What requires music, short-form storytelling, street performance, videography, factories, supply chain systems, studios, designers, executives, scientists, bureaucrats, foundries, sketches, and even some plain old magic tricks? It is the consumer product of course.
When you purchase an iPhone or a Cuisinart blender, you didn't just buy into the physical product, but everything the product stands for. The iPhone is not just a smartphone but a smartphone that's held by some of the richest, most fashionable, most productive people in the world. The iPhone is not just a smartphone but a carefully integrated mix of software and hardware that can maximize its performance so you never have to worry about skipping a beat.
The Cuisinart blender is not just a blender but a promise that you and thousands of others have helped create to make the blender viable for production: You will now be a blending expert, making smoothies and blended garnishes—at least for the first two weeks that you own it and don't put it in the cupboard with the old one.
The promise doesn't exist with the product itself, but the marketing of the product: Touting a durable construction, painstaking design, and compatibility with other tools, your iPhone/blender promises another plane of productivity and self-fulfillment that was not attainable with the previous iteration. The box, the commercials, the people on YouTube, your friends and family who have already purchased it, all contribute to the promise.
A commercial is only a short movie with a clearer objective: Remind someone about a product and maybe even its features. Using music and scripts and direction and editing, the commercial is an art project that seeks the place its sensibilities upon the consumer product. Thus, the product is always tied to the arts, even when the product's mass production machinery forgets.
One should be truly in awe about all the creative energy that goes into a consumer product. Maybe it's not a wonder that this phenomenon has seeped its way into pop culture: Now, art as product is art. Your branded t-shirt, a product artistically depicting a product, hauled around on your back, is the culmination of our aesthetic culture intersecting with technology.
When you purchase an iPhone or a Cuisinart blender, you didn't just buy into the physical product, but everything the product stands for. The iPhone is not just a smartphone but a smartphone that's held by some of the richest, most fashionable, most productive people in the world. The iPhone is not just a smartphone but a carefully integrated mix of software and hardware that can maximize its performance so you never have to worry about skipping a beat.
The Cuisinart blender is not just a blender but a promise that you and thousands of others have helped create to make the blender viable for production: You will now be a blending expert, making smoothies and blended garnishes—at least for the first two weeks that you own it and don't put it in the cupboard with the old one.
The promise doesn't exist with the product itself, but the marketing of the product: Touting a durable construction, painstaking design, and compatibility with other tools, your iPhone/blender promises another plane of productivity and self-fulfillment that was not attainable with the previous iteration. The box, the commercials, the people on YouTube, your friends and family who have already purchased it, all contribute to the promise.
A commercial is only a short movie with a clearer objective: Remind someone about a product and maybe even its features. Using music and scripts and direction and editing, the commercial is an art project that seeks the place its sensibilities upon the consumer product. Thus, the product is always tied to the arts, even when the product's mass production machinery forgets.
One should be truly in awe about all the creative energy that goes into a consumer product. Maybe it's not a wonder that this phenomenon has seeped its way into pop culture: Now, art as product is art. Your branded t-shirt, a product artistically depicting a product, hauled around on your back, is the culmination of our aesthetic culture intersecting with technology.