The Invented World

The world we all occupy is a combination of the natural world, the physical earth, sky, air … etc., and the social world, which is technology, language, conventions, and everything human produced. This distinction can become tricky; language is invented by us, but our brains seem naturally wired for it; and we seemed naturally inclined to alter the surrounding we live in. No matter how we look at it we occupy a world that is partly, perhaps largely, modified by society throughout history.

What we advertise is often artificial in nature; food is one of the few exceptions, and even that is often modified. The mediums we advertise with are equally artificial, but that not to undermine them. Our language is artificially made- it was invented by the human mind and developed over the generations. Yet we could not survive without it. The same could be said for much of society, perhaps all of it.

Advertising uses representation of a service or product to sell those services and products. In one sense the advertising images are fictional, in another sense they portray and represent something real. A caricature of a person represents an individual person even as it is not an accurate representation in the way a photograph is. A team or company mascot portrays the type of thing a company aims to be, even if it is just a cartoon drawing. It would be simplistic to claim these images are fake. Instead, they are symbolic. They visually show what a company, product or service is meant to be.

If advertising shows with symbols and signs what a company is about, then it is as real as the company. Art shows human experience; literature and film portrays human interaction (perhaps inaccurately); advertising aims to show human institutions and their potential interaction with the individual.