Celebration of Regional Typology in a Context of Contemporary Advertising

Elena Aryshtaeva BFA Graphic Design Senior thesis Fall 2011

Each country, region city, and neighborhood has its own unique culture and language. Some of the locals were born in the area and have the culture in their genes. Some people choose to come to a place because the local culture is close to their heart and soul. A culture is the ground and soul of a place; its a pride and celebration of uniqueness and otherness. It was born after a land was discovered and evolves with each generation. Happiness and strife, the fight for life and jolly holidays, struggle and victories, tears of happiness and sadness add layers to a life circle, creating something that is so unique and different - local culture. Mass production and industrialization brought a lot of changes into communities. It made life more convenient but weakened local and regional cultures. New England, the South, the West, and the Midwest had great importance in United States history until the twentieth century. The perception of regions and their relationship to each other changed in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner announced that the era of American history when the Wests special significance as a distinctive region was over. 1 The standardization of industrialism brought the sense of America as a unified nation, but weakened the sense of uniqueness of American regions. Two wars in the first half of the twentieth century caused migration of American population from one area to another. This process led to the greater homogenization and further nationalization. Events of the 1960s and 1970s brought changes to the political and economic situation of the southern United States, which was traditionally a center of racial segregation but became desegregated under Civil Rights. After 1970 the racial conflict migrated from the south to northern and western cities like Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Los Angeles. The West has gone through a lot of transformations

as well as the South. Pioneers collided with the Native Americans, and industrialization and the twentieth century wars caused mass migrations. Both the South and West had to go though tremendous transformations caused by technological modernization and post modernization with the legacy of guilt by the white American heritage of racism and unrestricted exploitation of nature. Culture-wise these regions were once sources of otherness, uniqueness and romantic myths. Later literal exploration reevaluated American superiority and exposed multiple failures of the American dream. 1 This process of regional redefinition is in a continuing process, which puts America in a condition of uncertainty. This means that Americas regional uniqueness is in spiritual crisis and in unstable condition. The South and the West brought their unique flavor, their distinct myths and symbols to American culture. Now these symbols are being called by intellectual critics as symbols of the truth of America. 1 Unfortunately, there is a disassociation between TV representation of those symbols and real life in a modern society. The television used regional symbols in emerging inaccurate regional stereotypes. The process of regional redefinition is ever evolving and has a strong impact on American culture and influences intellectual and cultural life. A big transformation of Americas capacity to produce happened in 1910, when Henry Ford initiated the line production system for a maximum production economy.1 Mass production made production more economical and spread far beyond the automobile industry over the next 10 years. To compete with other producers a manufacturer had to produce enough quantity of goods in order to reduce the price. To be more profitable mass production needed to be more dynamic and bigger markets. The expansion of the market required the
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development of an ideological bridge across traditional social gaps-region, taste, need and class-which would narrow prejudices in his favor 1. As the market was growing, manufacturers started to realize the importance of stimulating a buying power by focusing on the buying public. The human impact or the consumers dollar and the opportunity to manipulate it became an important part of an industrial development and advertising. Advertising became a powerful tool of mass distribution whose primary task was to respond to a consumers needs and desires.2 The tremendous growth of advertising as an industry happened in the 1920s. Advertising offered a market the ability to develop the consumption of a product by creating consumers and exploring what made people respond. Industry was evolving rapidly, leaving behind old style advertising with its intuitive style. To create consumers efficiently the advertising industry had to develop universal notions of what makes people respond, going beyond the horse sense psychology that had characterized the earlier industry. Such general conceptions of human instinct promised to provide ways of reaching a mass audience via a universal appeal. Considering the task of having to build a mass ad industry to attend to the needs of mass production, the ad men welcomed the work of psychologists in the articulation of these general conceptions. 2 Such a great development allowed advertising to achieve better results in growing the markets by creating new consumers, which made preserving diversity a very difficult task. It is almost impossible to preserve diversity while creating new markets. The goal of advertising was to create the desires and new personal needs in people. Advertising went through the evolution from displaying the names of businesses and services above door signs into a powerful system that involves deep social, psychological and economical research and

analysis, different media and great financial resources. Advertising developed into a magnifying lens that absorbs, translates and produces a consumers reflection. It reflects a society and its culture. E.B. Taylor called culture a complex whole, which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by individuals as members of a society. Adamson Hoebel defined culture as the integrated sum total of learned behavioral traits that are manifest and shared by members of society. Culture has also been defined as a learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meaning provides a set of orientations for members of a society. 2 Society is a group of people within a certain community who share one culture and aspect of communication between individual group members. The variation within a culture can be even greater than between cultures. Each culture has its subcultures groups of people who share values, beliefs, life experiences, nationalities, religions, political views, race, and geographical location. People within subcultures can perform distinctive behavior and characteristic patterns based on their subculture and at times they need the dominant culture as a point of reference. To communicate to certain cultures and subcultures, it is important to understand the cultural context and its language. The goal of advertising is to explore the culture and cultural language of a target audience. To convince audiences to purchase a product or service, advertisers must follow the publics values. Research showed that ads reflecting local cultural values are more persuasive. For example Pemco Insurance brought the knowledge of regional self-identity to their Northwest Profiles ad campaign that received positive feedback from critics and the Northwest community (figure 1,2).
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figure 3

figure 1

Advertisers had to start to pay attention to nuances of culture. 3 like Target does in Alaska campaign figure 3

figure 2

Not only do they have to answer to the cultural context, they need to find a right way to communicate this language by being relevant to a consumers beliefs and experiences. That brings us to a dichotomy of the original need in regional culture sensitivity and nationalism in advertising. Trying to explore their audience better, marketers research statistics, collect, analyze and categorize data about consumers. In a process of categorizing marketers broke American society into segments what we might think of as target audiences on the basis of demographic factors (age, race, religion, gender, geographical region, and zip code) and psychological factors (values and beliefs). The results of this systematic arrangement are typologies classification systems of types of consumers. There are different ways to divide people into categories. The most important task for marketers is to find a right typology that will help in selling a product. There are a few typologies that are used very often: The VALS typology stands for Values and Lifestyles, that focuses on peoples lifestyles. For example, VALS 1 typology categories included Need-driven, Outer-Directed, Inner-Directed and Integrateds. VALS 2 typology is a revised version of VALS1 with a better correlation between
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consumers values and economic status. It includes the following categories: Actualizers, Fullfillers, Achievers, Experiencers, Believers, Strivers, Makers, and Strugglers.4 These highly individual psychological traits help marketers to analyze target audiences and draw a physiological portrait of consumers. This portrait can be used in analysis of regional differences of lifestyles and analysis of regional identities. Marketers know a lot about consumers based on a zip code. For example, what kind of car they drive, what kind of food preferences they have, what kind of television they watch, or magazines they read. Michael Weiss, the author of The Clustering of America (Harper & Row, 1988), developed typology based on the zip code. This typology includes 40 different types of lifestyles. Each zip code was given a nickname. For example: Nickname Blue-Blood Estates Atherton Money and Brains (Stanford University) Single City Blues (University of California) Zip Code 94025 94301 94704 Location Palo Alto Berkley

Based on this typology, Weiss claims Were no longer a country of 50 states but of 40 lifestyle clustersyou can go to sleep in Palo Alto and wake up in Princeton, NJ, and nothing has changed except the trees. The lifestyles are the same. 4 Although Weiss thinks that typology has to be more specific than demographic or region, there are marketers whose regional demographic research is actively used as a platform for advertising strategies. As an example, lets take a look at the 2008 marketing research that was conducted by Packaged Facts, a provider of authoritative consumer market

research. Based on this research, which provides detailed information on the regional statistics and surveys, companies made conclusions on consumers behavior and attitudes, political views, demographics, income, lifestyle attitudes, media attitudes, shopping attitudes, etc. Speaking of shopping attitudes, Packaged Facts marketing research concludes that brand- and trendconscious shoppers live in the Northeast, shoppers who are more less brand- and trend- concerned live in East of the US. Shoppers in West of the US are less adventurous, while Southeastern residents like experimentation and are more price-conscious because of their low-income. Media attitude varies as well across the US. Adults in the Pacific region, where Microsoft, Silicon Valley and various technology firms are located, are more tech-savvy and active Internet users. Print media is still popular in the Northeast, where Internet is popular more than average too. West and East regions adapt online media slowly compared to other regions. The Internet has not risen up enough to replace TV yet in the Southeast and Southwest, where adults prefer such traditional media as TV, magazines and radio. Southwestern and Southeast people tend to eat more fast food than anybody else in US. People who live in the Pacific regions eat healthier and exercise more. This region is also where alternative medicine is more popular than in other regions. Here are some highlights from this report: The Northeast region contains almost 23 million households, one-fifth of the national total (20.6%). Being influenced by economy, geography, climate, traditions and historical aspects all the regional attitudes vary in many factors like education, health, friendliness etc. For example, statistics shows that the Northeast population is better educated than the rest of the nation because of its regions tradition of higher education. This fact is also reflected in the popularity of media that uses written words. Adults here
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are more concerned about environmental issues and more indifferent to religious issues. They are more likely to be willing to pay for good financial advice than the national average. Northeast residents prefer designers labels (13% more likely than average) and prefer clothing of the highest quality. The household incomes are higher in this region. According to this research we get a detailed picture on the different regional attitudes and behaviors. Culture is a shared capacity for communication and a social language translation, which can be a bridge between different cultures and a tool of advertising. Local is a concept referring to peoples relationship to the larger world. It refers to the sense of our being or the ground for our actions. It contains the notion of the true self, the one we present to the world. When someone says, I am an American, I am British, or I am a Malaysian, they are expressing this localness. It is a kind of our authenticity. 3 Advertising reflects culture and its social language. Even though this reflected projection may be distorted and subjective and may based on the needs of advertisement rather than reality, it is often used as an advertising language to reach or craft a consumer. This projection often forces the stereotypes to emerge. Advertising is a mirror that reflects individualistic needs and personal desires sometimes distorting the true groups identity. 4 For example, some regional stereotypes became clich: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian. But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian? 5 According to the new research on the Geography of Personality that is supported by more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, some of the stereotypes are not as far from the truth. The study reflects a regional map of personality traits, data on crime, health and economic development in different regions and demonstrates the correlations.5 This research is based on a 44-question

personality test that evaluates five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism openness. The research shows that residents of the New England and of the Mid-Atlantic are more stressed, irritable and depressed. People who live on the West Coast are more emotionally stable. They are also more calm and relaxed than the other regions. Northeast and West Coast residents tend to be more open and creative. The Central and Southern states are more traditional and tend to be pragmatic and straightforward; they are also friendlier and generous. Residents of the States with a high level of neuroticism are less emotionally stable and less socially connected. Based on the marketing research and the Geography of Personality Study we can see that some regional stereotypes can actually be close to reality. For example the Stressed New Yorker stereotype is actually not far from the truth because the Personality maps show that NY is high on neuroticism. One particularly important discovery is that the prevalence of certain personality traits is associated with a range of important geographic indicators. It is very difficult to say exactly how these proved clichs can be explained. It can be because of migration, when people migrate to certain regions that require their type of personality. It can be also explained by geography and climate that influence people or peoples interaction. At the same time New Yorkers are higher than average on openness. Targets campaign proves how regional identities work in ad campaigns. In the mid-1990s, when Target came to the East Coast they wanted to put their name on the bottom of the ad to announce a new store opening in New York area. The agency argued against that based on their knowledge of New Yorkers obsessive lust to be in the know. We said, just run the bulls-eye, and people who know the brand will get it, and people
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who dont know the brand will want to know whats it all about, said Bill Oberlander, former creative director with Kirshenbaum. 6 The personality maps may reinforce stereotypes and tempt us to draw overly simplistic conclusions, said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona.The problem with stereotypes is that even if some stereotypes are proven in some way by personality maps, they dont give us a whole picture. As was mentioned before, advertising needs to convey its message to a public using language that will be most successful and reach consumers in a most successful way. For example, because of the time limitations of TV commercial or magazines (when a reader spends only 3-4 seconds on each page) the language has to be very clear. That is why stereotypes are widely used. Advertisers use such a cultural symbols as Tai chi to show Chinese and sombreros to show Mexicans for exaggeration, which helps to magnify certain aspects of the campaign. It is important to understand that advertising magnifies stereotypes of people to achieve better sales. So what is a stereotype? Stereotypes carry neither positive nor negative feelings by definition. It is a form of a mental expression that organizes information and attaches meaning to it. When this meaning carries certain types of feelings and personal associations that brings the stereotype negative or positive side. The danger of using stereotypes in ads is that repetition of stereotyping makes it normal. When that happens stereotyping develops double consciousness in those who are being stereotyped. That causes the effect that people start to see themselves through the eyes of others. Double consciousness can develop because one learns to view oneself through the perspectives of others. 7 We see New Yorkers as always stressed and rude, Californians snobby. All these stereotypes were born partly because of the needs of advertising and partly because we bring our own beliefs

to the table. Lets take a look at some ad campaigns that used regional stereotypes to deliver their message. Figure 1 shows an ad campaign that represents a stereotype

figure 4

about Southerners. To prevent and fight double consciousness all the parties have to start an open dialog and cultural exchanges in order to learn about each other as well as about themselves from each others perspectives and to start talking openly about their differences. That will raise awareness about assumptions, prejudices, social roles and relationships. Such exchange would be part of multilateral double consciousness, of seeing oneself and ones culture through the perspectives of others. This equality is a form of what Freire calls, Dialogue. Advertising has huge power and influences American society indeed. Americans are exposed to television more than any other countries. The power of advertising is undeniable. And, of course, it is advertising that teaches us about the world of consumer goods-what is fashionable and hot or, maybe even better for some people, cool. Stereotypes were magnified by advertising and have to be reconsidered and reprocessed in a positive way to serve as a tool to celebrate regional identity. For example the Pemco campaign used stereotypes as a way
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to reach their target audience in a positive way and pokes good fun at all the stereotypes of the Great Northwest in a humorous and not offensive way. Some critics say that postmodern advertising emerges into very eclectic culture and keeps evolving into a new set of modern trends and sensibilities. Abstract art is the product of confused minds and of confused eras. 8 It can be a danger for a culture if that becomes too abstract and homogenized, when simple human truth and good story that were always a secret of successful advertising campaigns are going to be substituted for an eclectic mix of blurred symbols and images. 4 If modern culture and advertising will go towards this direction, it can lead us to a loss of uniqueness and originality. On the other hand this also can be an opportunity for design as an asset of positive social change. The most widespread and eclectic art form in our day, I would suggest, is the advertisement, which helps us decide upon to consume to create our eclectic lifestyles. Lets take a look at ALLSAINTS Spitalfields and Levis ad campaigns, which are the examples of very contemporary, edgy and eclectic branding. Advertising is widely criticized for social comparison and creating idealized images, but ALLSAINTS ad campaigns are in example of new trends in modern culture. ALLSAINTS creates the classy and messy, grungy and glamour image of a British industrial laborer under the glossy polish of contemporary glamour and trend of uncertainty and eclecticism (figure 5, 6). One fortysomething devotee of the cult told me: I never feel sexier than when Im wearing All Saints Im Gwen Stefani or Nico from Velvet Underground. The reference to these two singers provides a clue to the jumble of trends that form the All Saints glamour-meets-grunge ethic: Stefani, a platinum blonde, favors get-ups that are Jean Harlow crossed with a principal boy; Nico, a sultry blonde,

figure 5

figure 6

was an Andy Warhol muse and early Goth. 9 We are witnessing an important change in our culture, a sort of cultural mutation if postmodern theorists are correct.2 So contemporary advertising, which becomes
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more and more eclectic and is in cultural mutation stage nowadays, can be a great platform to design social change in our communities by starting social dialog about our differences, social roles and otherness, as about being unique rather than different or alien. This can help to reinforce existing stereotypes and clichs in order to celebrate otherness as regional uniqueness. We cannot hide our differences underneath of cultural eclecticism of postmodern culture trying to blend everything into one homogenized cultural cocktail mix. We rather have to celebrate our differences by creating a new image that consists of cultural, racial, regional layers that coexist but do not assimilate. It is very important to remember the regional heritages that bring their unique flavors and add up into American culture. If advertising will celebrate our differences and identities in a positive and not offensive way it will improve American perception of advertising that is down now. American culture keeps evolving. Regional types have changed. Regional stereotypes do not represent American regions accurately. Regional identity is defined by life style rather than the other way around. Figure 1, 2. Pemco Insurance Northwest Profiles campaign Figure 3. Target Alaska Campaign Figure 4. Mobile Home Commercial Figures 5,6 ALLSAINTS Spitalfields

Work Cited
1 Cawelti, J. G. (2002). Reregionalizing america: A new view of american culture after world war II. Journal of Popular Culture, 35(4), 127-127-144. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/195365684?accountid=47830 2 Bettinger, C. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. Academy of Marketing Science.Journal (pre-1986) 8.1 (1980): 159-. ProQuest Central. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. 3 Frith, Katherine Toland., and Barbara Mueller. Advertising and Societies: Global Issues. New York: P. Lang, 2003. Print. 4 Berger, Arthur Asa. Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertisings Impact on American Character and Society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 2004. Print. 5 Rowley, Laura. Chapter 5: Service and Technology. On Target: How the Worlds Hottest Retailer Hit a Bullseye. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley, 2003. Print. 6 Rentfrow. Jason. The New Geography of Personality. University of Cambridge Research Horizons. Jan. 2009. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. <http://www. research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/features/the-new-geography-of-personality.aspx>. 7 Black, Marc. Fanon and DuBoisian Double Consciousness. Human Architecture 5.15405699 (2007): 393-404. ProQuest Central. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. 8 Simon, Stephanie. The United States of Mind - WSJ.com. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal, 23 Sept. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html>. 9 Girvin, Tim. GIRVIN | Strategic Branding Blog | ALL SAINTS SPITALFIELDS | SEATTLE. Girvin | Home. Girvin, 21 Nov. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.girvin.com/blog/?p=5891>.

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