Opinions and Thoughts

Debates surround whether or not adverts are a result of culture, or corporate influence. However, it can be argued that adverts are influenced by both, as both culture and corporate influence are the two pillars on which adverts are built. I will explore this theory using Christmas advertising as a focus point.

Firstly, it should be argued that the basis of adverts must first derive themselves from the culture, as without the target audience, corporations have no one to sell their produce to. In the case of Christmas adverts, they tend to market their adverts towards children because children are the ones who benefit most from Christmas, and they see it as a more exciting and magical celebration. Therefore, one of the things corporations have to consider is what the culture attributes with Christmas. That is to say, they that they must focus on the semiotics, in that the western culture attributes snow, holly, Santa Claus, and reindeer (etc) with Christmas. Furthermore, when focusing on children, they have a tendency to use fluffy/cute animals, such as polar bears, penguins, reindeer, etc, and not only that, but they make use of the story element of the advert to give it feeling, such as humour or empathy that makes it memorable.

This type of marketing shows that the big corporations acknowledge the culture’s attributions to Christmas, but uses those attributions to blanket the intent to sell their products. Whilst this is not necessarily false advertising, the adverts have become more story-like to be able to get their messages across, and the stories are reaching out to people’s hearts through the use of multimedia. Most adverts, from shops such as John Lewis, are broadcast on TV screens, or the shop’s website, which become popular and are then shared on social media to promote them. However, the culture shares them for the stories, not so much the products shown, and social media has turned Christmas advertising into competition between the corporations, as to who can produce the best Christmas advert. Corporate competition is already a big thing, but social media has escalated it even further by adding the pressure of the culture to make it bigger, and better, whilst trying to keep an eye on their advert/animation budget. Animation does not come cheaply, and if they use outsourcing to create their adverts, then corporations have to keep in mind that they have to make profit enough that the budget that goes into making the advert was worth its creation.

The corporations that have produced the best adverts tend to bounce back with a recurring success over the years, and the culture answers with lists of ‘top ten Christmas adverts this year’, with even some online news websites commenting on it in their articles[1].

The advert that people seemed to give a general consensus on to be the best one produced at Christmas this year, 2016, was the John Lewis advert of ‘Buster the Boxer’[2] which on YouTube gained over 25,000,000 views. 

John Lewis depended on the people to see their advert, share it, like it, and tell people about it, so that when families had to go and buy each other Christmas presents, they would associate what they’d seen with their store, enticing them to buy from John Lewis. This is the same with every advertising shop, in that they depend on the culture, needing to know what the current trends are for the holiday season to be able to act accordingly. 

Without that, the corporations would have only their produce to try to convince the people with, rather than something Christmassy that would catch the eye. So it can be concluded, that both culture and corporations must use each other in a loop of sorts to be able to consume and produce their products, which Christmas adverts have aided in highlighting.

References:

Studio Ghibli was founded in Japan in 1985, by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki[1]. Since then, they have produced a number of beautifully animated films which today are marketed to the western culture and are received with resounding success.

[2]

The question is, why is it so well received if it is not an originally produced western animation? It is argued in Schiller’s theories of cultural imperialism[3] (Schiller, H, 2017) that globalization is very much a show of western dominance, but if that is the case, then how has Studio Ghibli managed to globalize its content so well?  

One of Studio Ghibli’s best-selling points are the stories themselves. Whereas western animation studios, such as Disney, tend to turn the focus of their stories to things like family, and friendship, because those tend to be the values closest to the hearts of their target audience, children. Children who have grown up in the western world where these values are parts of the foundations of their culture are therefore exposed to those values daily, and better engage with the stories produced. Whereas in Japan, as seen in the works of Studio Ghibli, the stories tend to focus more on the ideology of good vs evil. In accordance with this, the way the stories are told differ dramatically, although it could be debated that Studio Ghibli’s films are well received in the west because they do not understand the cultural impact that the stories are trying to give.

An example is seen in Ghibli’s ‘Spirited Away’[4] (Miyazaki, H., et al. 2003), in which it is speculated that the bath house Chihiro ends up in is actually to do with the Japanese bath houses, which are often depicted as brothels, which would explain a lot of the story’s otherwise action-packed plot (such as Chihiro’s name being changed by the bath house mistress), which the west viewers would not understand the cultural background of. Not only that, but Ghibli’s attempt to globalize their content shows that they do not always manage to sell the complete original story.

 One problem they encountered when trying to market their content, was that in some countries they faced a censorship issue, in that the material they had produced was deemed too sensitive for the western viewers, and so some of the original content was cut from the movies. In ‘Princess Mononoke’[5] (Miyazaki, H., et al. 2014), the main character is seen to fire an arrow, which in the Japanese version beheads the main character’s enemy.

However, this was removed in the western adaptation due to the censorship issue with the belief that it was too graphic to be shown to the target audience – children. Although through this, the question is raised: Does the west blanket their children compared to other countries? It could mean that their censorship does not allow them to learn the same information and values as other countries, and it could be debated that puts them at a disadvantage when learning about the world.

On the other hand, it does not mean that others cannot learn from it. From looking at these themes and interpretations, marketers have to choose how to market the product to other countries, especially through the use of subtitling, or dubbing over the voices in the market audience’s main tongue. Sometimes this is also where the original interpretation is seen to be lost in translation, as countries do not have the comprehension in their own culture of something to be able to interpret it from another.

Ghibli is an example of how sometimes the theory of globalization can be argued against with small cases, showing how there has to be some sort of equal scale of both the west and the east influencing one another.

 References:

[1] Takai, S. (2017). スタジオジブリの概要 - スタジオジブリ｜STUDIO GHIBLI. [online] Ghibli.jp. Available at: http://www.ghibli.jp/profile/#more [Accessed 22 Feb. 2017].

[2] Studio Ghibli. (2017). [online] En.wikipedia.org. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli [Accessed 22 Feb. 2017].

[3] Schiller, H. (2017). COMMUNICATION AND CULTURAL DOMINATION. International Journal of Politics, [online] vol. 5(no.4), pp.1-127. Available at: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.bangor.ac.uk/stable/27868829 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2017].

[4] MIYAZAKI, H., et al. (2003). Spirited away.

When Youtube[1] (YouTube, 2017) was developed by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen in 2005, for the sole purpose of creating a website on which videos could be shared with ease, its popularity increased, and the website gradually became known for its use as a social media platform. For around a year the website helped to steadily create an internet culture in which sharing videos, especially funny ones, to be shared on other social media platforms such as Facebook[2] (Facebook, 2017) and Twitter[3] (Twitter, 2017).

However, over the course of that year Google took a large amount of interest in the growing website, to the point where in 2006, Google offered Hurley and Chen $1.65 billion in exchange for acquiring YouTube as part of a partnership deal. YouTube accepted, and has kept its independence as part of the deal, but with Google’s aid they have been able to reach out to their community and use their combined prowess in organisation and content distribution to create a better system for its users.

In retrospect, one can see how Google taking that step to reach out to YouTube was a tactically sound move, in that they put forward a lot of money to acquire the social media platform. By gaining the ownership rights to YouTube, the realised that they would be taking a bet that they believed would bring their revenue to an even higher standard, creating the perfect opportunity to profit from the $1.65 billion that they had bought it for by using ads on YouTube videos, sponsorships, etc.

This merge occurred 11 years ago, at which time Hurley commented:

‘By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners.’[4] (BBC News, 2006) Now, 11 years later, YouTube is considered to be ‘the 3rd most visited website in the world’[5] (Donchev, D. 2017). It helped to shape internet culture as the millennials today know it to be, having grown up with it and normalizing how they consume both YouTube and Google as media. Through the two media giants having combined their efforts to create a better online presence and ability to benefit the people, the daily use of the media has become ingrained in Western culture. In everything from education to home life, Google and YouTube’s merge have caused a profound impact on the current generation’s way of life, especially the younger generation, who in particular have become dependent on their consummation due to the almost excessive exposure of the media.

However, it could be speculated that some of the changes to YouTube since Google and YouTube’s merge have been user un-friendly, especially to users who use YouTube for ad revenue. In 2013, YouTube introduced a new automated copyright system, called Content ID[6] (How Content ID works - YouTube Help. 2017), which matches videos to someone else’s copyrighted material. Notices were issued to YouTubers, to show that a claim had been made against the video by someone, but problems arose with this in that specific elements such as the audio had a song in the background of the video. It’s inhumane process of using the database system received a massive backlash, by people like Angry Joe, who in ranted in one of his videos about the system, calling it a ‘blanket system’[7] (Youtube Copyright Disaster! Angry Rant, 2013).

This is only one problem that has come from the merge, and the pros and cons that now derive themselves from this after 11 years, now has enough evidence to start debating further as to whether or not Google’s ownership of YouTube has really benefited the public as users, or is actually only benefitting Google and YouTube.

References:

[1] About YouTube - YouTube (2017). [online] Youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2017].

[2] Facebook (2017). [online] Facebook. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2017]

[3] Twitter (2017). [online] Twitter.com. Available at: https://twitter.com/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2017].

[4] BBC News | Business | Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn. (2006). [online] News.bbc.co.uk. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6034577.stm [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].

[5] Donchev, D. (2017).Youtube Statistics - 2016. [online] Digital Marketing Education. Available at: https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017]. 

[6] How Content ID works - YouTube Help. (2017). [online] Support.google.com. Available at: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370 [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].