The Use of Specific Historical Moments in Advertising
"The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to a mystification of the past." (Berger:11)

 

The use of particular historical moments in adverting is an interesting phenomena. Why return to the past to sell products of today? Advertising uses history as a referent to a product, or the viewer, and in so doing removes the content and meaning of history in and of itself. Historical moments are exploited in the interest of selling commodities.

Why is the use of history to sell products so widely used and successful? Historical moments hail the viewer to recognize a historical moment and remember their place in it. In this sense, the viewer invests part of themselves in the product (what's the word for that), and thus to buy the product is to reclaim a part of ourselves. How can we resist? Especially interesting perhaps, is the use of particular historical moments of national significance in advertising. Americans' sense of patriotism is a common target of advertising. Hearts swell with pride at images of parades welcoming home veterans. These images are used to sell products because of the immediate sense of connection which Americans feel with these nostalgic reflections.

By using these historical images, the very meaning of the moment is usurped. As Judith Williamson says in her book, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning, "Real events, or objects connected with real events, are hollowed out, as with other referent systems, leaving only the interiority of the subject, an inside without an outside, denying 'objective' historicity...history itself appropriated by advertisements and denied its actual content. The 'memory' ads gave us an imaginary relation to part personal time; these give the subject an imaginary relationship to history and replace historical information with mythical information." (Williamson, 1978:164) History begins to lose the essence of its meaning as it is exploited repeatedly. The meaning is recreated to become a myth in advertising.

We recognize real history and are thus able to make sense of the ad."But this is quickly absorbed into a myth, as the product is inserted in the hollow shell of historical events and fills the space of the 'in' -the hollow referent." (Williamson, 1978:165) Take for example, this particular Aiwa ad. In order to crunch and squeeze history into the sale of a product, "history is replaced by spectacle." (Goldman, Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, 1996:137) The ad suggests that people have been asking for two speakers to be sold together, rather than separately, thus turning the two fingered peace sign into a demand for their product. It relies on viewer's memories, constructed or otherwise, of the peace protests of the 1960s and 70s. This ad for stereo speakers takes a moment in history and makes it into a (virtual) showcase for the product. The stereotypical peace protest is made cheesy and schmultzy to the extreme. We are expected to recognize this photo as real memorabilia from a 60s protest. Yet the photo is constructed recently, quite obviously.

No grainy film is used to code this piece as "historical". This scene has been recreated for the purpose of selling speakers, and this is made obvious to the viewer, in the ad's extreme awareness of itself. The advertiser acknowledges that this picture, while black and white, is not "old" and instead uses the image to get at the heart of the joke. "You've been asking for two for years." Obviously, the two fingers the protestors hold up symbolize the desire for peace, and not a pair of speakers. Aiwa recreates the scene, rather than taking one of a plentiful amount of "real" pictures at this time, to show the cheesiness in their ad. This ad functions as an appellation to former hippies-turned-yuppies. As they sit back and chuckle at their tree-hugging days, Aiwa steps in and laughs with them. It's as if Aiwa was a member of this generation and can now laugh at its own history. Aiwa attempts to place itself in a social group, like it has been with you throughout the years.

In terms of history, this piece guts the historical context of peace protests. Aiwa actually has the audacity to say that these people didn't want peace, they really just wanted two speakers. Inherent in this is the assumption that people who participated in this era are now able to joke about it. While this is meant to be a playful piece, it is rather disturbing in its manner of appropriating and manipulating such a pivotal period in American history in order to sell its product. Again, the use of a staged "historical picture" shows Aiwa's joking-punch-in-the-shoulder-manner, as well as its attempt to actually recreate history to its benefit; to sell speakers.

Ads like this are extremely detrimental to history because of their lack of context. Peace protests are robbed of their original meaning and instead create the myth that they were made to sell commodities. Through repeated advertisements that appropriate history, times like these will come to mean nothing other than a referent to a product. Peace protests are meant to sell speakers. Soon, people will be unaware of the reasons why these protests took place, and what happened as a result of them. Aiwa's convenient appropriation of history is alarming.

 

The Nikon commercial is also a disturbing piece in this sense. It assumes that Americans are literate in history not only through images, but through its images. Nikon claims ownership of pieces of history. "If you can picture it in your head, it was probably taken with a Nikon." This conjures up the idea of a Nikon capturing the moment and making it their own. By buying their cameras it is suggested that you too could own a piece of history, or create one. This is a scary thought, but not uncommon in advertising. Nikon claims these specific historical moments as theirs. Because we think of specific pictures when we read these words, history is thus nothing but an image. As a camera company, Nikon can take direct responsibility for these images.

Specifically, the images which are referred to in this ad are random and chosen for their easy recognition. They have little in common other than their national significance to Americans. "A three-year-old boy saluting at his father's funeral", is a reference to John F. Kennedy, Jr. at the late President JFK's funeral, following his assassination.

This image is well-recognized among Americans and tugs at the heart strings of people not just in its sadness suggested for the boy, but also for the rest of the nation. Next to this statement is the phrase "A woman crying over the body of a student shot by the National Guard", suggesting the infamous Kent State incident where peace protestors were gunned down by a nervous National Guard. "An American President lifting his pet beagle up by its ears", is a reference to Lyndon B.Johnson and scenes of an American President. The statement "A lone student standing in front of four tanks" suggests Tiennamen Square, a scene of a fight for democracy abroad. This scene is supposed to instill pride in every American's heart for our freedom of government.

Historically, these moments are decontextualized and random at best. Nikon has appropriated images of history because of their nostalgic significance, and not for their linear sense of history. In terms of advertising, this piece has the potential to be successful in the way that it demands the viewer figure out each statement and conjure up the image suggested in each square. People invest time in this trivia-like piece and come away feeling proud of their historical recollection through these few lines.

 

Dos Equis beer is another campaign which uses history in order to sell its product. In this case the history of Mexico is the referent. Dos Equis is supposed to be an "authentic" Mexican beer, just as the Aztecs are supposed to be "authentic" Mexicans. By using the opening lines about driving out the British, Spanish and French, the advertisers try to suggest that the power of the Aztecs to choose their beer. Firstly, this denies all historical context to the invasion of Mexico by various world superpowers. Mexico's history is drastically simplified to suggest that Native Mexicans are picky and to sell beer.

"Far from creating ideas or meanings, advertisements actually remove all meaning from objects and events in terms of material context and content, thus leaving gaps which can be filled by the product."Williamson, p.166

Never mind the years and years which it took for Mexico to reach independence or the bloodshed which took place to achieve this status.

Dos Equis uses the picture of Aztecs in fierce "war paint" to give Mexicans as a whole an air of stern-ness. This ad suggests that historically, Mexicans have fought wars to achieve independence and will fight today to keep good beers in, and bad beers out of their country. This ad is absolutely patronizing of the people of Mexico, "The people of Mexico have always been a selective lot." The blatantly obscene connection made between superpower and beer is seen as "safe" because it is a beer of another country. This ad is not historically accurate as the Aztecs are not necessarily the one who drove out these countries, as there were also other superpowers and mestizos who fought.

 

The concept of "history" becomes contingent upon recognizing such overlapping signifiers in television ads. History then becomes a signified emptied of specificty; it functions as a generic sign. The substance of history erodes; instead, history is conceived as pure form, a category to be filled by this or that signification. When invoked as a formal category in ads, history is usually represented as a source of value, which when placed in formal equivalence with the corporate name, lends value to the sponsor. Ironically, insofar as we become a culture without historical memory, history seems to have little value in daily life where the "creative destruction" of the market is relentness." (Williamson, p.117)

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