Entry on Symbiotic Relationship between Street

Institution:

In this text, I reveal the relationship between art and street advertising, proving unequivocally that both street and commercial advertising have a common characteristic and have been used synergistically to achieve similar objectives. This text also evaluates the research by Borghini et al (2010), which focused on identifying whether both commercial advertising and street art depended on each other to achieve their objectives. Thus, as will be seen later on, this text justifies an idea that the use of street art to advertising is not only a way in which commercial advertisers use art to make profit gains, but also, both street art and commercial advertising depend on each other to advance each other’s objectives.

Indeed, the text indicates that street art gives a visual sense of whatever the artists are trying to communicate, and this is a point of similarity between street art and commercial advertising because; even commercial advertisers often aim to give a visual sense of the product they are trying to advertise Borghini et al (2010). Against this background, I believe that, perhaps this point of similarity explains the reason why some advertising firms employ street artist while some of the artists aspire to join the advertising industry. In fact, , Borghini et al (2010) suggest that the growing demand for creativity and the need to make advertisements with visual rhetoric, sincerity, and creativity advertises makes street art at an appropriate approach for advertising. The author says “Street art is rooted in a populist aesthetic, a consumerist critique and an urban redevelopment project” and that “in terms of commercial effect, street art has got a visual and cognitive positive contribution but at the same time carries messages of social and political agenda, and it is in its core a non-commercial form of art”. However, for what other reasons does the author think that street art is that useful to commercial advertising?

It emerges Borghini et al (2010) that “Street art is rooted in a populist aesthetic, a consumerist critique and an urban redevelopment project” thus, when used in commercial advertising; it cognitively and visually creates a commercial effect while carrying messages of political or social agenda. Moreover, according to Maya Amrami (n.d), street walls, through street art, are a platform where both the consumers and the artists connect especially when pedestrians interpret the pictures on street walls. Ultimately, in my opinion, and in comparison to the assertions Borghini et al (2010) and Maya Amrami (n.d), street art becomes part of the urban experience and consumers of the advertised products are part of it too.

Borghini et al (2010) uses the analogy of situationist international movement and psychogeography to explain the relationship between commercial advertisement and street art. Defined it as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals,” street art embodies psychogeography based on how it sparks the imaginative capabilities of street pedestrians and triggers them to imagine the beauty of the urban landscape (Maya Amrami, n.d) as illustrated in figure 1 below:

Therefore, from this analogy, I can infer that the street acts as an instrument used by commercial advertisers to raise the profiles of their products in a manner that creates an impact on their consumers. Through street art, commercial advertisers are able to pass their advertising messages in a more legitimate and authentic manner, especially in this era of cultural trends such as sports, movies, popular art, music, and fashion (Maya Amrami, n.d). In doing so, prominent brands borrow the aesthetics and creativity from street art to give their products an artistic and urban touches – a phenomenon that, in my opinion, exemplifies psychogeography. Thus from my understanding of this text, psychogeography was the foundation upon which street art arose, as it created various activities that led to the development of and rise of awareness about of the cultural and natural environment which triggers the emotions and senses of people as they relate to the environment and places, while raising the critical and political questions besides being a source of fun.

In evaluating the conclusion by Borghini et al (2010), it appears to me that the rhetorical characteristics of street art can be used by commercial advertisers to improve the social sensitivity, relevance, and effectiveness of their advertising practices. It emerges from this analysis that street art helps to create a multiplicity of advertising sites, while engraving creativity, innovation and transformative messaging into the brands to make them more distinctive while impacting the end-consumers. Ideally, in my opinion, this argument supports the thesis that street art is used by commercial advertisers to make profits.

On the other hand, the study by Borghini et al (2010) reveals the idea that street artists have also used commercial advertising, through advertising symbols, to advance their agenda and create new movements. This reveals the fact that there exists a symbiotic relationship between street art and commercial advertisements. For example, as illustrated in figure 2 below, pop art is a typical art movement that emerged and evolved with the help of commercial advertisement.

In conclusion, I have depicted the rhetoric characteristic of street art as an element that links it to commercial advertising. This text suggests that the cognitive and visual characteristic of street art helps in delivering enjoyable messaging that are at the same time a critique of various political ideologies. Street art has also emerged to be a tool for activist exhortation which is also used by artists to demystify and unpack contemporary urban consumption. Based on Maya’s article as well as Borghini et al (2010); this blog has demonstrated how street art emerges to be its own kind of advertisement, displaying how creativity, through street art, is used as a process and as a product. Therefore, this blog establishes that with the use of street art, commercial advertisers can improve the relevance, social sensitivity, and effectiveness of commercial advertising. Also, through street art, a multiplicity of advertising sites can be achieved in order to create a transformative and innovating messaging that refreshes the brands and create customer engagement. Ultimately, street art has emerged to be a tool that helps consumers to reconnect and contemplate about the advertised products thereby creating a personal interaction with the products.

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References

• Borghini S, Massimiliano L., Anderson L., and John F. (2010) Symbiotic Postures of Commercial Advertising and Street Art Rhetoric for Creativity, the Journal Of Marketing, 117-125.
• Maya Amrami, (n.d) Seminar 1: Site And Situation “THE STREET” retrieved from: