Lifestyles and Advertising
I have always been intrigued by the power of advertising. Last year, when I took a course in Advertising & Social Change, I learned a great deal about the importance and abundance of a relatively new kind of advertising. What I am talking about is the concept of lifestyle advertising.
Lifestyle advertising is effectively the idea that through mass media, companies are not concerned with making us think about buying the product itself, but rather the buying into the kind of ‘lifestyle’ it seems to promise us. In this case the advertisement is specifically designed for Father’s Day in Australia. Fathers are expected to want ‘hardware’ as a gift, i.e. hammers, drills, screwdrivers and so on. Fitbit here is trying to appeal to the ‘manly’ man, the kind of gent who likes his hardware. Moreover, this target consumer might like organisation (hence the organisation of the products as such), and being in control. In control not only of his tools, but also his health and fitness.
It’s not even about a specific product any more, it’s about a brand. Fitbit doesn’t just sell fitness trackers, it sells a lifestyle in the form of a brand. It’s selling an identity disguised as an idea we can readily embrace. As Don Slater (1997, p.194) suggests, it is about a product “experience” rather than purpose.
Lifestyles, according to Slater (1997, p.191), are crucially important in modern advertising. Perhaps though, it is not only the kind of lifestyle we currently live that is important, but really what we would like to live — or rather what we would like to be seen living.
William Leiss (2005, p.563) asserts that the development of brands is one of the major changes in advertising that has occurred in recent years. “It is not the goods one possesses that count, but rather the enactment of consumption sensibility or taste as carried out through them” (p.564) he says. “To play the game it is necessary to appear all-knowing about the practices of promotion, to seem to be disinterested in goods and impervious to social rivalry — in short, to be cool” (p.566).
Advertising, and brands by extension, form part of the cultural wallpaper of our everyday lives. Having a perception of what a brand means is integral to its relationship with the public. They are a tool for constructing shared experiences and social relations (Arvidsson, 2006, p.1), a talking point that connects people. However, it is the significance of the brand that is most important. It is what consumers think about the brand that is the source of its value (p.7).
Fitbit’s campaign doesn’t work because it makes a lot of people want to buy a Fitbit, it works because it gets everybody thinking about Fitbit trackers and all of their connotations. It works because of what we associate with Fitbit and how easy it is to do so.
Furthermore, it is the kind of activities and persona we associate with the product that give it a meaning. Fundamentally, this all comes back to what I mentioned before about Leiss’s idea of lifestyles. We are not just being sold products any more, we’re being sold ways of life. In an era of mass consumption, it is not simply the kinds of products we buy that determine our social relationship with others — it is the sort of lives we lead, or at least appear to lead.
Works cited
Arvidsson, A., 2006. Ch.1: “Introduction”. In Brands: Meaning and value in media culture. London: Routledge. pp.1–16.
Leiss, W., Kline, S., Jhally, S. & Botterill, J., 2005. Ch. 16: “The Fifth Frame”. In Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the mediated marketplace. London: Routledge. pp.563–78.
Slater, D., 1997. Ch. 7: “New Times”. In Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. pp.174–209.
