For an advert not to be considered Orwellian these days seems to be suggesting a laughable concept. By this I mean they all impose an image upon the consumer seeing it by controlling their desire and how they think. All adverts employ short euphemisms called newspeak in order to brain wash, by telling the consumer that the product is what they are telling them they need to have, whether that is due to the products efficiency or essentialism; thus eliminating any negative connotations or words associated with the product to project this positive image. A particular advert that illustrates this point is the advertisement surrounding Dasani water which was produced by the Coca Cola company, which slogans included: 'Dasani water. Can't live without it'. This creates the image that you desperately need it, this means that the Coca Cola company is telling you what you need because they know what's best for you, another of their tag lines which is Orwellian in its controlling voice is: 'Dasani. Treat yourself well. Everyday'. This means the company is having an input in your everyday life style by telling you what to drink, furthermore by using a healthy, smiling, young person in its advertisement it reinforces the message that the product is good and beneficial to your health. By using Dasani in the slogans it emphasizes its importance to you the consumer almost as a figure of authority, which can also be deemed as part of an Orwellian advertisement tool because it makes it into an icon for the consumer to listen to, much like the Coca Cola company itself.
The scandal that surrounds the product which resulted in the recall of 500,000 bottles and the abandonment of the launch. Due to traces of bromate chemicals in the water caused by adding calcium to Dasani; which with long term consumption can cause cancer, the recovery from this scandal also shows the effectiveness of the Orwellian newspeak in the advert as the notoriety of the scandal doesn't match the debacle itself, this is due to the efficiency of the Orwellian advert as all the negative connotations surrounding the scandal has been pretty much dispelled. However it could be argued that its continued launch and sale in Europe also helped its recovery as the advertisements continued to circulate spreading the positive image intended.
1 comment:
good work - steady contribution through the term and semester - glad that you like some of the technical linguisic stuff with Orwell. The underlying philosopher is Witgenstein if you wan to follow that up. It should certainly help to read Wittgenstein on an english degree since he was a philosopher of lgic within language. Very influential and a counter to the French deconstructionist neoplatonic moralising post-structuralist neo-idealist voodoo incantation that seems to pass as valid criticism at many universities these days.
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