While working on an ethnographic project for a marketing firm on young adults' relation to new media, we observed obvious things like cellphones kept on at all times out of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), but also realized how very knowledgeable young westerners are about the mechanisms of advertising.
They are hyperaware of how branding works and the extent to which brands need them to consume - and as such want something in exchange. This exchange isn't based on the actual material product (aka comfortable shoes, an efficient computer or quality beer) but rather on the immaterial aura the product discloses: Vans' authenticity, Appel's creativity or Milwaukee Dry's freedom from branding. While brands are freaking out about the end of television, many are seemingly loosing precious time on creating new auras.
A not so recent but beautifully executed campaign to give a rather unglamourous product a new meaningful aura is the British paint company Dulux and its Let's Colour Project.
Now instead of just painting your kitchen you can also feel like your partaking in an International Development Studies action. In a similar way as success story Toms shoes, the brand has put the idea of charity and community empowerment into consumption. While I'm far from critiquing brands that have a social consciousness, there is something slightly uncanny about enhancing a product's aura by appropriating a community's poverty.
Either way here is a beautiful and powerful rendition of how something as simple as paint can do more than colour walls.
