Advertisements before the 1950s were clearly meant to only inform the consumer about a product. They listed things such as specifications and price, not much thought was put into creating an elaborate campaign. That all began to change in the 50s and 60s when advertising and branding became a mainstream thing for brands to help them sell their products. With the creation of more competition companies had to find a way to stand out from the competition and thus they created interesting and new advertising campaigns that were fun and kitschy, and in a lot of cases sex based, in order to make them stand out of the crowd. This has continued and become even more pronounced today with the creation of extremely elaborate campaigns that are featured in all media forms including print, television, and online ads.
2. What are some of the theories related to fashion branding? What do they say about fashion branding as a means of communicating with consumers? How do the contemporary ideas of Hamilton, DeBord, Agins, Gobe, and McCracken relate to those of Barthes and Baurdrillard?
Some theories about fashion branding include the division of the garment into three distinct levels by Barthes, the postmodernism of Baurdrillard, and the studies of how culture and fashion arbiters influence consumers’ interpretations of fashion ideas by Hamilton. Though all of these studies and theories are based upon different sections and different ideas of how fashion branding works, they all point out that through some way, shape, or form a fashion brand is trying to communicate with a customer in a way in which they will influence them the most and convince them to purchase their brand over any other. It would seem that the older theories by Barthes and Baurdrillard are very concerned with the actual garment itself and how the consumer may interact with garments in certain ways. The more contemporary ideas of Hamilton, DeBord, Agins, Gobe and McCracken however seem to focus more on the portrayal of certain fashion brands to contemporary consumers and this portrayal’s effect of how the brand is seen and reacted to by the consumer.
3. What types of meanings does Grant McCracken associate with fashion products? Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, what would you add to or delete from his list? Give an example of one of the meanings.
Grant McCracken suggests that there are nine different types of meanings that are targeted by companies: gender, lifestyle, decade, age, class/status, occupation, time/place, value, and fad, fashion, and trend meanings. (Hancock, 30) For the most part I believe that these nine meanings are the basics that are in fact targeted by companies in order to sell their products to the consumer. However I feel that our modern times may have produced a new example in that of sexual orientation. We are beginning to see now that many brands are creating advertising campaigns not only for their straight clientele but also for the LGBT community who are quickly becoming and extremely large part of America’s high spending consumer base.
