"No Pain, No Gain" Propaganda in Advertising

This post is about the first stage of my thinking process for the final essay. After having twice tutorial section with my lecturer, I finally come out with my particular statement that I would like argue about- "No Pain, No Gain". Frankly, it is still very superficial at this moment. But, I will be clarifying my statement specifically afterward, perhaps in this post. 

After doing some relevant researches about the masculinity in advertising, I was somewhat confused toward the direction that I would intend to work on. The main reason is those questions that I wanted to explore and find out in the beginning, there are already various academical resources can be found via internet. Therefore, it will be like having 2000 words introduction for describing solely about masculinity. It is quite bored actually because it has nothing much to argue with the masculinity in advertising anymore. The perfectionism is the notion of advertising likes to portray, this is already the general statement. Therefore, what can I still argue about the reality versus virtuality in term of the masculinity of advertising. NO POINT!

Why don't I explore something related to masculinity? Here are sequential pin points that make me come out with the idea:

1. Muscularity is the great sign of masculinity.

2. Fitness center- arena of bodybuilding. 

3. The visual propaganda of fitness. (Chiat has mentioned before)

4. Questioning myself again: What makes them craving for the 'perfect' body shape? 

5. It must be having some motivation to burn up male's passion, but I will be seeing the negative side. (Well, I always like to go against normal theory. Haha!)

6. "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" is the propaganda that fitness industries propagated/

After discussing with lecturer about this, she suggested me to look for other fields as my case studies, rather than only focusing on fitness. How the advertising cultivates this propaganda in the society globally? My own experience of learning English is somewhat affected by this "motto" I guess, it makes me feel torturing during the self-learning process. So, I think it is good to dig out deeper about this impactful quotation. 

The diagram above is my little brainstorming notes. It is quite abstract which I don't expect anyone can understand it, but I will explain elaborately in this post. Anyway, I like abstract :) 

Before explaining the content, I would like to mention that the purpose of my final paper will be focusing on graphic design and advertising field. Back to topic, I have splitted up the long term into 'pain' and 'gain'. Firstly, in term of 'pain', I have checked up Oxford Dictionary:

1. physical suffering or discomfort caused by injury or disease. (psychological pain)

2. unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual/ potential damage.

These are the original meaning of 'pain'. Nonetheless, I would like to highlight psychological pain in this case, and then redefining the term 'pain' in advertising. In this initial stage, I would be sharing my thought based on the understanding I had learnt.  

Figure above shown, Leo Burnett's HumanKind scale for rating ideas. From here we can know that an influential design must be able to change the world, the way people live, and the way people think and feel. Instead of calling the being as consumer, Leo Burnett treats them as people. The perspective of design is changed, understanding people can be easier to integrate into their life via design. 

McDonalds Sundial BillBoard is the great example, such impactful effect that can penetrate into our daily life. The motion graphic that applied through the natural element, reminding people grab a McDonald at each single moment. Therefore, it is influential enough to change the people feel and think, rating between 7 and 8.

Same perspective of design, however, there are some advertising does take action to make have psychological pain in order to penetrate into people's life. Prankvertising is the particular case study, it is when a brand pulls a marketing prank on random, unsuspecting consumers, and this medium is powerful  to generate word of mouth buzz. So far, this kind of medium has not been seen in Malaysia, but Europe countries do. It makes people get frightened, this is the phenomena shows that people is emotionally changed due to this unexpected incident. In other words, I consider it as psychological pain in this manner.

Besides that, movie is one of the media that take parts in propagating 'No Pain, No Gain'.

In term of 'gain', I could only show some superficial ideas so far. 'Gain' can be defined as people follow with interest the design or advertising. So, the first part is about the human behaviour and response. Secondly, I will be looking the entity of external factors, such as economy, social-cultural, and politic. The profit that the particular segmentation of advertising gain from it. In this technology era, social media is a great platform to share information and thought. For instance, Ylvis- 'What Does The Fox Say' gains more than 200 millions views in youtube, and likewise, it has been shared insanely in Facebook. This phenomena proves that it is truly gain the interest of people, it also become an agenda of people. 

Resources

Jay, M (2011) McDonalds Sundial Billboard. Available at: http://designyoutrust.com/designyoutrust/mcdonalds-sundial-billboard/ [Accessed: 8th Dec, 2013].

Integrated Brands (n.d.) Is prankvertising the new trend in advertising? Available at: http://www.integratedbrands.org/news/is-prankvertising-the-new-trend-in-advertising-1 [Accessed: 8th Dec, 2013].