some complex, virtual space between the two. Marshall McCluhan’s notion that the “medium is the message” is clearly related to consumption theory. McCluhan argues that television influences viewers’ thinking processes and leads to alienation and individualism. But McCluhan sees this not as the result of television content but rather caused by the sensory nature of the medium itself. It is the form of the medium, according to McCluhan, and not its content that influence viewers (Mcluhan, 2002, pg7).
TV advertising is a representative part of the arena where the post-modern scene of simulation takes on the relationship between the product and consumer. Baudrillard has contributed significantly towards the theory of consumption. He abandoned Marxist analysis after his book called the ‘Symbolic Exchange and Death’ (1976). He argues that through a more explicitly post-industrial analysis the real relations of production and consumption have been replaced by a sign system. According to Baudrillard the arrival of consumer society requires a radical reconstruction of critical theory. Baudrillard argues that before goods (objects) can be consumed they must become signs (Baudrillard, 1988, pg 23). The meaning of the objects is established through the organisation of signs into codes. It is only through these codes that people realise their sense of self and their needs. The codes themselves are hierarchically ordered, being used to signify distinction of statue and prestige. As Baudrillard argues “a need is not for a particular object as much as it is a ‘need’ for difference (the desire for social meaning) only then we will understand that satisfaction can never be fulfilled, and consequently that there can never be a definition of needs”. A subject whose needs are fixed by human nature does not consume the object. Social goods are consumed not to satisfy pre-existing needs but to signify social distinctions.
We have become completely absorbed by adverts, images and simulation. Baudrillard would call this simulation as an ecstasy of the real. In Baudrillard’s “hyper-reality” and “simulacra” terms, the storied images of Nike sports heroes are more real than the reality of Third World workers to millions of consumers. However this consuming condition is an obsession and the product of late capitalism in Western societies.
Digitally created commercials – Faking the real
When we examine television advertising we once again find art and technology being used to create simulations that tell stories in an effort to evoke desired reactions from audiences. But in advertising we see a strange new cultural creation: the 20-second ‘cinematic’ production full of dancing, singing and joke-telling characters playing physicians, housewives, and used car salesmen, with ultra-abbreviated plots and quick resolutions of conflict in which the characters overcome obstacles and fulfil their desires in record time with the help of the product. Unlike movies, which will evoke the wrath of the audience if the unfolding of the story is interrupted, in commercials there is virtually no story to interrupt. The entire commercial is a dynamic, graphic, field composed of images, music, theatrical performances, superimposed illustrations, narration, and other elements, which reinforce each other to achieve their effect.
Commercials also include another kind of simulation in the form of digitally manipulated images that are used to portray another realm of fantasy in which the limits imposed by the physical world no longer seem to be in effect. As a result, they are full of talking dogs, giant sized children, products that zoom into space, dancing credit cards and scenes that suddenly become two-dimensional which spin out of existence, creating a virtual world that surpasses anything produced by Imax or Nintendo.
Commercials take these elements – visual fantasy, deceptive images of the products, and false claims – and weave them into their various approaches. There are, perhaps, a handful of approaches that they rely on and put together in different ways, just as 