MARKETING COMMUNICATION AND ONE SECOND POINT THEORY
I think it would be right to start with Wittgenstein’s big question as a prologue: Can a person calculate without using any words and numbers? Even if some philosophers answer this as maybe in primitive tribes, is it possible in the contemporary world? Here, It is useful to study the concept of “imagination” that comes into the scene. The word “Imagination” in English grounds etymologically the term “Imaginatio” in Latin. “Imagination” which is imgelem in Turkish means picture in illusion, imitate the similar and copy. As for Imgelem in German etymology which is “einbildung” coincides with the concepts of “fantasy, illusion, delusion, imagination and hallucination”. It is inherent in language nature that meaning attribution undergoes change in linguistic process. When image “image” added to the above analysis another picture arises in front of us. The relationship between the philosophy and analysis in Linguistics and Semiology has experienced the highest level in this period. Such that, when you dare to start the concept “image” from Plato’s “idea”, you will have drawn a history of philosophy chronology.
As the information of the trademark is fuzzy, this is a feature that distinguishes it from the most branches of information. When we look from the viewpoint of philosophy of information, the flow of scientific information changes the temporary information. Even if a person does not feel this pradicmic change in his own era, this change creates his casual. Even the state of being aware predicts a forcing change at his routine behavior patterns.
Australia is a challenging continent due to its physical geography. The big cliffs on the coasts force it to take some precautions in terms of security. In the continent where the tides are fast, a signboard welcomes those who go fishing away from human settlements. On the first graph of the sign, there is a happy fishing man. On the second graph, there is no man. On the signboard it says “ One second point” with capital letters. At the below explanation it asks “Are you aware where you came to?” And it text continues: “what you do next is under your responsibility. The Australian government is not responsible for your next steps” They kept the most important warning at last: None of help calls will be answered. When we predict this fact in trademark communication, it opens up new horizons for us. Just like temporarily disappearing of a trademark in the mind that made wrong marketing communications strategies.
One Second Point (state of being or not being) Theory: while transmitting the verbal and visual message in marketing communication tools it is the situation of trademark’s fall (disappearance) from person’s (target market) perception. This fall of the trademark is its deletion from the visual memory of target market. Even if this does not mean that the trademark has died in terms of target market, it means that it has to make more marketing communication to reach its location. With regards to trademarks “one second point” state is the transformation of the trademark information into archaeological residue in the person. The concrete data of information of this is that it is observed in sales does not mean that this phenomenon will be solved “rational”. Though most of the times the trademark balances this with marketing strategies, it’s now disconnected with its target market. In other words, in a sense “one second point” is that the trademark in the library of the mind of the target market having a communication accident. Nowadays, to rationalize excessively the trademark information operating emotionally harms it. Under the attitudes of “ I don’t like/ I don’t use/ I don’t enjoy “ it implies the fall state of the mark in that person.
It is necessary to give the most suitable example on this theory over the brands but because of the legal obligations it is not possible. Although it is not equal to the theory, I believe the below example will be adequate. Because, the fall of the trademark visual/image in the target market corresponds to its blind spot. We can show the smoking cessation campaigns to support a healthy society target as an example. One of the biggest strategies of these campaigns is to print the images of people who got sick because of cigarettes on cigarette boxes. The campaign first contained “acceptable” images. As the expected effect was not seen that the effect degrees of the images were increased. At that point the campaign fell into “one second point” spiral. This situation still continues. In considerable randomization research I carried out, the smokers do not remember the images on the cigarette boxes they carry to consume at any moment. In the answers given, they looked at several times at the photos of human beings or organs that were damaged due to the damages of smoking on the boxes when they first came out, but later on they either never looked or ignored.
We know that in front of us is not the twentieth century people. The marketing communication of the twenty-first century faces the phenomenon of “community-brand”. Trademark communities know no boundaries and develop similar behavior patterns and attitudes develop at person. Those who drive X ( Volkswagen etc.) car can develop relations with the communities using that brand in another geography, as well as regulate their daily flows with an unbreakable emotional bond between them.
This fact which shows how and to what the brands will be evolving in the future opens the doors of a new marketing communication slightly. At the market researches and brand testing experiments: underneath the answers “I don’t know, but I like it” to the question is “Why do you buy?, all analysis regarding to attitude and promotion lead us to emotional bond that the brand established with the target market. It is not enough to explain the sharp “no” to the question “would you like to try this instead of that?” with only risk concept.
When we predict this fact to the brand, we cannot analyze the brand deletion of the target market as eliminating it. De facto eliminating involves using when needed. Freeze on something means retention with regard to consumer. It is possible to ground this with Hegel’s basic “dialectic” concept “Aufhebung” (elimination). According to Hegel, there is a difference between the negation of nature and the negation of Spirit. This difference lies in the fact that the killing of Spirit is dialectic. The nature destroys completely what it kills, there is nothing left of the killed. Spirit is not like that; it somewhat keeps what it killed. The word corresponding to the dialectic killing of the soul is Aufhebung. To him, what was eliminated was also kept. What is kept lost its state of being unmediated, but not eliminated. British language philosopher Peter Frederic Strawson ( 1919-2006) reduces imagination which underwent different meaning loadings and observations in each history section in three semantic fields. 1-Intellectual imagination, 2- imagination as invention 3-imagination as belief and illusion. Strawson starts from English while doing this categorical analysis and benefits from Platon’s phantasia meaning both genuine representation and illusive appearance. The action Phantazesthai (emerging, appearing, being visible) and the words phantasis (vision) phantasma (fantazma) are not directly related with sophism. These are the conditions of right and wrong. Phantasma is essentially not “image” but “what is visible”, it is expressed with “presentation” before “representation”. This situation expresses Image as the appearances that visits a person between sleep and wakefulness until the Hellenistic age. In conclusion, the transformation of Image from presentation to representation is not processor but result of being visible.
In terms of brand, the state of being or not is not the same with state of eliminating. Elimination in Turkish is kept on the side, stored, protected with the thought that it might be needed in the future. According to the one second point theory, the fall is to disappear irrevocably. Returning from the falling state is that the brand turns up taking on something else; now that first arkhe can no longer be mentioned.
Considering the ability of our brain to erase bad memories and turn them into positive, even it is the search area of neuro-psychology how the imitator brain behaves while creating brand shelves in its library; our conclusion is that our brains open special shelves for positive brand experiences. If the brain which met the brand image in its library experienced “one second point” status, the person cannot act for the brain.
As an epilogue, brand promotion is an acceptance system on precessors. The precessors are not the emphasis of the need to be created, but to take place of the discourse in world of meaning of the target market.
Kemal ÇİFÇİ Brand consultant
08 March 2020 Öveçler –Ankara
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