SYMBIOTIC POSTURES OF COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING AND STREET ART Rhetoric for Creativity

An ongoing tension between new ways of achieving novel, meaningful, and connected forms of expression is permeating the practice of advertising and igniting a lively academic debate. Novelty and social connection have long been preoccupations of art worlds. In this paper, we explore the creative tensions and synergies between countercultural and commercial communication forms of street art and advertising. Viewing each form as a species of rhetoric, we analyze a set of rhetorical practices employed by street artists that not only reflect, but might also be used to shape, commercial advertising in the near future. Advertising has been acknowledged as art (Twitchell 1996) and christened capitalist realism (Schudson 1984). Even though rhetoric in advertising has different purposes compared to art (e.g., EI-Murad and West 2004), the rhetorical process in the two contexts is similar (White 1972; Zinkhan 1993). In the same way art influences and gives meaning to our life, advertising shapes contemporary consumer culture (e.g., Elliott 1997; Willis 1990). As art mirrors the shared truths, ideals, and metaphors of a given society, advertising reflects our popular culture. As art embodies universal fantasies, feelings, and thoughts, advertising expresses the rational and emotional experiences and moods of consumers. Rhetoric in both art and advertising is strictly influenced by the social context within which it originated (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi 1999). A parallel art form that poses a creative challenge for the advertising industry is the one we categorize as the global Street Art Movement, or, more simply, street art. Street art might be characterized as capitalist surrealism, postmodern realism, or perhaps even as "subvertising" as it converts, Stefania Borghini (Ph.D., Universita Bocconi) is an assistant pro­ fessor of marketing in the Management Department, Universita Bocconi, Milan (Italy). Luca Massimiliano Visconti (Ph.D., Universita Bocconi) is a lecturer in marketing and director of the Master in Marketing and Communication in the Management Department, Universita Boc­ coni, Milan (Italy). Laurel Anderson (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an associate ptofessor in the Department of Marketing, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe. John F. Sherry, Jr. (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Herrick Profes­ sor of Marketing and department chair in the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. diverts, and inverts advertising proper to promote noncom­ mercial consumption. In this paper, we analyze street art as a species of advertising, explore the use of advertising by street artists, and examine the implications of street art for advertising creativity. We focus in particular on the poten­ tial contributions of the creative rhetoric employed by the stakeholders of street art to advertising practice. As with its commercial counterpart, street art is a product that embodies its own advertising. Seen as a countercultural response to commercially or statist-induced alienation, street art is a populist aesthetic, a consumerist critique, and an urban redevelopment project. Street art espouses a vision of space reappropriated as place, where commercially noisy or entirely silent streets are reclaimed by artists for their proper "owners." Iron shop gates become canvasses for publicly held open-air museums. Subway trains become moving instal­ lations conveying subversive meaning to residential areas. Such subvertising parodies, appropriates, and occasionally capitulates to its commercial counterpart. Street art has the visual and cognitive effect ofcommercial advertising, and many of its brand dynamics, but carries mes­ sages ofenjoyment, ideological critique, and activist exhorta­ tion rather than ofcommercial consumption. It offers both an implicit and explicit challenge to advertisers, who ultimately will be tasked with appropriating street art's authentic essence to revitalize their own commercial efficacy (Holt 2002). Street art can be framed as advertising, promoting the artists as well as their ideologies. Moreover, it can be framed as an alternative template for advertising. Some street artists are employed in the advertising industry, and some aspire to become advertisers. Some street art is used for commercial advertising purposes, in both legitimate and faux forms. Some street artists rail against advertising and the consumer cul­ ture. However advertising is imbricated, street art has a mul­ tistranded relationship with its commercial counterpart. jOlm/al ofAdm/iring, vol. 39. no. 3 (Fall 2010). pp. 113-126. © 2010 American Academy of Advertising. All tights reserved. ISSN 0091-3367 I 2010 $9.50 + 0.00. 00110.27S3/JOAOO9I-3367390308 114 TheJournal ofAdvertising Relying on a long-term ethnographic and netnographic (Kozinets 2002) engagement with the global Street Art Move­ ment, in this paper, we analyze a set of rhetorical practices employed by street artists that not only reflects, but might also be used to shape, commercial advertising in the near future. We approach the craft of advertising as rhetoric (Deighton 1985; McQuarrie and Mick 1992; Pracejus, Olsen, and O'Guinn 2006; Scott 1994b; Scott and Vargas 2007) where symbols are used to persuade and take into account the visual aspects of advertising (Kenney and Scott 2003; McQuarrie and Phillips 2005; Scott 1994b; Scott and Vargas 2007). We contribute to the existing knowledge on the rhetorical process ofadvertising and identify strategies that can be applied in order to enhance creativity (EI-Murad and West 2004). The rhetoric in street art can stimulate advertising practice in two domains: idea generation (e.g., Reid and Moriarty 1983) and social engage­ ment (Ang, Lee, and Leong 2007). THE RHETORIC OF ADVERTISING AND STREET ART Rhetoric and Creativity Rhetoric is a pervasive trait of both commercial and noncom­ mercial creativity in communication. We use the term rhetoric to address both verbal and visual street interventions. Initially, rhetoric was considered an exclusive domain ofverbal language (Kenney and Scott 2003). Recently, the issue ofvisual rhetori­ cal practices has entered the advertising researchers' agenda (Bulmer and Buchanan-Oliver 2006, p. 55; Pracejus, Olsen, and O'Guinn 2006; Scott 1994a, 1994b). Hence, an analysis of visual rhetoric considers how images work alone and col­ laborate with other elements to create an argument designed for moving a specific audience. In this light, advertising and street art share a common interest in elaborating communica­ tion structures that inform and persuade their audiences. Recently, there has been a demand for the development of a general theory of advertising creativity (e.g., Reid and Rotfeld 1976; Smith and Yang 2004; Zinkhan 1993) for which a rhetorical approach holds much promise. Scholars have applied contriburions from psychology and adapted their prescriptions to advertising. Blasko and Mokwa 0986, 1988) adopt aJanusian approach, which is rooted in the logic ofpara­ doxical thinking, apparently opposite or contradictory ideas that can be resolved and accepted by an appropriate emotional mental processing. Reid and Rotfeld (1976) have proposed an associative model of creativity that shows a relevant relation­ ship among some specific copywriting abilities and attitudes. Novelty actually involves uncertainty ofoutcomes (Sternberg and Lubart 1999) and, as a consequence, creativity involves risk (West 1999; West and Berthon 1997; West and Ford 2001). Empirical evidence shows that an attitude toward risk taking is linked to higher levels of creativity as measured in terms of advertising awards won (E1-Murad and West 2003). Interestingly, each of these elements (paradoxical thinking, associative ability, and novelty/risk taking) is also reflected in street art visual rhetoric. We thus demonstrate that advertis­ ing creativity can be studied as rhetoric (Deighton 1985; McQuarrie and Mick 1992; Pracejus, Olsen, and O'Guinn 2006; Scott 1994b; Scott and Vargas 2007). Advertising is rhetorical communication, and creativity has to serve this goal. Our study focuses on emergent visual rhetorical practices that can inspire advertisers. Social Use of Advertising When investigating the intersections between street art and advertising, the social use ofadvertising by its audiences needs consideration. The current debate on existential consumption (e.g., Elliott 1997; Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Willis 1990) considers consumer creativity as a form of agency that is car­ ried our within the constraints imposed by the hegemony of the market (e.g., Goldman 1992), often expressed as the manipulation and reinterpretation of advertising by active consumers. Advertising is a cultural product consumed symbolically by consumers independently of the products being promoted (Elliott 1997; Willis 1990). While some authors have advo­ cated a deeper understanding of this phenomenon (e.g., Ritson and Elliott 1999; Scott 1994b), the social use ofadvertising has been an underdeveloped research topic. Some exceptions have shown that advertising messages have a cultural meaning in everyday life (McCracken 1988), are an incentive for word-of­ mouth conversations (Sherry 1987), represent a way to reveal an individual viewpoint to others (Mick and Buhl 1992), and influence existing rituals (Omes and Scott 1996). Consumers are aware of the rhetorical conventions of advertising and are able to interpret its rules of language in the same way they are able to understand visual conventions applied in movies (Pracejus, Olsen, and O'Guinn 2006). Young people are particularly prone to engaging in the creative use ofmaterial culture in their daily lives (O'Donohoe 1994, 1997; Ritson and Elliott 1999; Willis 1990). They elaborate meanings, combining the irony, playfulness, and ephemerality of advertising. They manage a vast repertoire of codes and conventions typical of advertising messages, revealing a combination of control and power over advertis­ ing with a certain degree ofvulnerability (O'Donohoe 1997). Moreover, through the processes of consumption, young con­ sumers produce "grounded aesthetics" (Willis 1990, p. 21) that make the consumption of advertising vital and pleasant, emphasizing the search for beauty through the symbolic use of common culture, experienced and reinterpreted as an au­ thentic form of art.