The Journal, Part 4
January 7th 2007 11:56
4:55pm Monday 21st May 2001
It came to my attention today that while I had so many ideas I wanted to express, I wasn’t sure of what my central one was! Perhaps that is my personal resistance to coming up with something final. But I’m going to sort this puzzle out one way or another, and explore what I really want, so I can learn something about myself through this course…
I think I tried to make things to complicated, and do everything at once. I think I should now stand back a little and take a fresh breath.
Perhaps I was so interested in exploring the idea of ‘coherence’ through stressing that very few things (such as ideas, concepts and philosophies) can be proven coherent with absolute certainty in an individual’s mind that I this theme of ‘lack of coherence’ spread to my approach to the work as well. Confusion was the point. But in the meantime I forgot that in order to create the illusion of disorder you need to do it in an orderly way, and you need a lot of focus to be able to create the illusion of a lack of one. Hmmm maybe this is what happens when you’re ‘very intune’ with your work! In a way I’m dealing with the same issues my character is, since she/he is an extension of myself, psychologically speaking.
I think I was trying to be so unconventional that I was very reluctant to actually use a few basic conventions in my story, and that’s how I found it hard to connect all the ideas I had. Now I think the wise thing to do is just write for a while with different conventions and see which one works better for me and can aid me achieve what I want.
Strangely enough my development has a lot of bearing on my character, so I have the very interesting and fun opportunity to develop my character with each new discovery I make about myself and my own writing process. I’m glad I’m in this unusual predicament because it’s a challenge, and one that is going to motivate me to ultimately perform at my best in the Work.
7:14pm Wednesday 23 May, 2001
While the overall picture of the work is still being debated by the author, I’m going to put in some of the stuff I’ve actually written and am using for sure in my work…
Original Idea as written down on the day conceived:
The stars cluster around the moon, reminding one of diamonds- or shall we say circum zirconias, because, after all, the diamond image is cliched, or perhaps simply a quartz crystal. Or perhaps you, after all, prefer the traditional diamond image, representing as it does a simple and refined elegance, free of the complexity of unfamiliar or dubious imagery.
Diamonds they are, and you are assured of their steady sparkle before the author describes them to you, anxious as you are to establish an atmosphere of familiarity in this somewhat disorienting text, which is taking an awfully long time to establish any sort of clear setting.
This idea appealed to me very much and I decided to feature it somewhere in my work. I toyed with variations on it, such as:
The moon is out for all to see. Yet in this busting city evening no-one seems to look up but me.
A scattering of stars adorns the otherwise hollow black sky. One could liken this to a metaphor of crushed diamond pieces, embedded into the mysterious texture of the inky above you as you’re were walking home, lost in your thoughts.
But perhaps I have underestimated you, reader, and you did not see diamonds in the sky at all. Perhaps you prefer to imagine images featuring the ostensibly ordinary, and you envisioned not the overrated, stylised sparkle of a diamond, but instead the much subtler elegance of a simple quartz crystal, humbly shining with its imperfect segments. You didn’t share the author’s need to capture the sky in such confining terms either. Why should we try to limit natural phenomena only to the comparison with man-made objects? You probably scorned the author with silent contempt as you read and noted the lack of originality of this narrative. But then again it’s to be expected, this mediocracy in contemporary fiction. After all, nothing is original anymore, you figure.
I like this idea because it allows me to experiment with meta-narrative, which is definitely going to feature in my work, and im exploring my skills in creating.
1:52pm Saturday 9 June, 2001
In 1994 Coca-Cola’s under-performing soft drink Sprite underwent an advertising transformation. It began marketing itself as an anti-marketing product, using celebrities, jingles and stereotypical promotion tactics to parody the typical soft-drink ad campaign of the time. The slogan became “Image is Nothing. Thirst is Everything. Obey Your Thirst. Sprite” In a very clever move Sprite’s advertising gave it a unique image (ironically based on the careful construction of an anti-image image) and the non-conformative, ‘matter-of-fact’ rejection of the ploys of advertising promoted as the sprite image struck a chord with consumers.
Since the campaign's launch, Sprite has grown into the fourth best-selling soft drink brand in America, showing how ingenuity and imagination are the most important factors in a successful product.
Smug Compulsion
by Jael McHenry
Nov 1999
Sprite serves no purpose in my life. I drink it madly nonetheless.
Not that I consume three cans a day- madly is perhaps a bit excessive- but I prioritize its consumption. I make it a point to drink Sprite. This despite the fact that it serves no purpose.
What purpose should it serve, you ask? Should it change your life? Should it make you smarter, brighter, more sexually alluring? Should you rely on soda as your key to the gates of Paradise? No.
I’m more practical than that. Most of the time my choice of beverage is based on a short-term goal, like staying awake. In that case, obviously, coffee or cola is a good choice. It’s the caffeine I’m after. Example: Diet Coke. Serving the purpose of providing caffeine, it packs the added feature of being calorie-free…
My purpose, when drinking Diet Coke, is to stay awake and stay thin. I have no brand loyalty when it comes to Coke. I’m perfectly content with Pepsi. I’m not really a brand driven person. Coffee serves the same purpose, and I couldn’t care less whether the coffee I drink is even good, as long as it does the job. If I’m awake, it’s working.
Everything changes when it comes to Sprite. To me, Sprite is not a drink.
Sprite is, instead, a statement.
Is it a political statement, you ask? Am I trying to send a message? Yes. By yes, I mean no- it’s not that kind of statement. It’s not political. This isn’t like boycotting Pepsi because of their activities in Burma, or other grass-roots college-campus changing-the-world-through-soda-selection things. This isn’t like boycotting California grapes or picketing the K-Mart. I make a point of drinking Sprite for a very simple reason.
It is the simplest of all reasons.
I love their ads.
There are very few things that I do just because TV tells me to. There are few products I support just because their ads are so cool. Here’s the shortlist of ad campaigns I love: Snickers, Hotbot, and Sprite. I don’t eat Snickers, and my use of hotbot.com is often tossed aside if I don't get the search results I want. Sprite, though, I seek.
Whenever I have a choice of beverage and I’m not actively in need of caffeine, I drink Sprite. It’s not that I love the taste. (They used to promote "the great taste of lim-on." Guess what; lim-on tastes a lot like nothing.) The taste is fine. But I don’t love it. It’s just something to drink that serves no purpose, aside from tickly bubbles and a non-political statement.
And reminding me how much I love their ads.
[…]
Every Sprite commercial that comes out amuses me. Some more than others-I wasn’t overly impressed by the one with the little pop-up cut-outs of Grant Hill going cha-ching -but when a new ad shows up on my TV and I like it, chances are it’s selling me Sprite. Some examples:
Three tough cookies in pick-up-game-in-the-hood basketball gear, half-shouting at the camera promoting some sports drink until the director’s voice calls, "Genius- the can’s upside down." The attitude evaporates and the central tough cookie crumbles, moaning, "Don’t talk to me like that, I played Hamlet at Cambridge." The other two quickly follow suit, whining, "Once again, you have ruined my concentration," and "Excuse me, excuse me, what’s my motivation? That’s it! I’ll be in my trailer..."
Message: don’t listen to what these guys tell you.
A little boy in his bedroom somehow ends up wrestling one of those monolithic WWF creatures. Before starting the match, the child hustles over to his dresser and takes a swig out of a Sprite bottle. He is then picked up and hurled across the room by the larger man. Message: don’t drink something because you’re told it’ll make you better, because it won’t.
There are more I can’t think of at the moment. But they are all tied together by a common thread, a central message: don’t listen to ad campaigns. Nothing you drink will make you stronger. Nothing you drink will make you famous. Just because someone tells you to drink something, that’s the worst reason in the world to drink it. Don’t listen to spokesmen, don’t listen to PR execs, don’t even listen to us, we’re no better than they are.
Ironic, isn’t it, that this anti-ad ad campaign is the one ad campaign I obey slavishly. Their whole point is to drink something because you like it. But I don’t drink Sprite because I like it. I drink it because they tell me to.
So either their ad campaign is not working at all, or it’s working perfectly.
The end.
I thought this article was a good consumer experience to take a look at, because a text, after all, is a product, and you are selling the ideas and experiences that it will bring with it. Sprite’s campaign, designed to appeal especially to the teenage market, hasn’t just got Jael’s attention. Due to their choice of marketing campaign in 1995, Sprite grew in popularity so much that it is now the 4th biggest-selling soft-drink brand.
Obviously there was a highly positive response to the new ads.
Sprite’s advertisers were able to tap into the current tide of cynicism and skepticism towards ads among consumers. They were able to do something innovative that captured the attention of prospective buyers because it presented to them in a very straight-forward way an attitude very removed from what they were used to. The trick, ofcourse, was to evade criticism for promoting its own image, but an image nevertheless, that ‘Image is nothing.’ There is much irony in Sprite’s campaign. In advertising, the aim is to create within the people who are exposed to the ads a perceived need for the product- ideally to see the product as something they cannot do without. Jael, a reasonably intelligent consumer, is attracted to the ‘truth’ that he perceives Sprite is representing, although this is message is constructed, with the purpose to sell.
It came to my attention today that while I had so many ideas I wanted to express, I wasn’t sure of what my central one was! Perhaps that is my personal resistance to coming up with something final. But I’m going to sort this puzzle out one way or another, and explore what I really want, so I can learn something about myself through this course…
I think I tried to make things to complicated, and do everything at once. I think I should now stand back a little and take a fresh breath.
Perhaps I was so interested in exploring the idea of ‘coherence’ through stressing that very few things (such as ideas, concepts and philosophies) can be proven coherent with absolute certainty in an individual’s mind that I this theme of ‘lack of coherence’ spread to my approach to the work as well. Confusion was the point. But in the meantime I forgot that in order to create the illusion of disorder you need to do it in an orderly way, and you need a lot of focus to be able to create the illusion of a lack of one. Hmmm maybe this is what happens when you’re ‘very intune’ with your work! In a way I’m dealing with the same issues my character is, since she/he is an extension of myself, psychologically speaking.
I think I was trying to be so unconventional that I was very reluctant to actually use a few basic conventions in my story, and that’s how I found it hard to connect all the ideas I had. Now I think the wise thing to do is just write for a while with different conventions and see which one works better for me and can aid me achieve what I want.
Strangely enough my development has a lot of bearing on my character, so I have the very interesting and fun opportunity to develop my character with each new discovery I make about myself and my own writing process. I’m glad I’m in this unusual predicament because it’s a challenge, and one that is going to motivate me to ultimately perform at my best in the Work.
7:14pm Wednesday 23 May, 2001
While the overall picture of the work is still being debated by the author, I’m going to put in some of the stuff I’ve actually written and am using for sure in my work…
Original Idea as written down on the day conceived:
The stars cluster around the moon, reminding one of diamonds- or shall we say circum zirconias, because, after all, the diamond image is cliched, or perhaps simply a quartz crystal. Or perhaps you, after all, prefer the traditional diamond image, representing as it does a simple and refined elegance, free of the complexity of unfamiliar or dubious imagery.
Diamonds they are, and you are assured of their steady sparkle before the author describes them to you, anxious as you are to establish an atmosphere of familiarity in this somewhat disorienting text, which is taking an awfully long time to establish any sort of clear setting.
This idea appealed to me very much and I decided to feature it somewhere in my work. I toyed with variations on it, such as:
The moon is out for all to see. Yet in this busting city evening no-one seems to look up but me.
A scattering of stars adorns the otherwise hollow black sky. One could liken this to a metaphor of crushed diamond pieces, embedded into the mysterious texture of the inky above you as you’re were walking home, lost in your thoughts.
But perhaps I have underestimated you, reader, and you did not see diamonds in the sky at all. Perhaps you prefer to imagine images featuring the ostensibly ordinary, and you envisioned not the overrated, stylised sparkle of a diamond, but instead the much subtler elegance of a simple quartz crystal, humbly shining with its imperfect segments. You didn’t share the author’s need to capture the sky in such confining terms either. Why should we try to limit natural phenomena only to the comparison with man-made objects? You probably scorned the author with silent contempt as you read and noted the lack of originality of this narrative. But then again it’s to be expected, this mediocracy in contemporary fiction. After all, nothing is original anymore, you figure.
I like this idea because it allows me to experiment with meta-narrative, which is definitely going to feature in my work, and im exploring my skills in creating.
1:52pm Saturday 9 June, 2001
In 1994 Coca-Cola’s under-performing soft drink Sprite underwent an advertising transformation. It began marketing itself as an anti-marketing product, using celebrities, jingles and stereotypical promotion tactics to parody the typical soft-drink ad campaign of the time. The slogan became “Image is Nothing. Thirst is Everything. Obey Your Thirst. Sprite” In a very clever move Sprite’s advertising gave it a unique image (ironically based on the careful construction of an anti-image image) and the non-conformative, ‘matter-of-fact’ rejection of the ploys of advertising promoted as the sprite image struck a chord with consumers.
Since the campaign's launch, Sprite has grown into the fourth best-selling soft drink brand in America, showing how ingenuity and imagination are the most important factors in a successful product.
Smug Compulsion
by Jael McHenry
Nov 1999
Sprite serves no purpose in my life. I drink it madly nonetheless.
Not that I consume three cans a day- madly is perhaps a bit excessive- but I prioritize its consumption. I make it a point to drink Sprite. This despite the fact that it serves no purpose.
What purpose should it serve, you ask? Should it change your life? Should it make you smarter, brighter, more sexually alluring? Should you rely on soda as your key to the gates of Paradise? No.
I’m more practical than that. Most of the time my choice of beverage is based on a short-term goal, like staying awake. In that case, obviously, coffee or cola is a good choice. It’s the caffeine I’m after. Example: Diet Coke. Serving the purpose of providing caffeine, it packs the added feature of being calorie-free…
My purpose, when drinking Diet Coke, is to stay awake and stay thin. I have no brand loyalty when it comes to Coke. I’m perfectly content with Pepsi. I’m not really a brand driven person. Coffee serves the same purpose, and I couldn’t care less whether the coffee I drink is even good, as long as it does the job. If I’m awake, it’s working.
Everything changes when it comes to Sprite. To me, Sprite is not a drink.
Sprite is, instead, a statement.
Is it a political statement, you ask? Am I trying to send a message? Yes. By yes, I mean no- it’s not that kind of statement. It’s not political. This isn’t like boycotting Pepsi because of their activities in Burma, or other grass-roots college-campus changing-the-world-through-soda-selection things. This isn’t like boycotting California grapes or picketing the K-Mart. I make a point of drinking Sprite for a very simple reason.
It is the simplest of all reasons.
I love their ads.
There are very few things that I do just because TV tells me to. There are few products I support just because their ads are so cool. Here’s the shortlist of ad campaigns I love: Snickers, Hotbot, and Sprite. I don’t eat Snickers, and my use of hotbot.com is often tossed aside if I don't get the search results I want. Sprite, though, I seek.
Whenever I have a choice of beverage and I’m not actively in need of caffeine, I drink Sprite. It’s not that I love the taste. (They used to promote "the great taste of lim-on." Guess what; lim-on tastes a lot like nothing.) The taste is fine. But I don’t love it. It’s just something to drink that serves no purpose, aside from tickly bubbles and a non-political statement.
And reminding me how much I love their ads.
[…]
Every Sprite commercial that comes out amuses me. Some more than others-I wasn’t overly impressed by the one with the little pop-up cut-outs of Grant Hill going cha-ching -but when a new ad shows up on my TV and I like it, chances are it’s selling me Sprite. Some examples:
Three tough cookies in pick-up-game-in-the-hood basketball gear, half-shouting at the camera promoting some sports drink until the director’s voice calls, "Genius- the can’s upside down." The attitude evaporates and the central tough cookie crumbles, moaning, "Don’t talk to me like that, I played Hamlet at Cambridge." The other two quickly follow suit, whining, "Once again, you have ruined my concentration," and "Excuse me, excuse me, what’s my motivation? That’s it! I’ll be in my trailer..."
Message: don’t listen to what these guys tell you.
A little boy in his bedroom somehow ends up wrestling one of those monolithic WWF creatures. Before starting the match, the child hustles over to his dresser and takes a swig out of a Sprite bottle. He is then picked up and hurled across the room by the larger man. Message: don’t drink something because you’re told it’ll make you better, because it won’t.
There are more I can’t think of at the moment. But they are all tied together by a common thread, a central message: don’t listen to ad campaigns. Nothing you drink will make you stronger. Nothing you drink will make you famous. Just because someone tells you to drink something, that’s the worst reason in the world to drink it. Don’t listen to spokesmen, don’t listen to PR execs, don’t even listen to us, we’re no better than they are.
Ironic, isn’t it, that this anti-ad ad campaign is the one ad campaign I obey slavishly. Their whole point is to drink something because you like it. But I don’t drink Sprite because I like it. I drink it because they tell me to.
So either their ad campaign is not working at all, or it’s working perfectly.
The end.
I thought this article was a good consumer experience to take a look at, because a text, after all, is a product, and you are selling the ideas and experiences that it will bring with it. Sprite’s campaign, designed to appeal especially to the teenage market, hasn’t just got Jael’s attention. Due to their choice of marketing campaign in 1995, Sprite grew in popularity so much that it is now the 4th biggest-selling soft-drink brand.
Obviously there was a highly positive response to the new ads.
Sprite’s advertisers were able to tap into the current tide of cynicism and skepticism towards ads among consumers. They were able to do something innovative that captured the attention of prospective buyers because it presented to them in a very straight-forward way an attitude very removed from what they were used to. The trick, ofcourse, was to evade criticism for promoting its own image, but an image nevertheless, that ‘Image is nothing.’ There is much irony in Sprite’s campaign. In advertising, the aim is to create within the people who are exposed to the ads a perceived need for the product- ideally to see the product as something they cannot do without. Jael, a reasonably intelligent consumer, is attracted to the ‘truth’ that he perceives Sprite is representing, although this is message is constructed, with the purpose to sell.
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