It's a huge learning curve Ilene. Marketing, advertising, promotions..
and that's before we get to image construction and semiotic meaning. A
picture is worth a thousand words...
Very few of us understand just how artificially constructed images are -
we've been watching them since we were tiny children, or how much
meaning can be slid in without anyone truly noticing. And that's before
you get to the psychological effect of having drip drip drip images and
messages paraded in front of us, 24/7.
And one photo of a mother feeding, can look just like another photo of
mother feeding, if we are only looking at the baby, which is what 'we'
all do! And not notice the lighting, the framing, the use of close up
etc, to construct a narrative around us.
Advertising works. Powerfully. It's not a lifestyle changer on its
own, but it can have a massive impact on brand and spending choices.
And when it works in conjunction with cultural pressures, it can change
lifestyles. Evidence based research proves this again and again. And
advertisers excel at pushing into the boundaries, even legal ones, and
smashing into them. As we're finding out with the follow-on milk tv ads
in the UK, which are now everything you'd want in a formula ad, but just
bending out of sight long enough on 'follow-on' milk, to get by our weak
legislation.
I did an analysis ages ago, of the awful Nestle video on youtube, which
is in a DVD that they send out, which 'on the surface' supports
breastfeeding, and 'in the nuts and bolts' sends out the message "It's
too hard, you won't do it, go to this site for formula info". It's here
if anyone is interested:
<http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.com/2007/11/sin-of-omission.html>
The Medela ad discussion has made me think there may be mileage in doing
similar with it. I'm off on holiday in a week, to an internet free
zone, and may download the Medela video and do the same - but it's an
awful lot of work! Deconstructing just 30 seconds of advert, can
sometimes take a week! :-)
We've all had to go through this learning curve with this sort of
stuff. It took me weeks to get my head around why Avent were Code
breakers on their bottle packaging.. it just seemed to odd - we all need
bottles? And that was _with_ all the knowledge I had about moving image
and advertising. When we unpick the normal every day - we all need
bottles - and start to look underneath at 'common everyday' messages, it
can be a vast cavern that opens up under you!
What is really important is that - where possible and where appropriate
- we support the Code compliant companies. Their advertising is, by
definition, less manipulative. So they really deserve the benefit of
our voices. :-)
Morgan Gallagher
Ilene Fabisch wrote:
> So now I've had some time to read through codes and web pages. I have
> to also
> say I see a big difference in the Medela webpages and the Ameda
> webpages. Medela
> is a much better advertiser of their product!
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