Abstract
It is claimed that we live in a visual culture, a culture permeated with visual images from advertising, television, movies, and magazines that unconsciously shape lifestyle and even worldview. This is evidenced above all else by the fact that logos—the visual symbols used by brand products—have become so familiar that they come instinctively to mind by just mentioning them. Logos of eateries (McDonalds golden arches), shoes (Nike’s swoosh logo), clothes (Ralph Laurens horseman), and so on, are so familiar that we no longer perceive them as simple trademarks but, rather, as cultural symbols. Their placement in the scripts of television programs, movies, and other media spectacles indicates that there is no real distinction between advertising and brand-based marketing and pop culture generally. They are (and always have been) symbolic partners on the same profane stage.
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–80)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination (London: Picador, 1984).
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2006), 1.
Daniel Boorstin, The Image (New York: Atheneum, 1961), 234.
See, for example, Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage, 1965).
On the history of this fascinating symbol, see Ken Kolsbum and Michael S. Sweeney, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol (New York: National Geographic, 2008)
Barry Miles, Peace: 50 Years of Protest (New York: Reader’s Digest, 2008).
Naomi Klein, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000).
Alan E. Bryman, The Disneyization of Society (London: Sage, 2004), 25–26.
Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 34.
William Leiss, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally, and Jacqueline Botterill, Social Communication in Advertising. Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace (London: Routledge, 2005), 20–35.
Henri Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World (New York: Harper, 1971).
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984).
Barry Hoffman, The Fine Art of Advertising (New York: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 2002), 101.
Cited in James B. Twitchell, Twenty Ads that Shook the World (New York: Crown, 2000), 8.
Gregory Thomas, How to Design Logos, Symbols & Icons (Cincinnati: How Design Books, 2000), 9.
Arthur Asa Berger, Shop ’Til You Drop: Consumer Behavior and American Culture (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner’s, 1958).
Arthur Asa Berger, Making Sense of Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 5.
Alex Frankel, Word Craft. The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business (New York: Three Rivers, 2004), 81.
Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (New York: Beacon, 1964), 18.
James Graham Ballard, Crash (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1973), x.
Copyright information
© 2009 Marcel Danesi
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Danesi, M. (2009). Logo-Power: The Role of Branding and Advertising in Pop Culture. In: X-Rated!. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617834_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617834_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-61068-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61783-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)