As my brand is based around the idea of minimalism, I feel my advertising should reflect that. When I think of good examples of minimalist marketing Apple comes to mind. Apple is an American multinational technology companythat designs, develops, and sells consumer-based electronics, computer software, and online services. Apple portray minimalism through the design of their products which then leads into their advertisement campaigns. In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin and Robert Morris.
Apple has always been known for its beautiful minimalist design. Products like the original Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone all follow that guiding line of simplicity. Apple tends to winnow out any superfluous design accents that don’t fit within the overall oneness of a product. This obsession with minimalist design also extends out to other areas of the company, including their advertising as you can see below. A typical Apple advertisement or billboard has the product name and a clean picture of the product. An Apple advertisement will not generally include technical specification, pricing or expensive special effects. With this style of advertisement, I can easily see how my clothing brand might work through the using these methods.
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| Apple IPhone 8 (Source: Apple, 2017) |
Apple is not the only company adopting minimalism in their advertisements, many high-end fashion designers like to use this technique. Brands such as Céline achieve the integration of minimalism well. Céline is a French ready-to-wearbrand that adopt a high-end minimalist design style in their clothing which is partly down to the work of Creative Director Phoebe Philo. In the example shown below we can see howCéline have worked with a high-quality image that has very little background noise. No information is provided on the advert other than the brands logo, this allows the audience to focus only on the clothing. This then feeds back into the idea of frames in imagery which I discussed in my previous module when looking at users.
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| Céline's Summer 2017 Collection (Source Céline, 2017) |
Advertisers use the framing effect to present information in a manner that influences how viewers interpret that information. Business owners and marketers often employ framing techniques, such as casting a potentially negative fact about their product into a positive light or by showing the negative effects of a competitor's positive qualities. These professionals frame the aspects of an advert and adjust the meaning of its message with tools such as colourful images, strident music and precise language. Language is sometimes used to frame an advertisements message. Consumers will have emotional reactions to specific words in the advert. The goal is to use words that create a positive emotional frame for the specific product in the target viewer's mind.
From this case study it is now clear to see how I might approach my advertisements in a minimalist manor, I may also want to create animations in the same style. I feel that building up the idea of a clean and essential brand is vital and through my advertising I can begin to reinforce this idea. Moving forward into my next post I will look at other case studies to see different advertisement techniques employed by other brands. I may also want to begin thinking about the position of different advertisements and wear they are displayed in the vital physical environments.
References
Apple, (2017), Apple IPhone 8, [Photograph], Retrieved from https://www.apple.com
Céline, (2017), Céline's Summer 2017 Collection, [Photograph] Retrieved from https://www.celine.com
