Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to the following persons
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- We would like to express our gratitude to the following persons
- Introduction
| Stockholm University
School of Business Master Thesis - VT 1999 Supervisor: Wikland, Boel (???????!)
Authors: Ammitzböll, Jens Chander, Nitasha
AcknowledgementsWe would like to express our gratitude to the following persons:Our supervisor Boel Wikland, for supporting us throughout the research process. Birgitta Wadell and Claes Hägg for helping us with our methodology and giving us valuable advice at the early stage of this work. Many thanks to Levi´s, Diesel and Benetton, for the invaluable information about their ads. Finally we also owe a big THANK YOU!! to all the participants in our focus group study, who were kind enough to share both their time and personal reflections with us. Without their support there would not have been possible to draw any conclusions at all. Abstract
Post-modern consumption has become an expression in marketing today. In this study we will connect theories of the post-modern consumption and advertising with the new and different kind of ads we as consumers have encountered. Our first research question is: Is post-modern advertising perceived by the audience in a different way than traditional advertising, if so what do the people in our focus group think is more positive or more negative with the post-modern ads? Our second research question is: Can the theories we present explain the statements and discussions by the consumers within our focus groups? Do the participants reason along the lines of the theories? Our purpose with this study is to find out whether a special type of advertising called post-modern advertising is perceived differently than the traditional type of advertising. Since there is a jungle of different types of advertising out there, we have chosen to let this thesis concentrate on the so-called image-loaded advertising in the fashion industry, directed toward people of 20-30 years of age. To fulfil our purpose we have chosen a qualitative departure. More precisely we have used a exploratory focus group study method, which most often is used to get ideas about what, for example, the audience is thinking of a certain advertising campaign or product. Our focus group has been limited to contain people within the age group 20-30 years. All recruitment took place in Stockholm. Our results are that the participants do perceive the post-modern ads differently from the traditional ones. To some extent they reason along the theories of the post-modern consumer. We do not make any absolute statement whether the post-modern ads are more effective or not. When summarising our conclusions, a matrix is presented which shows the advantages and drawbacks (as perceived by our focus groups) with the two types of advertising. Finally we use our focus group findings to give some advice on how companies can use the knowledge of the post-modern consumer in order to reach these audience with a more effective advertising. Keywords: Advertising, consumption, post-modernity, manipulation, focus-group Table of contents Acknowledgements 2 We would like to express our gratitude to the following persons: 2 Introduction 7 Reasons for the study 8 Research questions 8 Purpose 9 Theory 11 The modern era 13 Postmodernity 14 The post-modern consumer 16 The young post-modern consumer 18 Advertising in the modern/post-modern era 19 Two modes of signification 20 Advertising and its content during the modern era 21 Advertising and its content during the post-modern era 22 Methodological approach 23 Pre-understanding and pre-assumptions 23 Methodological perspectives 24 Hermeneutics 24 Qualitative method 24 Different approaches to marketing research 26 Collection of qualitative data 27 Focus group methodology 28 The focus group study 33 The ads 35 Discussion 38 General discussion 38 Discussion of the ads 39
IntroductionAccording to some academics and marketing professionals, a new type of advertising has emerged. The name of this new phenomenon is post-modern advertising. It addresses the post-modern consumer, who has to some degree turned against modern society and its institutions - big multinational companies included. In its latest campaign, the Italian manufacturer of clothes, Benetton, uses disabled children as fashion models. The American jeans-giant Levi's used a middle aged bald man (with a strong interest in miniature ship construction and bigamy) as the front figure in its latest advertising launch. Diesel, an Italian fashion company, tries to reach its customers by having a corpulent, India-ethnic Elvis Presley promoting their jeans. It is obvious that this kind of advertising does not use the symbols, models or language that we as consumers have become used to. Normally, the companies want their products to be promoted by beautiful people, often with some authority besides good looks. It is common, for instance, for celebrities to invest their good name in a product. Basketball super star Michael Jordan has for instance become synonymous with Nike sports clothes. The advertising campaigns by Benetton, Levis and Diesel all have a content that is chaotic, fragmented, and sometimes hard to follow. The ads are full of absurd contradictions and juxtapositioning of opposites. The focus seems to be on the artistic expression and style of the ad, rather than on the product itself. In some cases, there is no sign of any products at all. This kind of approach in advertising corresponds very well with how academics describe the post-modern consumer and post-modern advertising. This study will take a closer look at how the theories of the post-modern consumer apply when consumers are confronted with the new types of ads we have described. Can the “post-modern advertising “ reach today’s consumers in a different, and perhaps more effective way? Do the consumers reason along the lines of the theories, or is the post-modern consumer just a label, used to make the problem of an unpredictable audience more predictable? Download 201.4 Kb. Share with your friends:
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