Pseudolus
Advertising With Character: an exploration into the use and abuse of characters in marketing -- from Aunt Jemima, to Josephine the Plumber, to Joe the Plumber -- running December 10 through January 16.
Note -- 12/24: Though I originally expected to finish this series on Christmas Day, I have decided to extend this series with a number of new entries. The extra work will take me through the beginning of the new year. Bear with me -- I hope to make it worth the wait.
Today: "Slaves"
So, at long last, today I go into the details of my 250-character survey. I have set the stage by looking at the following:
--the origins of "character." Generally, I looked at where characters come from (ancient sources) and specifically I looked at where recurring characters come from (theatre, most recently the Victorian Music Hall stage, which stood poised between the ancient world of character-making to the modern world of character production.
-the character factory. I then looked briefly at the beginnings of the Hollywood/Broadcast/Madison avenue complex, and the creation of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, which takes us into the modern era of character production. As I noted in the first installment, the recurring character enabled storyteller to scale their reach, and the early days of modern media transformed a Victorian theatre archetype into an object of mass production.
--why brands need character. I then looked at the reasons brands went to work at the character factory, noting that -- among other things -- the factory enabled brands to scale their reach to consumers in the new industrial era, and -- more importantly -- it enabled these brands to relate to consumers in an almost human way. I looked specifically at one commercial character -- the Sun Maid -- who was based on a real fruit picker from the depression era. She belonged to a class of character -- framed broadly and deliberately as "slaves" -- which would become a mainstay in modern advertising.
I'll looking at two other classes of characters -- dubbed heroes and clowns -- tomorrow and Thursday. And the question I want to ask for each of the three is, "what does a brand get from this type of character?" But I will also try to demonstrate -- as we go along -- that these three archetypes provide brands with a simple yet flexible framework for engaging with consumers across of broad spectrum of values, tastes, and levels of sophistication. Each of the three character types speaks to a universal human condition.
Slaves
I hope I do not offend anyone by choosing to call this first category slaves, and not laborers, drudges, or whatever. I thought about it a great deal, and was inspired once again to go to the origins of comedy. But we don't have to dust off any books to get a close look at Roman theatre. In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a fantastically funny modern rendition of comedies by Roman comedians such as Plautus, the character around whom the entire story unfolds is Pseudolus (played originally by Zero Mostel, revived most recently by Nathan Lane). Pseudolus is many things. He is funny. He is cunning. He is dishonest (though we love him for it -- more on that later). Most of all he is a servant, and as a servant he is able to provide that thing that storytellers have always tried to provide since the entire enterprise of storytelling began:
a character type that the audience can not only relate to, but also identify with
a character type that stands in relation to other characters types that are central to the story
a character type that can adapt to evolving notions of servitude
For most of our history, the human condition has been a struggle over varying degrees of servitude, and for the masses, the slave is the character that most directly speaks to them. He is the window, so to speak, into the story. Like Ismael, the narrator in Moby Dick, he speaks directly to the audience -- a big thing, as I will show later -- from the perspective not of the captain of the ship, but as "a simple sailor, jumping from spar to spar like a grasshopper in a May meadow. Very much like a slave. But who isn't a slave? Tell me that."
But it's not as simple as that. Again, the character of the slave is one that gives the audience a way to identify and relate. And, of course, it's a lot different to be a slave than to have one in your life.
Phase I: Familial and Familiar
Of course, in the U.S., the word slave can be used too loosely. Our own history with real slavery ended not too long ago. But if you look at the history of characters in advertising, you will see a direct progression from characters that were in fact based on American slaves. Perhaps the most visible of all these characters has been Aunt Jemima, inspired from a minstrel by the same name. (In fact, the first Aunt Jemima, Nancy Green, was born a slave, in 1834). As the Wikipedia entry on this character notes, she is
depicted as a plump, smiling, bright-eyed, African-American woman, originally wearing a kerchief over her hair. She was represented as a slave and was the most commonplace representation of the stereotypical 'mammy' character.
Anyone who grew up watching movies from the golden era from Hollywood -- from films as different as Gone With the Wind to Holiday Inn (the film that actually originated the song "White Christmas," and features a controversial minstrel/blackface number which often gets cut from showing on TV) -- will recognize the 'mammy' character. The name of the character is telling; the role of this real "mammies" was in part maternal, therefore earning a place -- sort of -- in the family. Which draws an interesting parallel to Uncle Ben, the mascot for the rice company. Again, Wikipedia:
When white South Carolina planters were unable to make their rice crops thrive, “slaves from West Africa’s rice region tutored planters in growing the crop.” In the American South, whites once commonly referred to elderly black men as uncle even though they were not blood relatives.
The article adds, "during the later 20th century, this was considered patronizing and demeaning and was widely deprecated." No doubt -- recall the fictional character, "Uncle Tom," which Ralph Nader used recently -- and disastrously -- in reference to Barack Obama. Dangerous words, to be sure. But the point is that these pseudo-familial characters were quite prevalent in advertising, and some still remain (like Rastus, the mascot of the Cream of Wheat brand). The characters may have been modified (slimmer, hipper, more contemporary), and the roots to slavery may not be at all visible to a generation unfamiliar with the ways in which we used words like aunt and uncle. But here they are today in our supermarkets and in our pantries.
But without dwelling too much on the roots of these characters, it's important to see the connection to later characters -- they invoked the idea that the brand is there to serve the consumer (yep -- it looks ugly when seen in its most extreme form). The fact that the U.S. permitted citizens to force others to serve them might obscure that connection. At the time that these brands were launched, the double-duty nature of the slave character -- permitting the consumer to identify and relate with the servile characters -- enabled brands to connect deeply with consumers, many of whom never had and "aunt" or "uncle" in the home. With these brands, they could. Slaves would go away, and the industrial age would introduce a motley range of paycheck-earning types that advertisers would begin to use to communicate the same idea: we are here to make your life -- dear drone -- just a little bit easier. But perhaps the best transitional character was the servant for hire -- the butler. We've seen him often -- in the 1950's, in the form of Kleenex's Mr. Manners, and more recently, with Ask Jeeves. But for most people, the butler as character can only work in the abstract -- too comical a conceit for the kind of grounded connection that brands seek with slave characters. There are all sorts of jobs and professions that fit the idea better.
Phase II: Working Stiffs
Fast-forward to the TV age, and the slave as slave character gets a complete makeover. Starting in the early 1950s, and over the next few decades, and consumers would be introduced to a long line of everymen and everywomen from practically every walk of life.
There were plumbers (Josephine the Plumber for Comet), repairmen (the Maytag repairman), supermarket manager (Mr. Whipple for Charmin). There were cops on the street (the Karl Malden character for American Express), cleaners in the kitchen (Mr. Clean), captains in the toilet (the Ty-D-Bol man) and a wide assortment of busybodies whose sole job, it seemed, was to help you solve every domestic challenge in your life (Aunt Bluebelle for Scot Towel, Madge the cosmetologist for Palmolive ("you're soaking in it.").
Unlike their antecedents from the real slave era, they were more like you and me, assuming we're from the working class (a huge new market for brand advertisers in the post-war economy). But just like their antecedents, their vocation was to serve, and Madison Avenue used characters to serve in practically every domain in what was undoubtedly becoming an increasingly busy life for consumers (though some would argue that a lot of busy-ness was being manufactured by the brands). From this light, they seem less like servants than companions. But it was an esprit de corps that formed the bond between these imaginary working stiffs and the real working stiffs that advertisers targeted.
Phase III: The Corporate Servant
Betty Crocker -- Through the Years
But perhaps the most significant development was the idea of the CEO as servant. The idea here was as simple as it was elusive. Was not so long ago that brands felt they needed to invent their corporate mascots (Ann Page for A&P, Betty Crocker for General Mills). Then a few brands began trading on the personal brands of real people with real reputations (for example, Duncan Hines, a
super salesman who rose to fame as an amateur critic of roadside eateries). And while leaders in the modern PR profession have always looked for ways to elevate the visibility of businesses by elevating the visibility of the CEO (John D. Rockefeller's campaign to give everyone he met a dime? Supposedly the work of proto-PR guru, Ivy Lee). You simply didn't see much of this on TV, and when you did the characters seemed so contrived that one had to wonder if in fact they were real (e.g., Colonel Sanders and Orville Redenbacher -- both real, both founders of their companies). They worked beautifully in an earlier era, but survive less as characters and more as logos. But as we edge closer to the current era, you begin to see brands doing more and more with their CEOs, and -- as if for shock value -- the idea is that the CEO has replaced the servant in the kitchen, the busybody in the toilet. Now, the CEO is the brand, and to connect with you he has promised to make your life easier, better.
Who best represents this trend?
There are a few good candidates.
There's Dave Thomas of Wendy's, who spoke directly to the camera and promised a good deal at his establishment. There's George Zimmer, founder and CEO of The Men's Warehouse, who, also spoke directly to the camera, and promised that "you are going to like the way you look," the kind of line I use to hear when shopping, say, at Moe Ginsburg, the famous cut-rate men's store (they got great remainders from other stores) in New York City. There's Charles Schwab, who has run many speak-directly-to-the -camera campaigns and now is marketing his company with a
campaign called "Talk to Chuck." Mr. Schwabs's new campaign seems like the one most in keeping with the philosophy of the conversational era, complete with talk balloons in the campaign
artwork. But my favorite example does not qualify as advertising per se. Perhaps it comes closer to PR, but as a veteran from that world, I would argue that calling it PR does the man a disservice. I am talking about Craig Newmark, the founder and boss at craigslist, who does not carry the title of CEO, but instead calls himself "chief customer service rep." If you ever met the guy, you would know that he is not kidding. And for that, and other reasons, craigslist has an amazing brand and an amazing bond with its customers.
But there's another reason to end today's post with a note about Craig. In the next two days I will explore two other archetypes in advertising, then close with a look at how the character-in-advertising tradition is faring in the new world of social media. What Craig has done is, in a way, revolutionary. Brands have attempted to relate to consumers by humanizing -- sort of -- the way it engages with them. They have done that with characters. And one type of character that has been very effective is the servant. Now what if the guy or gal running the company spoke AND acted like a servant, albeit a corporate servant. You are going to like that gal or guy. But are you necessary going to like the company? That depends of course on who you really interact with at the company. That, folks, may be the next evolution of this character type I have loosely termed "slave," and I vow to go deeper into that subject at the conclusion of this series. But not until we look at an equally dominant character type. As I said near the start of this post, one of the three things that are important about the slave character is how it stands in relation to other characters. You can say that the next character type -- the clown -- has emerged as a constant companion.
NEXT: Ancient, Animal, and Animated
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