My piece explores the notion of “brand loyalty” when it comes to desire and consumer culture. We know that people desire physical, material objects either to satisfy their materialistic desires or to satisfy a particular need (want vs. need). However this materialistic desire has another subculture to it. “Brand Loyalty” or “Brand Craving” is something that has become apparent in the last century or so. “Brand Loyalty” is where the consumer remains loyal to a brand no matter what circumstance- price, availability etc. People often also choose the more expensive branded option over a cheaper home brand option despite knowing that the two (apart from the brand name) are completely identical. I call this “brand desire”- The desire for a material object because of its status amongst popular culture. Does the branded object exist because we desire it? Or does our desire for the branded option exist because of the object itself? I think it is more likely the latter. Branding is a fairly recent business strategy of the last century. Branding created a good reputation on platforms such as social media as well as word of mouth. Good branding results in status, recognition and loyal customers.
In my initial project, I began exploring the sexuality of women and female desire and how female sexuality has been oppressed within society. Do women believe they have less sexual desire than men simply because they have been taught for generations to be chaste and hide their true feelings. I then began to think about the use of female sexuality within advertising and the play on the desire to be desired. I looked at advertising strategies from leading brands such as Tom Ford. Who employ highly sexualised visual advertisements to sell their men’s perfume. Do men desire the object (in this case the cologne) in order to be desirable to women? Advertising creates a desire to be desired?
My final project explores and critiques this notion of brand loyalty. It was experimental for me because as I removed the brand names from the well-known luxury perfumes, I actually began to forget the brand name for each perfume and had to refer to their filenames in order to look for their prices. The piece is a direct critique of the desire for the brand, I have shown these to a total of 10 people, all whom have said they would not pay in excess of $100 for a home brand perfume. However, when told that the contents of he bottles are identical to that of their respective designer brand, two out of ten people changed their mind and said they would in fact pay the designer price as they are paying for the product rather than the name.
I used a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop to create my piece as they are current media resources that branding teams across the world use to market their brands and create a sense of desire. It is ironic that I used the same programs they use to do the complete opposite- to critique the nature of branded desire itself. I also used illustrator and photoshop in order to create an aesthetic similar to advertising used everyday. The simplicity of the poster is reflective of the simplicity of home brand.
My influences for this piece include Andy Warhol’s “Brillo Boxes” and Winston Steng’s “Art Blender”. Warhol uses a large number of branded objects to create a whole new meaning of consumerist desire by repetition of the brillo box. The combination of rectangular pieces of the composition also influenced how I positioned the perfumes within my own work. Winston Steng’s “Art Blender” uses branded objects to make a comment on consumer brand desire. The use of a collage of different well-known brands gives the artwork a stronger message.
This piece explores notions of consumer desire for the “brand” and how branding affects desire. Do we desire the brand because of its recognition? Or does the brand exist because we desire it?
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