Suburbia

From the begining I was interested in looking at advertising in Suburbia. The only problem was, I had so many ideas- as you can see from my post, but no real critical stand to take. After spending some time biking around my neighborhood, photographing every sign I came to (see my flickr feed bellow) I realized something: All suburban advertising is connected to two things- the home and community. While these are fairly broad topics, the home including anything from the actual house to family and community being even broader, nothing I saw did not fit nicely into one of those categories. Nothing in I saw had anything to do with high culture, industry, big business, fashion, etc. Suburbia is an almost entirely untapped audience. While there are many people who think we are constantly bombarded with ads and like to keep the burbs as down to earth as possible- I tend to look at things from the perspective of a wannabe advertising exec. I see huge amounts of potential, because not only is what is already there boring and tends to fade into the scenery, but people in the burbs tend to have money. Money which gets spent on all those things not being represented in suburbia. Now, I am not trying to turn suburbia into Times Square (although I do loooooooooooove it there) but come on- we aren't the Cleavers and there is more to life than window repairs! Would it hurt to see some interesting ads on our bus shelters or benches?

And so, my research statement is:
 * I would like to take an in-depth look at the suburban environment as an ad space. What makes is unique? How can it be used most productively?**

Taking my research online I found a company called [|Suburbia Advertising]- I had to check out their website. This BC based company got its name because of its suburban location. While Suburbia Advertising recognizes that most retail shoppers live in Suburbia and that is why they focus on retail- why is there still pretty much no retail advertising in Suburbia?

In truth, we do see more commercial things being advertised in suburbia, but just not in the outside environment. The minute we turn on our TVs, radios and computers we are bombarded with a much wider variety of ads but I still find it curious that the outside environment is "untainted." A really interesting photograph I came upon was one by Walker Evans taken in Atlanta in 1936. This photograph actually shows movie "billboards" in a suburban environment. I think the juxtapostion between the houses and signs is so interesting and would love to see more of this today, but I have a feeling many people would not.

So, the question (and my critical issue) then becomes, **how do we maximize suburbia as an advertising space without compromising the character of the landscape and without upsetting the people who live there?** (Photograph taken by Walker Evans in 1936 found on http://www.shorpy.com/node/141 September 26 2007)

I think the answer lies in something that Micheal Johnson in his book "Problem Solved" refers to as vernacular (see dictionary definition below). In his book Johnson discusses how many things in our world are over designed and that people are therefore unresponsive to them so to combat that, designers can use an "undesigned" look that is made up of bits and pieces of our everyday world. He advocates designers speaking the language of the everyday. I feel that this same premise can be used when trying to turn suburbia into a productive and yet unobtrusive advertising space. Advertisers should be using the visual language of suburbia, polishing it up and producing ads that work within peoples comfort zones. Chances are there are other solutions to this problem, and that would be another interesting research possibility.

Johnson, Micheal. "Problem Solved: A Primer in Design and Visual Communication." Phaidon: 2002, New York.

Unfortunately, not all of us are Walker Evans, but there is still something to learn from my photographs:

media type="flickr" key="13710516@N06" ARG0="&lang=en-us&format=rss_200" width="500" height="500"
 * Just a side note- some of the photographs featured above were taken in downtown Toronto just to give me something to compare my suburbia pictures to.

Just a quick reference point: n. adj.
 * **sub·urb** [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif]] [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif link="https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Fsuburb"]] (sŭb'ûrb') [|Pronunciation Key] n.
 * 1) A usually residential area or community outlying a city.
 * 2) **suburbs** The usually residential region around a major city; the environs.
 * **ur·ban** [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif]] [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif link="https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Furban"]] (ûr'bən) [|Pronunciation Key] adj.
 * Of, relating to, or located in a city.
 * 1) Characteristic of the city or city life
 * **ad·ver·tis·ing** [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif]] [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif link="https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Fadvertising"]] (ād'vər-tī'zĭng) [|Pronunciation Key] n.
 * 1) The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media.
 * 2) The business of designing and writing advertisements.
 * 3) Advertisements considered as a group: //This paper takes no advertising.//
 * **ver·nac·u·lar** [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif]] [[image:http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif link="https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Fvernacular"]] (vər-nāk'yə-lər) [|Pronunciation Key]
 * 1) The standard native language of a country or locality.
 * 2) The everyday language spoken by a people as distinguished from the literary language. See Synonyms at [|dialect].
 * 3) A variety of such everyday language specific to a social group or region: //the vernaculars of New York City.//
 * 4) The idiom of a particular trade or profession: //in the legal vernacular.//
 * 5) An idiomatic word, phrase, or expression.
 * 6) The common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.
 * 1) The common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.
 * 1) Native to or commonly spoken by the members of a particular country or region.
 * 2) Using the native language of a region, especially as distinct from the literary language: //a vernacular poet.//
 * 3) Relating to or expressed in the native language or dialect.
 * 4) Of or being an indigenous building style using local materials and traditional methods of construction and ornament, especially as distinguished from academic or historical architectural styles.
 * 5) Occurring or existing in a particular locality; endemic: //a vernacular disease.//
 * 6) Relating to or designating the common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.

(definitions from Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse on September 26 and 30, 2007)

Concept map: Rather than work out from a single starting point, I decided to work inward from two opposite points. The top half of the map represents what kind of ad space suburbia actually is, while the bottom half represents what it can be. The two sections of the map are interlinked at various points demonstrating how reality relates to potential.



For a larger version see the link here: [|Suburbia_small.jpg] (I know the fact it says small may be confusing, but I had an even bigger version I couldn't upload to the site.)

Now the moment you have all been waiting for! My 20/20 visual essay! (ok so maybe it is only a 16/20...) media type="custom" key="216035"