper stickers, texture drawings (over an existing poster), graphics, stencils… the list is endless. Yet, the mainstream channels are by subverting an advertisement, like above.

I picked up this term whilst living in North America last year; a country dominated by megalithic corporations and the constant desire to sell, sell, sell and buy, buy, buy! Definitely something not as driven in this country as when I see America – I see it as the centre of the world; where everyone is a part of the corporation chain.

This term, and exposure to a world I never knew has opened my eyes about consumerism, capitalism and the fetishism placed on commodities from Advertisers and makes me question media channels and messages corporations (especially) send to the mass audience.

So many messages, not enough time.

Culture jamming is a method anti-consumerism activists have adopted as a means of “breaking through” the media clutter. On average, the Australian consumer sees around 3,000 advertisements a day.  These include visible and hidden logos, posters, billboards, street media, shopping centre media, and print/radio/television ads; and not to forget to mention thanks to the internet, banner ads and spam mail.

This figure is the exact as the average American consumer, with the addition of global corporations spend over $620 billion each year to make their products seem desirable and get them to buy.

From my experience, in American society, advertisements heavily consume their everyday lives. It constantly tells them how to look, how to act, and most importantly, how to think. This is something not experienced to the extent in Australia, and was a huge culture shock to myself.

The best way to approach this topic is to position myself as if I was still on the other side of the world. We see America as a consumer-driven society saturated in advertisement… how does the opposition or public make its voice heard?   This is, essentially, where culture jamming comes in play.   In order to dissent against America’s obsession with buying and spending, culture jamming enlists the aid of prominent symbols with pre-existing meanings/emotions attached, called memes (i.e.: a red octagon means stop, Nike swoosh).  Through the utilization of these commonly understood symbols, culture jammers turn their meanings against itself to address the larger concern of consumption and its indications.

This blog aims to approach the way media consumes our daily lives, and the controlling affects it can have to objectify a product or brand with the search for ‘perfection’. It also aims to find out why this isn’t a common term in Australia, and if this is in fact, a good thing or not.