Abstract:
My purpose in doing this project is to understand how a city that was half communist and half capitalist for just over fifty years has adapted to wholesale capitalism in the last eighteen years. To do this, I will study billboards, because I believe advertising is an essential and extremely visible part of capitalism. I will also study the way ads are treated by Berliners: the ads were often defaced, replaced, the defacements themselves defaced. As well as a general survey of a sample of billboards found in Berlin, I will be analyzing two case studies: a particularly large ad that I saw almost every day and changed during my time in Berlin, and an interview with two artists who made an art work of illegally gluing their own messages onto billboards.
Background:
At the end of my senior year of high school, I went to Mexico, and my sister went to Germany. I got back a week later, plus a scar or so, and lots of interesting memories, and by the time I had all my stitches out, she was home to trade photos and stories with. I had photos of Chichen Itza, she had photos of the Frauenkirche. I had the Caribbean, she had die Nordsee. I had a raccoon stealing my piece of chocolate cake, and she had photos of billboards with condoms on fruit. Apparently they were all over. One of the many political issues I am interested in is the battle between comprehensive and abstinence-only sex education – our high school taught abstinence only, and many of our lectures were actually rather inaccurate. The idea that there was a culture where it was okay to put condoms on billboards was interesting to me.
This interest could have gone two ways for my project: studying European views on sex, or studying the limits of what is appropriate for advertising. I discarded the sex question almost immediately, for the same reason I ultimately decided not to study Neo-Nazis. I was not comfortable, at this point in my life, with the idea of asking Germans sensitive questions in English. That is not to say advertising was some sort of last choice, only that it was the most practical of many topics that interested me.
I decided to study themes in advertising. Logically, I knew that the culture ads are made for will affect the content and the themes of the ads. This was influenced by my background as an Eastern Washingtonian living in Western Washington. I have definitely noticed differences between ads made to appeal to Seattleites and Yakimanians, in both what they are selling and how they are selling it. I know I am in Yakima when I see an ad for a very conservative radio show, and that I am in Seattle when a company is selling itself to you by claiming to be environmentally friendly. (Admittedly, this trend is traveling east, slowly, as “green” products sell well and conservative people realize that they have to live on Planet Earth, too.) So it stood to reason that Berlin ads would reflect the dominant culture of the city and country. Germans , so while American car ads may feature a splashing background of red, white and blue, German ads probably would not use the German flag as casually. Europeans tend to be less concerned about alcohol, cigarettes, and nudity than Americans, so it was probable I would see ads reflecting that.
Problems did occur throughout the project, however. I am very interested in advertising and communications, but have never formally studied either, other than the brief advertising section of a particularly bad Women Studies class. This quarter, Fall 08, I am finally taking intro to Communications, and learning the actual terminology and studies. This certainly did not help me two weeks ago in Berlin. I have tried to make this as academic and intelligent as possible, but I do not think it will be up to actual Communications standards. As a History major, I shudder to think of a lengthy history paper written by someone who has not taken a single class in the field.
The second problem was the very fact that Berlin is such an international city. It did not have the typically German advertising I saw in Munich or Frankfurt; its ads looked like the ads of any large city. Munich has had a major AIDS prevention advertising campaign going on for at least two years – it was the Mach’s Mit ad my sister photographed that got me interested, and I did see the “condoms on fruit and veggies” ads frequently while I was in Munich the first time. (The second time, almost all advertising space was taken up by Oktoberfest ads.) I spent about an hour at the train station in Hofheim, a small city near Frankfurt, and it also had a distinctive campaign overshadowing the other ads: Brot für die Welt, or something along those lines. That being my experience with German advertising, I was quite dismayed to find Berlin not very much different than Seattle. I have a short discussion of the themes I observed at the beginning of the Analysis section, but it was nothing statistically significant or extensive, so I expanded my topic to include how ads were treated by Berliners, and found two short case studies that answered my questions.
Methods:
The bulk of my research was simply taking photographs as we walked around Berlin. I found the best locations for billboards to be in U-Bahn/S-Bahn stations. Various photos are recognizably from Jannowitzbrücke, and both the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn part of Alexanderplatz, though the blue tiling came out more green. I also photographed billboards above the street, over construction, on sidewalks, bus stops, and anywhere else I saw an interesting ad. Since arriving back in Seattle, I had the most interesting and relevant photos from my collection printed, and have been comparing and categorizing them. I put my beer ads together, my clothing department stores together, etc. I feel like this method was limited only by my selection bias in which ads to include. The language barrier in advertising is low because the text has to be simple and short for people to understand it without looking at the billboard for more than a few seconds.
I conducted only one interview, and I may not have even done that if I had not been sick the day the Kooperative Kunstpraxis presentation occurred. I met Manuela Mangold at her apartment, and walked with her to the apartment of Andreas Paeslack. Paeslack was very talkative and interesting, so although I meant to interview both of them, the interview was mostly Paeslack’s views. Mangold translated, as I do not speak German and Paeslack does not speak English. For the majority of the interview, I did not ask specific, steering questions, and asked the two artists to tell me in general what the Words for the Masses project was about. After I got a good description of the project and the reasons behind it, I asked specifically why all of the messages on the advertisements were criticizing capitalism, and not exploitation of women or the overwhelming heteronormativity of society, for example. As intended, we then spoke about communism, how growing up in East Germany affects one’s view on capitalism, and how people generally cannot see outside of an ideology. This interview was of course limited by the language barrier, but I admit it was also slightly damaged by my strangely Cold War assumption that anyone who criticizes capitalism is a communist. Paeslack could clearly see that that was my assumption, and felt the need to tell me he was not actually a communist.
Analysis:
The themes in the ads themselves were interesting, though as previously discussed, not worth an entire research project.
For a foreigner who did not speak German, the most obvious theme was foreign companies and different languages in the billboards. About a third of the billboards had at least one phrase in English. Often, a foreign company would have everything but the product name or a major catchphrase written in German. Coco-Cola, an international star of the consumer world, had every world of every ad translated but the product title “Coca-Cola Light.” A handful of American CDs shared a billboard, which was all in German except for the website, www.niceprice.de. Two Asian companies, Sony and Samsung, had ads, but the ads were mostly German with just a phrase in English: no Japanese or Korean involved. This suggests that there is still very much a divide between the traditional Western societies and Asian countries, even the countries that are very, very Westernized and compatible with American and European culture. (Other advertisements suggest the divide is slowly breaking down, however: lychee-flavored beverages and foods were becoming increasingly popular.) The tourism bureau of London had at least two advertisements with not a single word auf Deutsch. This suggests two things: that the posters are at least partially targeted to English-speaking tourists in Germany, such as the many Americans and Australians we encountered, and that if Germans do visit London, they will be expected to speak English. This is the direct opposite of the situation in Germany, where businesses are careful to remain accessible to English-speaking tourists. Even the url listed on the London ads suggested Germans were not being taken seriously. Most foreign companies bothered to get an address ended in .de, but London only added a German page, a /DE, onto their generic .com site.
The bulk of the advertising containing English actually was from German companies, and seemed to be targeted toward tourists. Berliner Pilsner advertises it is “Made in Berlin,” and the show at Friedrichstadt Palast advertised specifically that it was “suitable for non-German speaking tourists.” Berlin Tourismus offers a “Berlin Welcome Card.” The overwhelming presence of advertising targeting English-speaking tourists, informational signs in English, and store clerks who speak English made it entirely possible to spend a month in Berlin and never be forced to learn more than a few words. Whether this is a consequence of American presence in much of Western Germany after World War II (America being the only economic survivor of the second World War and getting an economic boost for decades in the postwar years), the strength of the English pound against the Euro, or even the large numbers of Australians I encountered everywhere in Europe, it is impossible for me to say.
German advertising did use foreign language for at least one other reason besides attracting tourists. The Wild West Pizza Potato cannot possibly be intended to attract Americans, but may be related to a certain love of the Wild West described by Manuela Mangold and Andreas Paeslack. Thanks to a series of children’s books by Karl May, Germans of a certain age simply like the Old West. Although May died almost a century ago, Westerns were still very popular with people of Manuela Mangold’s generation, and she described playing Cowboys and Indians as a child. One other company, Berlinwasser, used French in its Berliner Wasserbetriebe ad to a completely different effect. The water company uses the French “Eau” instead of the German “Wasser” to give the impression that the rubber ducky or spaghetti has given the water a fond, possibly romantic, nickname. To be perfectly accurate, Berliner Wassbetriebe is partially owned by a French company, but the primary shareholder is the city of Berlin, and the second is RWF, a German electrical company.
As mentioned in the background section, I was thinking about the use of nationalism in advertising in the United States, and how I probably would not see it in Berlin. Even the ads for the special open-house at the Reichstag and the ads for Deutsche Bahn, the national railway company, did not have a single German flag in the photo. What I did see in Berlin was not national pride, but city pride. One Bionade ad had a lovely play on words with Berlin’s historical Unter den Linden street. It translated approximately to “Tastes good under, next to, and if you wish, even on the Linden.” The two beer companies with large ads both heavily featured the city of Berlin. Berliner Pilsner’s city pride was cheapened somewhat by putting “Made in Berlin” in English for the tourists, but Berliner Kindl’s “So schmeckt Berlin” (approximately “Thus tastes Berlin”) seemed entirely genuine. Berliner Kindl even had a contest where one could win a party at the city’s biggest symbol, Brandenburg Gate.
Case Study #1: The Lifecycle of the Common Advertisement
The most fascinating advertisement I saw in Berlin was the Converse ad in Alexanderplatz. Between the main room leading down to the U-Bahn and the stairs to the main level, there was a small section of hallway that had been completely covered in a single advertisement for Converse shoes. The ad featured about two dozen famous people – mostly musicians, but also actors and athletes – all in the same pose: legs further than shoulder-width apart, shoes superimposed over the next person’s feet. The website, displayed at the top left corner of one wall of the display, calls this the “Connectivity Campaign.”
When we first arrived in Berlin, the ad was fairly clean, with a few stickers and a few initials in what looks like marker. Within the second week, a large sticker had been placed over the face of one of the women, an anarchy “A” on her chest, and her cleavage accented with more marker. One of the companies responsible for putting up and taking down ads either cleaned it or replaced it, as her face was back within a week of that.
Soon after, someone with a can of black spray-paint did a simple line across the entire ad. It was eyelevel for the people in the ad, but the person who did it must have raised his hand above his head to specifically spray across the eyes.
The ad stayed mutilated for the remainder of its life. About a week before we left Berlin, the ad was torn down. Underneath the ad was a piece of public art: stylized black and white Corvettes on one wall, and stylized blue airplanes on the other, all over a light gold. The walls had a nominal amount of initials drawn across it. Three metallic gold squares (one on the jet side, one on the Corvette side) were painted in the middle, with black text explaining the intended symbolism of the painting, in English. The Corvette square was titled “The Black and White Corvette Race: Paradise” and signed R.V. 03.
When I first saw it, it occurred to me that this was an unusual placement of an ad; wallpapering an entire hallway with a single ad? It was a very good location, however. Every single person who exited or transferred to the S-Bahn at Alexanderplatz had to walk through it. It just was not a space that was typically rented for advertising, but the Alexanderplatz managers were willing to sell that spot, and allowed Converse to put an ad over a piece of public art. This is the absolute inverse of the second case study – legal, while it shouldn’t be; ads covering art, instead of ads becoming art. It almost symbolizes the gentle gentrification of a poor, artist city.
What interested me even more about the ad was the way it changed. Because it was in such a distinctive location, I noticed changes in it the way I did not in other ads. I noticed when a face was covered up with a sticker Monday, but had not been Saturday. I almost thought I had taken the wrong staircase when the Converse ad was removed, and it became the Corvette hallways. It helped me see that there is a lifecycle for ads, almost like plants or animals. An ad is born. It is shaped slowly through life, acquiring new distinctive markers. Eventually, it dies, and something else takes its place. If an ad is very successful, such as the H&M series of striking models against a black background, it will reproduce and be seen all across the city before the end of the month. If it is not a “good” ad, such as the Kooperative Kunstpraxis’s Auschwitz ad, it will be killed early in life.
Case Study #2: Worte für Millionen (Words for the Masses)
For this project, I conducted my one interview: Andreas Paeslack and Manuela Mangold, who were both part of the Worte für Millionen (Words for the Masses) project, as part of the Kooperative Kunstpraxis. The Words for the Masses project involved altering ads with speech bubbles critical of consumerism and capitalism coming out of the mouths of people featured in the ads. Batman says “KAPITALISMUS BEDEUTET SELEKTION- SELEKTION BEDEUTET AUSCHWITZ” (Capitalism means selection – selection means Auschwitz”). A very happy looking woman holding a canned latte says “Advertising is the permanent sermon of consumer culture.” (For photos of these ads, please go to Kooperative Kunstpraxis's website. It is the first project of 2005, under the "Projekte" header.)
The idea for this project was creating something large with very little money. The artists realized that there was a city-wide system of canvases, already standing there for anyone to use: billboards. (It is illegal to alter billboards or any other surfaces one does not own. This does not matter to very many people.) Paeslack compared it to art school – often, someone would not finish a piece, and would give a half-done painting to someone else to finish. It was almost more creative to finish someone else’s work and make it your own.
Paeslack did not believe there was enough criticism of capitalism in art. We are certainly bombarded with its messages at every moment, but rarely hear a credible rebuttal. He went on to describe consumerism as metaphorically a type of religion, and ads as preaching within that religion.
The artists did not just put the captions up and leave, and the reactions people had to the billboards also tell about people and advertising. The most common reaction to the boards was laughter. It is actually quite ironic – people generally walk by billboards without paying them more than a flick of a glance, but they visibly noticed the altered billboards, and generally like them. The Auschwitz alteration, however, was torn down within hours of being put up; Germans tend to be sensitive about the Holocaust, even in art.
For the second half of the interview, I wanted to know more specifically about how Germany being half communist for 51 years affected the most ubiquitous sign of capitalism – advertising. I had not seen any former West / former East divide on advertising; I was somewhat hoping that the East side would have fewer advertising spots available, but saw no evidence of this whatsoever.
I asked Paeslack and Mangold about the anti-capitalism message of the project, and asked how much that was a personal belief and how much it was just part of the art project. Paeslack took the lead again on this answer. He believes that part of art is to pinpoint problems, and this project was criticizing something not often criticized in art.
As for themes of communism as the natural adversary of capitalism, he said he was not a communist. He had grown up in the German Democratic Republic, and while he recognized that it did not work “as advertised,” as a functioning communist society, it was not capitalistic. The people who lived in the GDR and are old enough to really remember it do have a different view on capitalism than those of us who grew up in a Western capitalism state. Specifically, Paeslack said that he and others like him could actually recognize capitalism as another ideology, and not just a default state that we all live in and can only live in.
Analysis of Composition-based Project:
While I am entirely glad that I tried a composition-based research project, looking back on it after a couple weeks, the primary feeling I have about it is that it was rather restrictive. I felt like I could only show what is interesting enough to keep an audience’s attention. I feel like I was filming a History Channel show, rather than an academic history lesson, and anything that was important but dragged a little or was hard to put in mass media terms had to go. I feel like I wanted to write a monograph about Renaissance art and scriptural debates, collected only enough hard evidence for a mass market history book, and in the end was forced to write a sequel to the Da Vinci Code.
The contributions I made to our composition included slides of various photos I took of billboards, a short section where one shopper in a supermarket is critical of another’s choices, and the statements “Capitalism is organic” and “I’m not suggesting the GDR was better – no one believes that – but growing up there gives you the perspective to see capitalism as an ideology, and not just a default state.” My second character was obviously based on Andreas Paeslack; the first was a man about my age in Kaiser’s who interrupted my shopping to inform Elizabeth Korsmo and me about my choice in soups. For the composition, it was okay that these characters were definitely not “Carrot Man” and Andreas Paeslack; for me, less so. The statement “Capitalism is organic,” was an overall sense from my research, and there was no way to explain it further than that in that format, so it almost certainly could not have mattered or made an impact on people.
Overall, writing and performing the compositions was a good experience for me. Learning to think about information in a different way is never a bad thing, but coming at everything at such an oblique angle does not really suit my research ethics. I do not like altering people to make them fit where I want. I do not like cherry-picking facts more than absolutely necessary.
Where this research could go:
As I am currently enrolled in an actual Communications class, I am hoping to revisit the research I did and analyze it through my new knowledge of the field that advertising fits best in.
