Tuesday 27 March 2012

Essay



A Desire for Individuality (Adidas “Originals Campaign)


We live in a consumerist world. Naomi Klein’s No Logo highlights this and puts a spotlight on how we are manipulated into buying into a branded lifestyle that is portrayed to us everyday.  This essay will be concentrating on the massive market of the youth culture and how companies have changed their whole marketing strategies to tap into this culture.

“Their parents might have gone to Bargain Basement, but kids, it turned out, were still willing to pay up to fit in” (Klein, 2005, p. 68). This is how Naomi Klein describes the youth culture and their spending habits. There is a huge pressure for teens to fit in and the way of doing this seems to be to pay through the nose for branded commodities. This was highlighted when during a recession the companies to bring in money were “beer, soft drinks, fast food and sneakers” (Klein, 2005, p.68). “This was not the time for selling Tide and Snuggle to Housewives – it was time for beaming MTV, Nike, Hilfiger, Microsoft and Wired to global teens and their over grown imitators.” (Klein, 2005, p.68). The advertisements put out were directed at the initial audience of the older market effectively, however they soon realized they were just focused on the wrong crowd.  A plague of advertisements aiming at teens and young adults followed, attempting to become the next brand to sweep through high-schools’ ‘popular’ society.  This also gave birth to stereotyping and a huge pressure to fit in which just fueled the advertising even more.

 “Am I cool? Became the deeply dull and all-consuming question of every moment.” (Klein, 2005, p. 69). How can “cool” be defined? Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) describes the fashion movement changing because of the class divide. The upper classes or the flaneurs (Gentlemen of Leisure) liked to differentiate themselves from the working class by acting and dressing differently. This lead on to the Trickle down Theory thought up by Georg Simmel whereby fashion is determined by the upper class which then becomes desirable and seen as a symbol of wealth. Rip offs are produced so the lower-class can afford to have a similar image which then makes the current fashion undesirable for the upper-class resulting in the birth of fashion as we know it today, fast and changeable.

This can be applied to fashion today and a select chosen few who set the trends. Elise Decoteau described teen shoppers “they run in packs. If you sell one, you sell to everyone in their class and everyone in their school.” (Klein, 2005, p.68) Thus proving there is a social hierarchy and the “trickle down effects” still applies to today. “Retain the social standing they desire, perform their social obligations and protect their self-esteem” (Consuming Life 2008, p55) This supports No Logo as it argues that advertisements almost force “senseless consumer objects rather than basic necessities in order to deflect total social humiliation” (Consuming Life 2008, p55). This very much applies to the youth culture and how you are accepted as a person. Big companies saw the advantages of the trend setters and the power they hold over what people buy next. Corporations realized that there workforce is much older than target audience they are planning on exploiting so an abundance of young workers would be hired helping to bring companies to a level of cool making brands more appealing to youths and relating to there society.

These young employees are hired to keep companies in the loop from this ever-changing fashion scene. “What is cool one week is ridiculously past in the next.” (The Rebel Sell, 2005 p195). Finding the next ‘cool’ trend isn’t easy because “you have know idea what to look for” (The Rebel Sell, 2005 p195). To youths “coolhunting”, “is to look for cool people” (The Rebel Sell, Heath & Potter 2005 p195) to copy basically.
Using the Adidas brand as an example to help validity what No Logo is putting across about brands using these ‘cool people’ to life companies into the youth market. Adidas was founded in 1948 by Adolf "Adi" Dassler. A sports wear brand struggling to make a huge impact on the sporting world compared to Nike, Puma and Reebok. Run-DMC the rap group had a huge fan base copying their style and using them as there ‘cool people’ to follow as trend setters. The group “Breathed new life into Adidas products with their hit single “My Adidas.” (Klein, 2005, p.74) The song is a homage to the groups love for Adidas clothing and sneakers, this was a huge bonus for the brand as a famous group made a song basically advertising to their fans to buy Adidas.

The record label for the group Def Jam Records quickly realized the huge amount of advertising Run-DMC actually did for Adidas and decided to attempt to make profit from this promotion. Adidas unconvinced about the connotations Rap Music had and if been associated with it was potentially too controversial. Some Adidas executives went to a concert they were performing. During the song My Adidas “one of the members yelled out, “Okay, everybody in the house, rock your Adidas!” and three thousand pairs of sneakers shot in the air.” (Klein, 2005, p.74) This made it clear the power this group had over its fan base and pretty soon after this Run-DMC had there own sneaker range produced by Adidas. This just proves the style of a select few is imitated and highly commercialized.

The company grew quickly in the sports but during 1990s, Adidas divided the brand into two main groups with separate selling focus’: Adidas Performance was designed to maintain their devotion to the athlete as this is what the company was founded on but they realised there was a broader scope and ventured in the fashion world creating, Adidas Originals. That was designed to concentration on fashion and life-style of the non-athletic consumer. "Impossible is Nothing" is the current mainstream marketing slogan for Adidas.
In this constantly changing fashion market its basically who can tap into the next trend.  Todays current trend is the retro style of the 70’s and 80’s making a come back with a rise In the popularity of second hand shops and the use of charity shops in young adults. “Cool is structured by the restless quest for nonconformity” (Heath & Potter, 2005 p196). This search for nonconformity has lead the youth to by retro clothing now been the current fashion following on from last years geek sheek. The most sort after second hand clothes are sport garments from the 70's and 80's are used nowadays. Fashion is now referring back to combinations of colors characteristic of many sports items. Adidas uses their logo and font type in a variety of their new Originals range garments, footwear and accessories. Adidas are recreating a form of retro product for new consumers that have an idealization of an “Old Skool” lifestyle. This new division (The Originals Campaign) of Adidas has stepped away from the athlete’s only participation in order to reach out to all others. “Go out into the culture and actually find out where they are using it. Where the brand idea lives. Try to merge with it.” (No logo, Documentary) This is exactly what Adidas have done and has been a hugely successful campaign. They created there own life style on which is appealing to the youth of today, urban, retro, cool and ‘original’. Tapping into the rebellion age where they want to be different, more grown up not been told what to do or wear. The teenage cult was born where companies “The precise “attitude” teens and twenty something’s were driven to consume” (Klein, 2005, p.68-69) Another way to sell and clothing based on a image other than portraying a lifestyle is using celebrity endorsements. This takes youth role models such as Sports persons, Actors, Singers and pop groups and anyone basically followed by the public eye. Using these famous role models as manikins for brands.

The Adidas ‘Originals’ campaign was designed with the idea of making an individual want ‘original’ products. This campaign was highly commercialized through advertising. For example a television advertisement was set in the surroundings of a house party including celebrities and groups such as David Beckham, Katy Perry, DMC, N-Dubs, Young Jeezy, Daft Punk, Noel Gallagher, Snoop Dog and about 15 more this marketing technique is a form of bragging stating how big Adidas is and readdressing that they produce product for athlete aka David Beckham and pop stars like Katy Perry but are available to the average mass. Using an abundance of different celebrities all having huge fan bases basically to tap into as many of the youth culture that is physically possible in one single advert. It’s a lifestyle it’s showing you the best house party imaginable and it’s like that because everyone is wearing Adidas. This advert oozes ‘cool’ why wouldn’t you want to be part of it is the message that is given across to the audience. “What consumers are thinking and feeling while they were consuming the product.” (No Logo Documentary)

The ‘Original’ Campaign doesn’t just endorse celebrities it makes celebrities. It advertises itself as almost a charity helping the youth achieve their dreams. They take talented individuals from things such as skateboarding, rapping, street dancing and other things, which are recognized as ‘cool’ and sponsor them. Making them wear Adidas clothing, appear in advertisements talk to other youths in the same field. This is a clever way of bring the ‘Originals’ Campaign into the youths they are selling to into there everyday lives, there is know escaping the brand it sponsors basically everything that youths get up to. No Logo talks about this method of advertising to youths as a very successful formula. “But as privatization slithers into every crevice of public life, even these intervals of freedom and back alleys of unsponsored spare are slipping away. The indie skateboarders and snowboarders all have Vans sneaker contracts.” (Klein, 2005, p.64) The space where teenagers go to rebel from society and commercialism such as “ramped office towers transformed into skateboarding course” (Klein, 2005, p.64) There isn’t advertisements for these audiences in the places of rebellion as its unwanted it’s frowned upon by the older generation. They only way to tap into the underground culture is to endorse those which are participating in it.



A desire for individuality. The present achievement youth are attempting to peruse. “Celebrate Originality” the Adidas campaigns newest slogan. Understanding their audience the current fashion and portraying a sense of anti-commercialism is why Adidas have become so successful in their quest to dominate the youth culture of today.

No Logo has opened my eyes to the way youths are exploited in todays world. There’s nowhere you can hide from branding, take the punk culture for example. Humans way of sticking it to advertising and big brands, as soon as there are enough of a following it is commercialized from right under there noses, with fashion labels mass producing, record labels hawking the popular punk bands for profit so attempting to appeal to the masses, selling the false idea of nonconformist, when in fact it’s the total opposite. Commercial. 

Olins W. 1999 ‘Corporate Identity’ Thames and Hudson

Heath J & Potter A. 2005 ‘The Rebel Sell’ Capstone Publishing Limited

Olins W. 2003 ‘On Brand’ Thames and Hudson

Klein N. 2005 ‘No Logo’ Harper Perennial

Berger J. 1977 ‘Ways of Seeing’ British Broadcasting Cororation and Penguin Books

Bauman z. 2007 “consuming life” Polity Press.   

TV source
No Logo Documentary 2003

Internet Sources