Communications Strategies: Coopting Deviance

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As I watch the video, I wonder if it might be the projectionist’s labor of love.  Did he cobble it together with his art school friends?  If so, it’s very well done.

There’s a whiff of subversion in it.

In a world that is bland, colorless, and cold
Where banality grows like a fungus or a mold
There live the boring Sheeple who look just like each other …

My mind conjures the usual suspects.  I think of the American polity (myself included), passively bleating while we join the family of nations that commit torture.  I think of how disconnected we are from the political process at all levels, where candidates are transformed by polls and big donors into nicely wrapped products we purchase at election time.  I think also of the market’s homogenizing influence, of the failure of our schools to produce engaged citizens equipped to think critically ...

Finally I realize what a jackass I am for reading so much into just another car ad …

In a process that’s familiar to historians, philosophers, and others, the outside becomes the inside.  Deviance here is identified with the purchasing of a trendy product, and the idea that “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile” is given a violent new spin for these darker, more nefarious times.  Ultimately, subversion is subverted.

Is nothing sacred?

_____

Image source: Tropist

Comments

[i.a.t.]

saw it last night at the theater. my date couldn't figure it out and neither could i. strange way to sell cars. must have had an over-representation of ax murderers in the focus groups.

[Julio Marcial]

As a communications dude, I'm interested in the following question: Will this ad campaign sell Scions? Or is this another example of a multi-media game experience that robs employers of valuable hours as their own "Sheeple" sit in cubicles, giddily laughing at the cries and baaaahs of the slaughtered "Sheeple"? The envelope has been pushed so wide open, it's starting to tear at the seams.

[Phil]

Miscoding, misdirecting, deeply felt impulses seems to me the secret of effective propaganda. You have to find real emotion, then map it to the wrong objects within a narrative in which the reader or viewer vicariously plays a dramatic role. Brands do not make us Sheeple. Brands differentiate us, individuate us, body forth our own particular story. The Car of our Dreams carries us to perfect freedom.

[ahfukit]

The scion nigh on knowing...

[John Anger]

I think of the many times I've been clipped, almost sideswiped, by angry car drivers forced to maneuver past me and my bicycle on city streets. Some floor it as they fly past to remind me that a feminizing bicycle is no match for an American-made car. They make it clear that I'm a hair’s breadth away from becoming a hood ornament.

In the ad we see the mincing, green-blooded sheep walking limp-wristedly through the urban landscape, made sport of by the more powerful, car-driving predators. If the ad had a sequel, it would depict the Deviants running down the eco-nazi Sheeple in some pristine wilderness environment. The camera would then pan to a colony of sea lions appearing to applaud the scene with their foreflippers.