http://www.frank-or-at-least-emphatic.ch/

Arne Schmitt:

In “The Rhetoric of the Image” (1964), Roland Barthes developed one of his most prominent theories on photography by analysing an advertisement for Italian pasta. He explained that he chose the field of advertising because its message (and, more specifically, its use of photography) was intended to be “frank, or at least emphatic”, thus suggesting a distinct and transparent meaning.

I always found this assumption somewhat surprising, given the rich layers of moral, social, political, historical (the list goes on) premises and values that all advertisement uses as carriers for its clear-cut imperative “Buy me!” A few episodes of the TV series Mad Men taught me that, most strikingly. Yet, what I took from Barthes’ text is the foundational insight that photography tends to naturalize cultural artefacts, or to make what is connoted seem to be given, unalterable, self-evident.

As with all theory, its real-life application complicates the situation by adding (multiple layers of) context to it: Barthes never told us where he took the ad from, what was placed next to it, in which situation he came across it.

The on-going series of photographs on www.frank-or-at-least-emphatic.ch is meant to provide visual material for all those interested in the entangled semiotic spheres of contemporary advertisement and the city. Specifically, it shows outdoor advertisement in Switzerland, primarily in Zurich: Here, it seems to me, the premises and values cited earlier tend to present a slightly more pointed version of the status quo of neoliberal capitalism. On the other hand, this rather general contemporary system of values is constantly marked by two factors: first, the specificity and distinction of Swiss culture, history, and mentality and, secondly, by the national referendum which is a constantly advertised reminder of the intersection of politics and economic interests.

You may take this slideshow as a growing archive of semiotic study material – as a window on a part of the world you rarely visit – as a window on a part of the world you visit every day – as a mirror of an artist’s ambiguous fascination with the business of advertisement. Or take it as an attempt to resolve the following contradiction: When Peggy Olson refuses to tailor to the simplistic wishes of a retrograde client, Don Draper replies: “You are not an artist, Peggy. You solve problems”.

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From a conversation between Arne Schmitt 
and Peter Steffens from the media agency OMD

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AS    
What are the reasons for doing out-of-home advertising today, e.g. in relation to online advertising? Some people consider the web to be the new public space - where people spend much more time than on the street.

PS    
On the contrary: compared to print, for example, out-of-home has benefited massively from the expansion of the online sector! 
There has been an increasing fragmentation in media use in recent years: not all of Germany watches "Wetten, dass...?" on Saturday night anymore (the recent reboot of that show might have been an exception here), younger people don't watch TV at all. That is why out-of-home is one of the few channels that can achieve a kind of general impact or presence. This has made out-of-home advertising massively important and is the main reason why it is a central component in so many campaigns today.

AS    
In your opinion, what are the specifics of out-of-home advertising and its psychological impact, also in contrast to other advertising channels?

PS
We talked about impact measurement or accountability earlier. It might be possible to predict roughly how many contacts my TV commercial, my poster, etc. will produce - but the actual effect of these contacts is difficult to determine. One could assume that a large, illuminated advertising poster has a greater impact than a small banner on a random website - or that an eye-catching TV or cinema commercial has a greater impact than a static advertising poster. Different media certainly do have their own specific characteristics with regards to how people respond to them. 
But again: in out-of-home advertising, the main objective is spreading the word, making a product known to people. There is, for example, the term awareness which is used very frequently in the industry and originates from a certain school of communication theory. Out-of-home advertising is particularly effective here - and sometimes problematic. 
I have to briefly elaborate on this: there are certain memory techniques, for example: Here are 10 terms, link them to certain parts of your body. Or, closer to our subject: Link them to your daily way to work. Meaning: One of the things that makes out-of-home advertising so effective is that it is closely linked to people's daily paths and perceptions. Thus, it produces a different presence of the product in the case of a pending purchase decision. 

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Read the whole conversation here.