Szarkowski: The Detail.

Lady in Red. Copyright 2007: Knut Skjærven.

“Once he left the studio, it was impossible for the photographer to copy the painters’ schemata. He could not stage-manage the battle, like Uccello or Velásquez, bringing together elements which had been separate in space and time, nor could he rearrange the parts of his picture to construct a design that pleased him better.

From the reality before him he could only choose that part that seemed relevant and consistent, and what would fill his plate. If he could not show the battle, explain its purpose and its strategy, or distinguish its heroes from its villains, he could show what was too ordinary to paint: the empty road  scattered with cannon balls, the mud encrusted on the caisson’s wheels, the anonymous faces, the single broken figure by the wall.

Intuitively, he sought and found the significant detail. His work, incapable of narrative, turned toward symbol.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Szarkowski: Time.

Oprah Winfrey in Copenhagen. Copyright 2010: Knut Skjærven.

“Photographs stand in special relation to time, for they describe only the present.

Exposures were long in early photography. If the subjects moved, its multiple image described also a space-time dimension. Perhaps it was such accidents that suggested the photographic study of the process of movement, and later, of the virtual forms produced by the continuity of movement in time.

Photographers found an inexhaustible subject in the isolation of a single segment of time. They photographed the horse in midstride, the fugitive expressions of the human face, the gestures of the hand and body, the bat meeting the ball, the milk drop splashing in the saucer of milk.

More subtle was the discovery of that segment of time that Cartier-Bresson called the decisive moment: decisive not because of the exterior event (the bat meeting the ball) but because in that moment the flux of changing forms and patterns was sensed to have achieved balance and clarity and order – because the image became, for an instant, a picture.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

barebones’ new grasp on advertising

barebones advertising diagram. Copyright 2010: Knut Skjærven.

Please read this carefully. This is important information for grasping barebones’ ideas on advertising.

The three zones of adverting

What you see above is the newly conceived barebones advertising diagram. It is an illustration of how barebones sees, and defines, the main zones of advertising. How it sees advertising.

There is no part of advertising that falls outside the three zones. The definition is meant to be exhaustive. This means that there are three zones, and only three zones, of advertising, and that every gesture to advertise to a marked will fall in one or more of the three categories.

One thing is important: when you read the diagram you should read what you actually see:  1) There are no straight lines in the diagram, only curves. 2) The zones are all overlapping. Zones are fluent and they are all overlapping.

From here on we will talk about red zone advertising (above the line), blue zone advertising (below the line) and grey zone advertising (beyond the lines).

I am sure that you are already familiar with variations of the first two zones. And you probably already have an idea of the third zone, as well.

The parts of advertising

For barebones, however,  it is not just a questions of mapping advertising in three zones. There is a bit more to it than that. With the zones comes the question of interconnectedness and constitution.  Here is one thing you should remember: the zones of barebones advertising don’t stand together as pieces belonging to each other, they stand together as moments constituting each other.

This is an alternative way of dealing with advertising. Based on barebones resources we have simply dealt the cards anew.

The distinction between pieces and moments is a phenomenological theme. Roughly speaking pieces are parts that can be separated from each other, and in themselves constitute new independent parts. Like a branch that is cut from a tree and constitutes a new and separate unit (that again can be split into smaller parts). Pieces are independent parts.

Moments, however, you cannot take apart in the same way. Colour, for instance, is a moment and it can not be separated from that which it is colour of. The colour of the wall can not be separated from its extension. Every time there is colour there is extension. Colour can not be separated from its extension like a branch can be cut from a tree. Moments are nonindependent parts.

Important  implications

Here are the implications for advertising: The red zone, the blue zone and the grey zone of advertising are not related to each other as independent parts constituting the advertising message. Each zone does not potentially constitute pieces of the message. The zones constitutes potential moments of the message.

Following this line of thought the implication for advertising is severe. Both in the way you theoretically may want to look at advertising in the future, but most importantly for your understanding of message content (and form) in real advertising.

Messages are constituted by moments. That goes for advertising messages as well.

There will be much more about this in forthcoming posts. Let’s leave it here to take a quick look at what the red, the blue end the gray zones of advertising covers.

Red Zone Advertising/Above the Line

Red zone  advertising is mass communication. Commercials, print ads, posters, brochures. You know the lot. To  get attention for your mass communication, you need to break through the barrier of contextual noise.

The colour of attention is red.

Given the right position red zone advertising is for everyone to see, to explore and to react to. By the right positions is meant e.g. that you need to be in New York to be exposed to a New Your poster. You need to have the newspaper, the periodical, the television set tuned into the right channel, to be exposed to the ad, poster of commercial placed in that medium.

Blue Zone Advertising/ Below the Line

Blue zone advertising is not mass communication. It is selective and directed at you personally. Goes often by the name of  direct communication. Reaches you with the post, is  given over the phone, is displayed at your favorite web site. It is handed out to you by the sales person. Could come as a mail to you inbox as well. You know the lot.

This form of advertising is blue zone advertising because it is, or should be, so well controlled, or targeted, that is reached you and grabs your interest by the share being there. It is precise communication.

The colour of precision, is blue.

Grey  Zone Advertising/ Beyond the Lines

Grey zone advertising is traditionally not reckoned as adverting at all. On barebones communication it points to all other types of communication that reaches out from a person, a product or a company and thereby influences the chain of events that makes up the brand of a particular substance.

The reason why barebones stress and rephrase this type of communication (as advertising) is that, whatever you say, this zone of communication has an advertising effect. It pushes your attitudes towards a person, a company, a product or a service. It stimulates or it blocks business. And stimulation, in a broad sense, is what advertising is all about.

This however is not always recognized, but there seems to be an increasing awareness of this fact. At least the area is obscure as to what grey zone activity does in terms of image and of selling products and services.

The colour of obscurity is grey.

More to come

Let’s leave it here for the moment. What you need to remember from this post are the three zones of advertising, and that messages are constituted my moments.

Stay tuned.

Szarkowski: The Frame.

Nice Nostalgia. Copyright. Knut Skjærven.

“Since the photographer’s picture was not conceived but selected, his subject was never truly discrete, never wholly self-contained. The edges of  his film demarcated what he thought most important, but the subject he had  shot was something else; is has extended in four directions. If the photographer’s frame surrounded two figures, isolating them from the crowd in which they stood, it created a relationship between the two figures that had not existed before.

The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge – the line that separates in from out – and on the shapes that are created by it.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Szarkowski: Introduction.

The Thing Itself. Copyright 2007: Knut Skjærven.

“The first thing a photographer learned was that photography dealt with the actual; he had not only to accept this fact, but to treasure it: unless he did, photography would defeat him. He learned that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness, and to recognize its best works and moments, to anticipate them, to clarify them and make them permanent, requires intelligence both acute and supply.

But he learned also that the factuality of his pictures, no matter how convincing and unarguable, was a different thing than the reality itself. Much of the reality was filtered out in the static little black and white image, and some of it was exhibited with an unnatural clarity, an exaggerated importance. The subject and the picture was not the same thing, although they would afterwards seem so. It was the photographer’s problem  to see not simply the reality before him but the still invisible picture, and to make his choices in terms of the latter.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Mrs. Robinson.

“Here is to you Mrs. Robinson”. You are welcome to sing it. I am sure that you know the song from way back. Simon and Garfunkel it was who wrote and performed it for Mike Nichols’ Oscar winning film”The Graduate”.

If you have seen the movie, or read the story, you will know that it is about a middle age woman having an affair with a much younger man. Excellently played by Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffmann. Way back in 1960 something.

Another Mrs. Robinson turned up this week. I am sure that you know that one as well. Mrs. Iris Robinson, a well-known Irish politician, admitted to have had an affair with a 19 old friend-of-the family’s son. She later provided him with a 50,000 pounds loan from two local developers to help him set up his own business.

Her husband, Mr. Peter Robinson, who just happened to be Northern Ireland’s First Minister did not know about this, he says, but nevertheless he temporarily stepped down from office yesterday leaving Northern Ireland in a political turmoil.

Not good for Northern Ireland First Minister Business. Not at all good.

To be continued … (-:).

While you wait for the continuation, you may rest your soul by listening to this alternative version of the song Mrs. Robinson.

Good luck it.

barebones’ telco project

Photographers. Copyright 2009.

Barebones have been looking for a company, a couple of companies, a highly competitive environment on a national (local) marked to use as a specific case to investigate, and possible show, what benefits a barebones approach to a prolific communication area can have. We have now found such an area and have started researching it.

The case will be around the high-end telecommunication industry on the Danish consumer market consisting of three providers: Telia, Telenor and TDC. (Triple Tee).

The reasons why this area is interesting are, among other things, the following.

1) The Danish marked is reasonably small and therefore possible to oversee.

2) The number of players are limited.

3) The competition among the three main players are hefty.

4) The penetration of telco based products are among the highest in the world.

5) Customers are highly educated and critical.

6) A barebones approach to the area, due to the specifics of the Danish marked, is likely to have an international interest.

7) Ownership, strategies and markets tactics are very different in the three companies mentioned (more on this later).

What, then,  is a “the barebones approach”?

A barebones approach to the area includes all that you normally find in a traditional “marked analysis” as a prerequisite to a marked address, and thus to market communication.

Add  to that three things:

First, we go a step further in that we will look for a proper reflection of strategy, tactics and overall market conditions in the expressed marked communication e.g. commercials, print advertising, online marketing, etcetera.

Second, the project will be bases on the barebones toolbox and resources, in which traditional tools for market analyses occupies but a tiny corner. This will, hopefully, bring forward new aspects of market communication, and establish spaces for future planning, and implementation in the competitive arena.

Third: the stress will be on specific communication and not the planning of such communication. The first, normally, being a weak link.

There are, however, certain modification that needs to be made. The investigation and analysis will be based on open source material. This means that we rely on what spokesmen from the three companies have said or indicated. We look at websites, read interviews and press material, etcetera.  In addition, we look at what the companies have executed through other venues of market communication e.g. different forms of print advertising, commercials, social groups marketing, etcetera.

We mirror that against what the companies have stated in their e.g. visions, mission and strategies as we find these stated and explained, for instance, on their websites. All companies have extensive web sites.

Barebones will conduct content analysis of company communication and position each campaign, or other marked communication, in communication grids. Such positioning will possible reveal communication gaps. e.g. empty spaces for future telco communication.

And barebones will do more along these lines.

Why this effort? What’s in it for barebones communication, you may well ask?

Well, barebones sees it this way: Since it is the first time we execute an extensive barebones communication analysis to a specific and focused area, methods and models are not clearly defined from the start.  These will only emerge during the unfolding of the project, and will thus be new territory for barebones as well. Methods and models will be reusable for future analysis of a similar kind. That’s what in it for barebones communication.

By the end of the project new ways of market analysis will have emerged.

How are we going to present the material? We will not present it in any tradition way. We will present it the barebones way. There will be no final reports or executive summary.

The presentation will happen as we go along. This means that you need to follow the posts related to this barebones’ theme. We may collect relevant posts at a blog page, as with barebones puzzle, at a later stage. All relevant posts will be tagged: barebones telco. You will be able to find all theme posts by hitting this tag in the tag cloud. But you will need to sort posts, structure them, read them and understand  them on your own.

Does this mean that barebones communication will turn into a Danish telco project for the next many months? No, it will not mean that, but there will be some triple tee posts (Telia, Telenor, TDC).  Evidently.

Good luck with it. Remember to stay tuned

——————-

The photograph, or the people in it, has nothing to do with the theme in question. It is there for its own, or symbolic, sake only.

Ladies Here We Come.

One of the most talked about Danish commercials in 2008 was Fleggaard’s commercial for a washing machine. Promoted mainly by bare breasts.

Titled by one if the best barebones captions that years: from bare bones to bare breasts. Now Fleggaard has done it again, but this time aimed at women. “Ladies here we come”.

Apart from the gender difference in the two commercials, there are other differences too. Try check this new Fleggaard commercial in the Communication Efficiency Test (CET), and see how it falls out. Something like this. Your turn.

You could also go behind the scenes of Fleggaard’s latest commercial, or take a look at all the provocative commercials from one site. You need to state that you are over 18 to watch them. Click the link “se filmen” on the right hand side of each commercial to get them rolling.

Fleggaard operates just over the border from Denmark into Germany having large groups of customers from Denmark every day. The company is a successful Danish retailer. As his location, so his commercials: just over the border. People seems to enjoy them.

Good luck with it with the commercial entertainment from Fleggaard.

Just Brilliant: Be Your Own Hero.

Sometimes commercials can be just brilliant. Watch the commercial found at YouTube, or make your own version here. Be your own hero. English version.

Barebones Advertising: New Group On LinkedIn.

Barebones Advertising LinkedIn Group Logo. Copyright 2010.

Please take notice of the new group on advertising that I have started on LinkedIn. Please join the group called Barebones Advertising.

GROUP PROFILE:
I have often wondered why there is such a severe distance between advertising, art, communication, creativity and science.  After all, science is meant to bring us precise knowledge, and communication is all around us. So are creativity and art.  Advertising is a specific form of communication and should learn both from science, art, communication, and creativity.  Hopefully these ideas are worth networking. I definitely need your help.

FIRST THEME OF DISCUSSION/REQUEST:
Do you know of any agencies, or campaigns, that explicitly uses gestalt factors as part of the creative agenda? As I see it, gestalt psychology is a strong tool for managing visual communication. It would be interesting to know to what degree gestalt psychology, and gestalt factors, are explicitly used as part of a creative and communicative agenda both at agencies and in specific campaigns.

FOR barebones INSPIRATION, please go here.

Here is the link to Barebones Advertising on LinkedIn.

Many thanks

Knut Skjærven