From July 21 –

Visual experiments began with erasure of logos and branded products within media; tests were done with one of the most well-known films of all time with a plethora of product placements; Home Alone. But have since managed to catch a fever during this Summer season, so may be out of action for the next couple of days, but since I became ill two days ago, I gave myself some time to processing and organising some thoughts in my head rather than worrying about what to put on paper.

As previously mentioned, the meaning of placement is essentially the placement of an idea, the idea of what is or what can be implanted into your mind, whether subconsciously or not whilst being exposed to a piece of media. In children’s terms, their minds are still in development and therefore more susceptible to different brand exposures, how do ideas become implanted into a child’s mind? How do children differentiate between positive and negatives before knowing the difference between right and wrong?

Brands ‘exists only in the memory of people…is a sign of recognition…and evokes associations in people’ (Franzen and Bouwman, 2001, p.xvii) We implant ideas into our minds with the increasing types of media that we are exposed to – books, newspapers, television, movies. These types of media are created through someone’s ideas brought to life visually or in literary senses. In both cases, both ideas are implanted into people’s minds by adding visuals effects, and in literary ways, the extensive use of descriptive words.

When talking to others about the project, I do not mention the project itself, but rather implant the idea of the project to them, which provides some great insight on implanting an idea in itself. An idea can take the form of anything from a small part in conversation to a whole topic about the everyday, even the concept of a conversation was an idea in beginning a method of communication between common species from the early ages; all ideas require knowledge of some sort to begin with. A flowchart was created to show the process of the placement of ideas, from this flowchart, I realised that I had separated the idea of media and culture into two, but why? This questioned my understanding of the true meaning of an idea; the difference between the media ‘idea’ and the cultural ‘idea’ is simply the medium or method of communication. Then is an idea therefore, the driving force for all communications? If so, what drives the idea?

The driving force for the mental development towards idea generation returns to childhood. More research, and perhaps, an interview with a language psychologist on mental development and the development of words, or, more broadly, communication.

Bibliography   

Franzen, G and Bouwman, M. (2001) The Mental World of Brands: Mind, memory and brand success. Cromwell Press: Great Britain