Today I stumbled across the paradigms involved in my area or practice. When planning out my aims and objectives I was a little worried that I hadn't found what my paradigms were, in fact I had, they were under my nose all the time. I think part of the problem was not correctly interpreting the meaning of the word, I was thinking it had to be much more complex than it actually was, still I got there in the end.
In celebration of this I thought I would do a blog post clearly setting out one of the paradigms that is still widely accepted, 'The Three Dreams'. Putting this into a bit of context, they are dreams connected to the parallel universe of advertising as told by John Berger (Berger and al, 1973). These are the three different types of narratives that are aimed at the viewer in an attempt to draw them in and make them feel part of the world.
- The Dream of Later Tonight
"You are part of the good life that they smile at. Everyone is surrounded by what brings pleasure, but you bring the greatest pleasure of all." Typically this would be a scene that is often a man and a woman having a fabulous time, or it could be a group of people, perhaps a figure is looking at you (generally a woman) but there is certainly space for you, and without you the scene isn't complete.
2. The Skin Dream
"The Surface you can touch. The skin without a biography." This one is could be more common, but not exclusive to woman's health products. or maybe stockings, shaving products that sort of thing. Lustful wonderful skin that has just been born and doesn't appear to be connected to any particular person.
3. The Dream of a Far Away Place
"To allow ones thoughts to pass through the light of the window. To travel else where, conjuring images, distances without horizons". More straight forward this one, again it can be used for many contexts but immediately this feels like the sort of thing that would work in travel posters, something like that.
Once the dreams are over you are free to wake up, only to dream again. The good news is that advertising is almost inescapable in the western world, so we are able to dream a lot!
Berger, J. and al, et (1973) Ways of seeing based on the BBC television series. London, Eng.: British Broadcasting Corporation [u.a.].