CCDN 271

Assignment 5
Research Paper

“Expensive and branded everyday things are requirements”

“...the blue jeans with the prominent Levi’s rivets, the watch with the hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen with the makers symbol crafted into the end...Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.” (Peters, 1997). 

As the generation of teenagers and adults grow, so does the material world among us. We are offered with an increasingly higher number of “branded” everyday things today, than we ever have been before. Our desires are not that of a simple everyday object. We do not seek for cheap and economical products, but would rather pursue the likes of an expensive branded trademark. By researching the two intersecting themes of “everyday design” and “Design and Anthropology”, this research paper will explore the psychology of teenagers when buying and selling, in order to discover how simple everyday things need to be “labelled” to bring satisfaction to this day and age. The argument will be that in looking at our young generation’s needs, rather than wants, expensive and branded everyday things are requirements in this new generation. This claim will be backed up by 3 main supporting paragraphs. The first step to supporting this claim, is to build a solid foundation for this research paper. The perfect way to do that is to introduce the first topic which is brands within clothing. The second step is to relate it to our modern day technology. The last step will be to describe the different rituals and intimacies with our everyday things. After showcasing all the supporting topics, we then reach the conclusion to some up the claim for this paper.

Before starting this research paper, firstly we must know our basic terms for it. We need to clarify and describe such words to make it more clear and understandable. One of the main terms being used will be the word “brand”. What is a brand? How is it going to be used in this research paper? Brand is the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's product distinct from those of other sellers. It is also “...a relationship that is personified either by the company’s name or by the brand name of the product itself” (Chernatony, 2011, p. 16). 
The next term to be defined is the word “generation”. For this research paper, social generation will be the main idea used when talking about the current generation. Our current generation of young adults and teenagers were born in the same data range and share similar cultural experiences. 

To build the foundation to the claim that our generation’s needs are branded everyday things, the first supporting topic will be about brands within clothing. Every young adult and teenager needs clothes, it’s simply a must, want and need for the society we live in today. Alissa Quart explains this and analyzes it in her book Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. The main point of this paragraph is to explain the logic and psychology of this generation when it comes to shopping for clothes and other things such as shoes, jewelry, perfumes and colognes, which is where Quart’s book comes in handy. She starts off by talking about how back in her “day”, the teens of her age were all separated due to such things like differentiation, fitting in with a group or even distinguishing one’s identity. But the adolescence has well been transformed since then, she labels the change “radically” (pg. 3). She says that “The reliance on brands has shifted: brands have infiltrated preteens and adolescents’ inner lives.” (pg. 4). We hear her comment and most of us would brush it off and not even think any of it, but once you stop and pay attention to this important matter she raises, it does make a lot of sense. Brands are now inside all of us, day in and out. We all have our favorite brands. Brands that we don’t even have to see the name of and just the logo. Our minds just instantly whisper the words of the name. With clothing, it works exactly the same way. We all have our own style no matter what kind of person we are, but with style comes brands. Quart personally points her finger at the advertising industry, as the main cause of how the generation has turned out the way it has today. “Todays teens are victims of the contemporary luxury economy. They have grown up in the age of the brand, bombarded and defined by name products and intrusive and clever advertising strategies.” (2003, pg. xvi). With the “now even more” refined teen marketing and its language, it now resembles youth sociology and psychology. With the heightened body consciousness between both genders, advertisers saw this as an opportunity. Mainly targeting teenage girls, advertisements now paint pictures of what they should look like. The clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch’s ad agency “blithely” told Women’s Wear Daily that teens “love sexy bodies and they’re more conscious of that than ever.” (pg. 10). This is coming from the brand that produced catalogs of underdressed jocks and porn stars wearing the omnipresent branded underwear.  The clear message was that when you and your partner drop trousers it had better be expensive underwear, which must have the legible letters of a good brand. If not you’ll never get the sexy boy or girl to date you. This is a good example to why clothing brands are important to teenagers and young adults because of their self conscious images of themselves, and the advertising industry within the brands are the ones that are doing that. Quart in her book labels this as “Selling Adulthood”.

Leading on from the brands within the clothing, leads on to the technology side of brands. Due to marketingcharts.com, they conducted a research with 1000+ kids aged between 13 and 19 of mixed genders with a survey about brands. It resulted that 46% say “they are loyal to the brands they really like” (2007). The study consisted of brands such as Apple which resulted in the brand Apple being “absolutely essential to teens”. In Chernatony’s book Creating Powerful Brands, he writes about why it is crucial to have powerful brands worldwide and states that brands are and “estimated to represent at least 20% of the intangible value of businesses on the major world stock markets.” (2001, pg 8). Ever since then, the numbers have risen tremendously. Some of the most powerful brands in the world that deal with technology we already know are Microsoft, Samsung and of course Apple. What do these major brands have in common? Cell phones. How does this relate to our generation of youth? We all have one. It’s a common sight, teenagers never look up, always glued to their cell phones the majority of the day. The survey of youth from the age of 12 through to 17 found that 78% have a cell phone, with nearly half of those being smartphones (pewinternet.org). Another survey was also conducted overtime about gadget ownership with American adults from the age of 18 and over. A spreadsheet done by Pew Internet (see FIG. 1) we can see immediately that cell phones have the highest percentage of ownership than any other gadgets. From 73% in April 2006 to 91% in May 2013. 

“Text messages may seem like the major culprit for this behavior, but a new report shows that one in four teens use cell phones as their device of choice when browsing the web.” (Bautista, 2013). The cell phones in this generation are indeed mostly smartphones with complete access to the internet. 25% of the people own an Apple iPhone which leads the race, followed by an only 4% for Blackberry (pewinternet.org). As we can see from the statistics provided, cell phones are the most popular gadgets used from the age 12 to the young adults, with the Apple iPhone being the most owned out of all the brands. It is an icon, one that almost any teenager and young adult could dream of having. It differentiates itself from all other brands because of the image Apple has painted that it is the perfect phone to have. It has everything a person from this generation needs, from the camera to the internet and social capabilities. This brand has definitely made a name for itself. 

The last paragraph leads on from brands within technology, and furthermore explains the rituals and intimacy we teens and young adults have with our beloved and branded everyday things. Tom Chatfield wrote an article for Aeon Magazine called Cyborg dreams with his opening statement as “Gadgets are the first thing we touch in the morning and the last thing we stroke at night. We are their slaves” (2013). Just like Quart’s quotes, this is inspiring and mind blowing. The more we think about it, most of us touch our cell phones last before we go to sleep at night, and the first thing we touch when we wake up in the morning. This is both a ritual and and intimate relationship we have with the everyday object. But it is the brand that makes it how it is today. If we take the Apple’s iPhone as a fine example, it’s capabilities are far more vast than the mind can think. This unique brand allows users to download apps, including games which immediately forms an intimate relationship with the youth of this generation. Even something as small as an alarm clock, or even checking the time  requires us to touch our cell phones and abled devices for the first and last thing of our daily lives. It becomes a habit, a ritual. Another example of an intimate relationship with everyday brands are the comparison between branded clothing and non-branded clothing. If we take a pair of jeans made by a very popular brand like Levi’s, and another pair of jeans with a brand like Hallensteins that is half the price and gave it to a teen of this generation, it’s obvious to what the intimate relationship that person will have with those pairs of jeans. With Levi’s being the more popular brand and more expensive, the way this generation works is that we would be more closely intimate to it therefore we would look after it more than the Hallensteins brand. This works the same with cell phones. If someone of this generation of youth had 2 cell phones, one that was your normal average Nokia worth let’s say $299 on the market and an iPhone 5 worth $1029 on the market, it would be easy to tell which one they would have a more intimate and close relationship to. 

From underwear to cell phones, teenagers and young adults have to own branded things. It’s in our generation’s daily lives, there’s no getting away from it. Branded clothing companies target the youth of today especially girls with their self consciousness through advertising to get inside their heads. They sell “adulthood” and force us to get branded clothing to fit in, and become attractable and “sexy” for the opposite sex to want us. That is the common image for branded clothing in this generation. On the other side of the branded industry, is the technology brands that sell us cell phones where they paint the picture that cell phones are needed in our lives. Which they are. Cell phones that are branded like Apple’s iPhone which have apps give us easy access to texting, internet and social interactions with others which is how this current generation works, by being “glued” to our gadgets. Lastly this is all explained on the rituals we have and the intimacy we have for our branded things. The rituals where our iPhone’s are the first thing we touch in the morning and the last thing we “stroke” at night. The intimacy we have with our branded clothing like our pair of Levi’s jeans compared to our normal everyday and common pair. As you can see, the three supporting points in this research paper help defy and explain why expensive and branded everyday things are requirements in this new generation. 

“It's that simple -- and that hard. And that inescapable.” - (Peters, 1997).

Reference

Chernatony, L. D. (2011). Creating Powerful Brands (4th ed.).
     Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. 

Quart, A. (2003). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.
     New York, NY: Basic Books. 

Peters, T. (1997). The Brand Called You.
     Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you

Attfield, J. (2000). Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life.
     New York, NY: Berg.

Teens Both Fickle about and Obsessed with Brands. (2007). Retrieved from
     http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/teens-both-fickle-about-and-obsessed-with-brands-698/

Palmer, J. (2012). The balinghou.
     Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-palmer-chinese-youth/

Chatfield, T. (2013). Cyborg dreams.
     Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/tom-chatfield-technology-intimacy/

Bautista, C. (2013). Cellphones: A Tenn’s Lifeline to the Internet.
     Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2013/03/13/teen-cellphone/

Brenner, J. (2013). Pew Internet: Mobile.
     Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/February/Pew-Internet-Mobile.aspx

FIG. 1. Brenner, J. (2013). Pew Internet: Mobile.
     Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/February/Pew-Internet-Mobile.aspx