How do graphic designers participate in lifestyling? What are the ethical issues?

Lifestyling in today’s world refers to a broad range of planned activities like advertising, publicity, promotion etc that ‘market’ a certain lifestyle to the consumer as desired and necessary. The key is to make that product an essential element of the consumer’s aspirational lifestyle. In this essay we will focus on the role that graphic designers play in lifestyling by looking at two very famous examples; the Sony Walkman and now the latest innovation the Apple Iphone. Through these examples, the role of the graphic designer as a ‘lifestylist’ will be highlighted.
The Sony Walkman was first introduced in 1979. It came with two headphone jacks so that people could listen to music together. Before the product was released, it came under severe skepticism and the press wrote it out even before its launch. The Japanese company however was unfazed and came up with a unique marketing strategy. Sony hired youngsters and made them walk along the streets offering it to passersby to listen to the music. They also arranged for a bus filled with actors to tour Tokyo with the walkman. (From: http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/corpcomm/news/consumer/164.html)
The tour bus comprised of these celebrities and journalists. Each of the journalists was given a walkman on which they listened to an explanation of the Walkman. Sony also organized students to stage demonstrations wearing the Walkman t-shirt.
In terms of advertising, Sony photographed a lot of celebrities using the Sony walkman and published these photos in several magazines and newspapers. They did not go for a large scale advertising campaign, but most of their publicity and success was through word of mouth.
How do graphic designers fit into this picture? The success of Sony at several levels can be attributed to the creative freedom given to the graphic designers that work for the company. It has largely been the graphic designers job to keep a grasp over the consumers motivations, trends and incorporate them seamlessly into the products characteristics in such a way that the consumer feels they are indispensable to the kind of lifestyle that they lead. For Instance, when the Sony Walkman was released, graphic designers highlighted the fact that the walkman had two headphone jacks because at that time they felt that youngsters feel like sharing their music and don’t necessarily listen to the music alone. Similarly Sony introduced the water resistant Sports Walkman model to market to the ‘fitness craze’ that taken over America. This Walkman was advertised specifically to the fitness crazy, active, energetic American who lived a hectic lifestyle. . Each and every one of these products was made to fit seamlessly into the lifestyle of its consumers. So the ‘fit American’ cannot exercise without the Sports walkman. That is advertised in such a way that it becomes a symbol of one’s commitment to fitness. People felt that they must own a Sony walkman if they are serious about staying fit.
As Santiago Acosta Maya in his article titled The Sony Walkman states (2000: 2) “Because of the lifestyling process and the different sort of models and designs available it (Sony Walkman) has become a daily stylish gadget that suit the taste of its owner. The variety of colours, shapes and sizes of the Walkman are crucial means of communicating with consumers. In the case of Sony, we see how the designer has played a crucial role in understanding the pulse of the consumers psyche and translating it into design. (2000: 4) The success of lifestyling largely depends on the grasp of its graphic designers, advertisers and marketers in understanding the pulse of the audience.
Now let us look at the launch of the recent technological sensation: the Apple IPhone. The Iphone has the most sophisticated, state of the art technology that the world has seen to date in mobile phones. The marketing campaign of the Apple Iphone began months in advance with a pre announcement of the launch. Like the Sony Walkman campaign, rather than coming out with a full blown advertising campaign, Apple chose to introduce its new Iphone through week-by-week press releases, web site information and so forth. This was instrumental in building hype around the product months ahead of its launch.
Apple products are known for their edge in technology and Apple’s packaging has been instrumental in reflecting its distinctiveness. The Apple Iphone was no different. The hype created around the Apple Iphone was sensational and had people lining outside the Apple stores a day in advance. Apple stores had the Iphone on display at all the Apple stores a month before the launch to increase the hype around the product. From http://www.iphonewiki.com
Like with Sony Walkman, the role of the graphic designer in lifestyling Apple’s products is clearly evident. Apple’s package design is perhaps one of the most distinctive packaging across brands and easily recognized for what it symbolizes: trendy, young, state of the art technology. Its distinctive branding and packaging has successfully established itself in the psyche of its consumers as a high end product reflecting the style and the taste of its consumers. One can see its success in the hype around its products, whether that be Mac, Ipod and Iphone.
Many scholars like Schudson (1984:13) believe that the culture of advertising, mass media has worked its way into “what we read, what we care about, the ways we raise our children, our ideas of right and wrong conduct, our attribution of significance to ‘image’ in both public and private life.” Advertising sells products through the use of symbols and images that have ‘shared meaning’ for a society. This is clearly evident in the case of both Apple and Sony Walkman. The media successfully managed to work these products into our psyche in such a way that these products have been ingrained in our lifestyle. The walkman has been recognized as a symbol of American culture to such an extent that the original Sony Walkman of 1970’s has been kept in an American museum.
The ethical issues with respect to lifestyling are much the same that have surrounded the media industry which has for decades now been charged with brain washing the consumers minds into buying products that they do not need. The Frankfurt school of thought, popularized by Adorno and Horkheimer (1990) in their essays attacked what they described as ‘the culture industry.’ They believed that culture was increasingly becoming a product that was being commodified and that consumers were given a false illusion of choice. More and more products were becoming standardized and techniques like advertising, packaging, publicity of the products left the consumer completely helpless and compelled to buy the products that were sold to them. An easy variant of this argument could be that ‘lifestyling’ through the various media channels creates a sort of subconscious pressure on the consumers to buy the product if they are to fit within a certain mould prescribed the media as the ‘it’ lifestyle. The media images brainwash the consumer to believe that they require a certain product if they are to gain their aspirational lifestyle. Peer pressure is a natural byproduct of this process. Once the Ipod became ‘socially cool’, it became almost mandatory for all ‘cool’ people to have it.
In addition, graphic designers can very often be responsible for indirectly promoting products that are not necessarily following the best business ethics. The case of Nike rings very clear. The world was shocked to learn that the brand of shoes it considers synonymous with good health and fitness was exploiting children in ‘sweatshops’ to make its products. In its greed for maximum profits, Nike exploited cheap labor under dreadful working conditions till its dirty secret was exposed to the world.
However the above arguments have another side to it. There has been ample evidence to suggest that consumers display significant amount of resistance to ‘marketing strategies’ and are discerning in their consumption preferences. The Sony Walkman was a revolution in the way consumers could listen to music and in the final analysis that is why the product received the tremendous response that it did. The audiences themselves are fragmented, selective, reactive and active and not one central mass that can be controlled. They are unpredictable and that is why the same companies Sony, Apple etc engage in a great deal of market research before they position their products in the market. After the launch of the Apple Iphone, Apple had an intensive marketing research system in place, which monitored the reaction of their target audience closely. It observed the 25-45 years group to determine the Iphone’s business application and the 45 years and above age group was observed to target the more senior well-refined group. They used surveys through portals such as, iTunes and other on-line application developed for the iPhone and interviews (in Apple stores) with the same age groups listed above. (http://www.iphonewiki.com)
Likewise when Sony launched its first Sony walkman with the two headphone jack in 1979, it did so under the assumption that youngsters like to share their music and do not enjoy listening to their music alone. They quickly discovered however that this was not the case and soon adopted this change into their model for walkman. So there is ample evidence to suggest that companies tailor their products according to the needs of their consumers and not vice versa.
Also, many of the ‘lifestyling’ campaigns have been extremely beneficial for the public. Like the ‘Got milk’ campaign that was launched.