CRITICAL VISUAL ANALYSIS

Jonathan E. Schroeder

in

Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing

Russell Belk, ed.

Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar

forthcoming, 2006
 Critical visual analysis

Jonathan E. Schroeder

Marketing often relies on strong visual identity. Products and services are promoted

via images, corporate image commands increasing attention, and images of identity pulse

through marketing communication, consumer households, and mass media. Many battles of

the brands take place in the visual domain. Furthermore, the Web mandates visualizing

almost every aspect of corporate strategy, operations, and communication, bringing visual

issues into the mainstream of strategic thinking, and spurring research and thinking about

perception and preference of visual displays.

Critical visual analysis offers researchers an interdisciplinary method for

understanding and contextualizing images – crucial concerns, given the cultural centrality of

vision. If marketing depends upon images, including brand images, corporate images, product

images, and images of identity, then research methods in marketing must be capable of

addressing issues that such images signify. By connecting images to the cultural context of

consumption, researchers gain a more thorough – yet never complete – understanding of how

images embody and express cultural values and contradictions.

This chapter presents qualitative methods for researching images, including

advertising images, websites, film, and photographs. I draw on a theory of visual

consumption to show how cultural codes and representational conventions inform

contemporary marketing images, infusing them with visual, historical, and rhetorical

presence and power. To illustrate how theory informs critical visual methods, I invoke an

analytical concept of consuming difference to describe a relational framework of

contemporary branding campaigns. I discuss how marketing communication draws upon the
ideology of the group portrait as a visual technique for representing identity. I treat

advertising imagery much the way an art historian treats pictures as I analyze illustrative

examples through the classic art historical techniques of formal analysis, compare and

contrast, and interpretation – framed within representation understood as a cultural practice.

Identity, and how it functions within visual consumption, is a key concern in my

analysis. In discussing identity issues such as gender, race, and sexual orientation, I open up

consideration of the ways in which advertising functions as representation within the social

contexts of cultural difference (Borgerson and Schroeder 2002). I offer a short tutorial on the

basic issues of criticism, and then apply these to several iconic images. One such image – a

CK One ad, photographed by Steven Meisel for Calvin Klein that profoundly influenced

recent advertising photography – illustrates how CK One draws upon several distinctive

visual genres, including group portraiture and fashion photography. For example, group

portraits, genealogically linked to the golden era of Dutch art, are a masculine genre –

historically, men inhabited most portraits of groups such as guilds, corporate boards and

sports teams. In contrast, fashion photography can be considered a feminine genre, more

closely associated with images of women than men, although men dominate the scene behind

the lens. By juxtaposing and superimposing these two gendered genres – the group portrait

and the fashion photograph – the CK One image creates an androgynous atmosphere – subtly

supporting its brand identity of genderless cologne. Thus, genre delineation provides a

powerful theoretical insight into how CK One works as an image, a brand strategy, and a

visual icon.

This interdisciplinary analysis illuminates key tensions within the politics of

representation, identity, and marketing. Humanities provide theoretical tools to understand

image genres, content, and narrative, whereas social science affords methods for discussing

context, effects, and strategic implications (cf. Philips and McQuarrie 2004; Stern and
Schroeder 1994). To be clear, the approach introduced here need not rely on ‘structural’

understandings of semiotics; rather, critical visual analysis remains open to consumer

response and poststructural notions of image production and consumption (see Borgerson and

Schroeder 2005; Schroeder and Zwick 2004). Questions appropriate to critical visual analysis

include: How do images strategically communicate? How do images circulate in consumer

culture? How do consumers understand advertising images? How do images relate to brand

meaning? What does the World Wide Web mean for visual consumption? What are some

ethical and social implications for the reliance on images in marketing communication?

Researching visual consumption

Visual representations in marketing can be considered socio-political artifacts –

creating meaning within the circuit of culture beyond strategic intention, invoking a range of

issues formerly reserved for the political sphere, and widely circulating information about the

social world. Cultural codes, ideological discourse, consumer’s background knowledge, and

rhetorical processes have been cited as influences in branding and in consumer’s

relationships to advertising, brands and mass media. Consumers are seen to construct and

perform identities and self-concepts, trying out new roles and creating their identity within

and in collaboration with, brand culture. Largely missing from these insights, however, is an

awareness of basic cultural processes that affect contemporary brands, including historical

context, ethical concerns, and consumer response. In other words, neither managers nor

consumers completely control branding processes – cultural codes constrain how brands

work to produce meaning (see Holt 2004; Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling 2005).

Analytic categories for critical visual analysis

 There are many ways to begin an analysis of a work of art, a photograph, or an

advertisement, but most critics agree that interpretation begins with description. Basic

descriptive work requires articulation of form, subject matter, genre, medium, color, light,

line, and size – the building blocks of images. Some art historical knowledge is helpful for

identifying form and genre and making art historical comparisons. When working with

photographs, for example, relevant descriptive variables include production qualities, the

photographer’s vantage point, focus, and depth of field; each constitutes aesthetic, ideological

and strategic choices (Barrett 2005). The relationship between description and interpretation

is intricate, but ideally, interpretations emerge from descriptive details. Researchers may also

benefit from one of the many guides to visual methods (e.g., van Leeuwen and Jewitt 2001),

as well as related chapters in this volume. In the following section, I present key variables for

critical visual analysis: description, subject matter, form, medium, style, genre, and

comparison.

Description The first step in critical visual analysis is to describe the image, pointing

out features contained within it, such as formal properties of composition, color, tone, and

contrast. This level of analysis will be most uniform among observers, varying in terms of

visual knowledge, language and jargon. A basic descriptive technique involves placing the

image within a genre, or type, largely dependent upon subject and medium. Genre categories

are not wholly separate, and it is often impossible to prevent interpretation from seeping into

description (cf. Baxandall 1987; Roskill 1989). A key step concerns placing images within

context. In this example, this involves a brief case study of the company’s marketing

communication strategy.

Calvin Klein’s marketing campaigns have sparked controversy and comment for over

twenty years (e.g., Churcher and Gaines 1994; Lippert 1996; Schroeder 2002).
Sensationalized sex appeal usually infuses Klein’s ads, creating his company’s fame and

ensuing brand equity and generating media attention via what I call the strategic use of

scandal (Schroeder 2000). Introduced by Calvin Klein in 1994, CK One is a fragrance

marketed to both sexes. ‘For a man or a woman’, reads the ad copy – noteworthy within the

fragrance product category that is closely linked with gender identity and sexual allure (see

figures 1 and 2). CK One is marketed through unusual channels, as well – it is sold in Tower

Records music stores, packaged in an aluminum military-type water bottle. The jasmine,

papaya, and pineapple scented fragrance was a success and its ads became well known

among teenagers and twenty-somethings.

Insert Figures 1 and 2 about here

As an advertising exemplar, CK One provides a compelling image for critical visual

analysis. The CK One ads seem to play and subvert gender norms, and they have generated

much attention and controversy (e.g., Schroeder 2000). As an influential icon of 1990s visual

culture, they have been cited, referenced and parodied by many other brands. The multi-

million dollar CK One campaign was the first to garner the Fragrance Foundation’s top

awards in both men and women’s fragrance categories (Campbell 1995). Examples from the

campaign were displayed in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York as part of

the art exhibition ‘The Warhol Look’ (Francis and King 1997). Dozens of websites

feature CK One images, versions of the ad are sold as posters, and the original campaign

remains a staple point of purchase display item in cosmetics counters (see, for example,

Images de Parfum website 2005). The trend-setting style of the 1990s CK One campaign has

been carried throughout the brand’s history – the 2005 relaunch mimics the original, casting

forty unknown models in a series of ads reminiscent of the 1994 image discussed here.
 Like so many image-based ads, CK One ads make no mention of the product’s

physical attributes, but instead promote a highly abstract connection between the

photographer’s models and the brand (Stern and Schroeder 1994). We are asked to transfer

meaning from the identity of the people in the ad – their image, lifestyle, and physical

appearance – and the ad’s visual style, onto the product. Therefore, it is critical to understand

how meaning is visually constructed in this ad.

Subject Matter: A useful starting point for descriptive analysis is to identify and

describe persons, objects, places, or events in a photograph (Barrett 2005). The CK One ad

under scrutiny appeared across six pages in the September 1994 Glamour magazine. There

are many versions of the basic ad; all consist of a stark black and white image of several

people standing, most facing the camera. In certain CK One images, several separate

photographs seem to be joined together, resulting in a jarring, disjointed look that resembles a

collage.

Kate Moss, the highly recognizable British supermodel, dominates the scene. She

‘hails’ us, the viewer, by her fame, her roles in other Calvin Klein ads, and her image as a

white, heterosexual woman informed by her well-publicized romantic liaisons with male

stars. She gives viewers a hook into the ad, providing a visual anchor, and guiding its

interpretation (Berger 1972). Moss’s status overwhelms the other figures in the ad, rendering

them supporting players in the icon-driven world of celebrity, glamour, and global brand

management.

However, the physical appearance of the models contributes to the ad’s character. As

a group, they appear different, multicultural, and not often seen (at the time) in major ad

campaigns. In the version of the ad analyzed here, the image folds out to reveal further CK

One images. Closed, the ad pages are covered by a picture of Kate Moss and another white

women facing each other, turned profile to the camera, gazing into each other’s eyes. In the
first image, Moss, hands in her back pocket, head thrown back, dressed in a black bra and

black cutoff shorts, is grasped at the belt loops by the other women’s fingers. This opens out

to reveal the four pages of photographs depicting a small group of people against a white

background. Upon unfolding this image, Moss no longer interacts with the other woman, who

seems to have disappeared.

The models appear to be posed together, not really displaying characteristics of

friends or a familiar group. At first glance, the models seem grungy, unkempt. All, except

one woman, are wearing jeans, CK’s undoubtedly; five of the men are bare-chested, two

revealing their (Calvin Klein?) underwear. Excluding Kate Moss, the women are not

particularly feminine in the traditional sense of being made-up, petite, and well groomed.

One black woman, in particular, has an angry expression on her face, and a group of two

white men and a white woman seem to be engaged in a heated argument.

Form refers to how the subject matter is presented. The CK One ad features stark

black and white photographs of people who seemed – at the time – out of place in

advertising's pantheon of perfect people. Skinheads mingle incongruously with tough-

looking black women. Feminine men are posed next to Moss. Longhaired men appear next

to a shorthaired woman with large tattoos on her arm. The CK One image plays to several

audiences, and appears to subvert visual advertising conventions while simultaneously

reinforcing stereotypical concepts of identity, sexuality, and difference.

An additional formal element is the ‘centerfold’ format of the ad; it swings open to

reveal four photographs spread out over four magazine pages. This form resembles a

polyptych, a work of art composed of four or more panels, often hinged together (West 1996).

Altarpieces are frequently polyptychs, and commonly open up to reveal hidden images of

their sacred subjects. Renaissance altarpieces traditionally showed four saints, one for each

panel of the polyptych. These panels open up to reveal an image of Christ, or the Madonna
enthroned, and the particular saint associated with the church or parish. This altarpiece

aspect gives the ad additional art historical resonance, and may contribute to the ‘worship’ of

the CK One icons.

Medium refers to the material form of object or image – canvas, wood, paper, bronze,

and so forth. The medium of the CK One ad is a black and white photograph, specifically an

advertising photograph that appears as a slick woman’s magazine reproduction. The use of

black and white film makes this image somewhat gritty in contrast to many of the glossy

cosmetics advertisements of the era. The medium also imbues the image with fine art status

– most art photographs are black and white. Black and white signifies a step toward

signness, that is, it often makes the photograph look more like a photograph than a brilliant

color image does. Black and white advertising photographs need something else to activate

their rhetorical power – graphic devices, graphic signs, or words (Triggs 1995). The ad’s

copy – CK One in small type – is sufficient to remind viewers that this image speaks for

Calvin Klein cologne.

Style ‘indicates a resemblance among diverse art objects from an artist, movement,

time period, or geographic location and is recognized by a characteristic handling of subject

matter and formal elements’ (Barrett 2005, 35-36). Well known advertising photographer

Steven Meisel, known for singular, artistic portraits and routinely sampling other

photographer’s work (Daly and Wice 1995), photographed the CK One ads in the style of

photographer Richard Avedon. Like many Avedon photographs, Meisel’s CK One image

shows a plain white background that serves to de-center the subjects, de-contextualize them,

and help to undefine the portrait. Avedon is arguably the world's most influential modern

fashion photographer. Renowned for his stark, icon-making black and white portraits of the

famous and not-so-famous, Avedon broke away from fashion poses in favor of more

naturalistic shots of people moving about, gesticulating, talking, and generally not appearing
posed (Solomon 1994). Moreover, Avedon photographed one of Calvin Klein’s

groundbreaking images, Brooke Shields breathlessly proclaiming that ‘nothing comes

between her and her Calvins’ (see Schroeder 2000).

The CK One image emulates Avedon’s work, echoing his use of multiple shots of the

same group (see Avedon 2004). Specifically, the CK One ad quotes Avedon’s famous 1960s

photograph of Andy Warhol’s factory crowd (Francis and King 1997). This photograph of

Warhol and various friends and assistants comprises four separate images placed together and

appears strikingly similar to the CK One ad. Indeed, Warhol was well known for his

entourage of ‘downtown’ models, artists, and hangers-on, and the Factory came to represent a

way of life outside the mainstream uptown world of established art galleries and museums.

By photographing the CK One ad in the style of Avedon’s Warhol gang photograph, Meisel

superimposed one icon – Andy Warhol – onto another, CK One (see Schroeder 1997; 2002).

Genre refers to a type or category. This step in critical visual analysis requires

interdisciplinary sources, and often a good introductory book from a relevant field offers a

useful start – for example, Sylvan Barnet’s wonderfully informative A Short Guide to Writing

About Art (2002). A key genre reference for the CK One ad concerns the group portrait,

which became an established painting type in the Golden Age painting of Holland, when

Dutch painters moved beyond pure description to idealize their subjects and to portray a

glimpse of their personalities. Group portraiture of guild members was a particularly Dutch

forte (Stokstad 2004). A well-known example is the ‘Dutch Masters’ portrait that appears in

packages and advertisements for a popular brand of cigars. The Dutch group portrait genre

usually represented private guild commissions who wished to celebrate solidarity and good

fortune. The basic requirement of group portraiture ‘was to organize a number of portraits of

equal individual distinction into a coherent whole. One solution was to portray the group in

one single row, unevenly spaced and further differentiated by agitated gesticulation and a
variety of different and occasionally rather weird poses’ (Fuchs 1978, 95 my emphasis). The

poses in the CK One ad are also oddly spaced – the group is lined up in a row; several

pictures are placed together, producing an odd montage of bodies. One visual theorist offers

a clue by arguing that the elements in an ad need to signal something different than a mere

photograph – ’the disposition of each sign-value on the page must not be normal, rather, the

positions must be other than ordinary, and be such that an interaction of their visual and

conceptual aspect occurs’ (Triggs 1995, 86). Thus, the CK One ad’s rather weird poses

directly contribute to the conceptual meaning – the consumers shown are ‘different’; they use

CK One.

Insert Figure 3 about here

From a critical visual analysis perspective, pictures of groups in ads “are not random

collections of persons but deliberate constructions of the significant relationships among

them” (Brilliant 1991, 92-3). Group portraits, for all their seeming spontaneity, reflected and

inscribed a strict social hierarchy, within the ideology of the group portrait (Schroeder 2002).

Dutch art is art of the here and now, anchored in daily actives of the middle class, preserving

and recording the manners and mores of an entire society (Schama 1988). For our purposes,

a particularly relevant example of Dutch group portraiture is Cornelius Ketel’s dramatic

group composition The Militia Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz, Roosecrans, c. 1588,

which hangs in Amsterdam’s Riksmuseum, credited as the earliest known group portrait that

depicts its subjects full length, rather than sitting down or in close-up (Rijksmuseum website

2005) (see figure 3). Comparable to the CK One ad, we see a jumbled group posing for a

picture, arrayed in apparent random order, presenting a mixed social tableau. The men, in

this case, are portrayed at odd angles, lacking uniformity, and bring a dynamic composition
to what is largely a static image. Each man has an assigned place within the portrait, based

on rank, favor, and, often, payment to the artist (Schama 1988). Guild membership unites the

subjects – they represent a group linked by common membership in a militia company. As in

most portraits, closer inspection reveals a mannered series of poses, calculated and scripted

for a particular effect.

I find these two images – one from 16the century Holland, the other from 20th century

America – to be strikingly similar, disparate as they are in time, place and purpose. Each

represents group identity through visual conventions. In the Dutch example, production

constitutes membership – the guild produces something in common. In the CK One ad,

consumption implies membership – we assume that the group shares use of the promoted

fragrance. This is not to suggest that Calvin Klein (consciously or unconsciously) set out to

imitate Ketel’s painting, although CRK, their in-house ad agency, certainly knows something

about Dutch art. Rather I suggest a resonance between the images (cf. McQuarrie and Mick

1992), and point to an important antecedent in CK One’s visual genealogy.

Art historical conventions influence contemporary images directly and indirectly:

directly through their impact on pictorial conventions, artistic and photographic training, and

cultural capital of specific images, indirectly through its power as a cultural process, that,

over time, produces a mode of representing and seeing the world. CK One ads build on the

visual past, reminding us of a tradition of artistic expression, and re-present images that are

celebrated and valued (see Schroeder and Borgerson 2002). For, in the Netherlands of the

past, like today, ‘the visual culture was central to the life of society. One might say that the

eye was a central means of self-representation and visual experience a central mode of self-

consciousness’ (Alpers 1989, xxv).

Comparison The rationale for comparison ‘is to call attention to the unique features of

something by holding it up against something similar but significantly different’ (Barnet

2002, 92). Several comparisons to the CK One ad will be made in the following section. The

blank background group portrait motif reoccurs in Calvin Klein marketing, with the 2005

campaign strikingly similar to the iconic mid 1990s efforts (see figure 4). Furthermore, the

group theme recurs in many contemporary ads, reminding us of the basic structure of social

interaction, brand communities, and representational conventions (Borgerson and Schroeder

2005). For example, the Italian brand Dolce and Gabbana often groups like minded

consumers in their eye-catching campaigns (see figure 5).

Insert figures 4 and 5 about here.

Interpretation and evaluation

Gender, race and class have emerged as three crucial contextual issues for interpretive

work (e.g., Bloom 1999; Borgerson and Schroeder 2005; Schroeder and Borgerson 2003).

To formulate interpretive conclusions about the CK One ad’s meanings, I turn to several

cultural critics who write about identity and images, including sociologist Erving Goffman’s

brilliant work on gender advertisements, Henry Giroux’s trenchant analyses of the

pedagogical role of popular culture and bell hooks critical perspective on race and class. I

conclude by placing CK One within a frame of consuming difference.

Gender is a ‘social concept referring to psychologically, sociologically, or culturally

rooted traits, attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies. Because gender is a filter through

which individuals experience their social world, consumption activities are fundamentally

gendered’ (Bristor and Fischer 1993, 519). Gender also marks a critical issue in art history

and art criticism (e.g., Davis 1996). Goffman turned to advertising to demonstrate how
gender roles are inscribed in what appear to be natural expressions, situations, and poses

(Goffman 1979; Lemert and Branaman 1997).

Like painted portraits, ads are carefully constructed for rhetorical effects. Goffman

argued that ads are part of the real world and a powerful influence on our self-concepts, how

we view right and wrong, and how we conceive of living a good life, and how subjects

perform gender (Goffman 1979). Gender critically marks difference: ‘gender ... means

knowledge about sexual difference. I use knowledge, following Foucault, to mean the

understanding produced by cultures and societies of human relationships, in the case of those

between men and women. Such knowledge is not absolute or true, but always relative’ (Scott

1988, 2). Goffman, in analyzing advertisements, as well as social interaction, showed that

‘every physical surround, every box for social gatherings, necessarily provides materials than

can be used in the display of gender and the affirmation of gender identity’ (Goffman, in

Lemert and Branaman 1997, 207).

Most fragrances and colognes are marketing to either men or women, as an integral

part of gender identity and sexual attraction (cf. Stern and Schroeder 1994). CK One seemed

to deconstruct this connection – it’s for both a man and a woman, after all. However, Calvin

Klein’s other well-known scents, such as Obsession, are still marketed to women or men –

although a percentage of each is used by the non-targeted gender – and certainly have not

been discontinued in a revelatory wake of recognition that fragrance could be gender neutral.

CK One remains well within the target marketed realm – it represents only one more market

segment, which arguably does little to disrupt or question entrenched gender roles and gender

segmentation.

Race A crucial contextual issue concerns how racial identity has been depicted in the

history of art as well as advertising. One might argue that CK One breaks down racial

barriers via its multicultural milieu. A relevant comparison is Benetton’s ads, which also
have captured the attention of critics and consumers alike through their use of provocative,

racially charged imagery. Indeed, one commentator claims that the within the trend of shock

advertising, the positioning of CK One resembles Benetton’s graphic images of violence and

social injustice (Teather 1995). In one Benetton ad, a black female torso appears, breasts

exposed, holding a naked white baby, nursing on the women’s breast. The woman wears only

a cardigan, unbuttoned and pulled back, displaying her breasts for the baby as well as the

viewer.

Social historian and prolific cultural critic Henry Giroux exposed potential racist and

colonialist meanings pulsing through this image (Giroux 1994). Giroux argues that whereas

Benetton claims to be promoting racial harmony and world peace, by deploying this loaded

image then end up reinforcing racial prejudice. Perhaps the CK One images are not quite as

alarming as the Benetton campaigns, but it may be that by including images of marginalized

segments of society some of the same stereotyping processes are at work (see Borgerson and

Schroeder 2002; Ramamurthy 2000).

A critical essay by cultural theorist bell hooks about CK One photographer Meisel’s

work provides a contextual comparison to illuminate CK One’s racial and sexual stereotyping

(hooks 1994). Hooks discusses the pop superstar Madonna’s sensational book Sex, which

features photographs by Meisel (1992). The photographs that accompanied writing about

various eroticized scenarios – ostensibly directly from Madonna’s imagination – share

several features in common with CK One images. In many of the scenes, Madonna interacts

with black men and women in images reminiscent of the CK One ad’s racial mixing–

although far more sexually explicit. The photographs are reproduced in crisp black and

white, and many have a plain background. Hooks’ analysis of how Meisel’s images work in

the Sex book show how consideration of matters beyond what photographs show contributes

to an interpretive stance.
 Class Madonna – white, affluent, ‘beautiful’ – experiences various sexual

encounters, emerging unchanged, still Madonna. Hooks writes: ‘increasingly, Madonna

occupies the space of the white cultural imperialist, talking on the mantle of the white

colonial adventurer moving into the wilderness of black culture (gay and straight), of white

gay subculture. Within these new and different realms of experience she never divests

herself of white privilege. She maintains both the purity of her representation and her

dominance.’ (1994, 20). Thus, Madonna serves as a kind of tour guide through a Disneyland

of difference, assuring mainstream viewers that their own identities are not at risk.

I believe Kate Moss serves the same tour guide function in the CK One series.

Madonna consumes difference in her Sex pictures – she experiences black lovers, uses them,

but remains unaffected by the experience, contends hooks. She does not become black, or

lose white status, rather, she serves as a guide for us, the viewer, to experience the

stereotyped exotic erotic pleasures of an ethnic subculture. Steven Meisel’s Madonna

pictures inevitably exploit many clichés about blacks – oversexed, sexual experts, animal-like

– and do nothing to assess, counter, or interrogate these notions. These images may work to

reproduce cultural differences: ‘though Sex appears to be culturally diverse, people of color

are strategically located, always and only in a subordinate position. Our images and culture

appear always in a context that mirrors racist hierarchies. We are always present to white

desire’ (hooks 1994, 21). Thus, the rich white pop star Madonna consumes race and

alternative sexuality, according to hooks.

Theoretical insights: consuming difference

In the CK One ad, Kate Moss serves as a visual anchor. Well-known, non-threatening

(especially when compared to others in the ad), a famous supermodel, she represents the
world of cosmetics, fashion and celebrity. Moss’s expression indicates that she does not

belong in this world of difference, she seems bored and unaffected by the others in the ad.

She is with them but not of them, she emerges as a voyeur, she looks and asks that we look at

her looking. I do not mean to imply that Kate Moss herself is somehow responsible for the

ad’s effects, the ad scenario, or the cosmetics industry’s practices. Men, largely, still retain

control of the image producing industries (Ohmann 1996). However, as a spokesperson and

icon of alternative fashion, her image contributes to much of CK One’s meaning

construction.

Moss, as supermodel, can fit in anywhere. She has entered this world of difference

for a mainstream audience, and is able to maintain her identity in the midst of difference.

Thus, those normally outside the ‘different’ segment are given access to a world suggested by

this ad, yet can feel safe and unchanged by the experience. They do not risk actually

becoming different – racially, sexually, or in a class hierarchy. It is unclear why white

skinheads – who are associated with intolerance in popular discourse – are lumped in with

others, especially black women. What are they were doing in this group, and why are they so

angry? The lesbian-tinged image from the foldout disappears, along with the promise (threat)

of homosexual activity. In the world of major brand advertising, gay and lesbian consumers

are largely absent (until fairly recently), reflecting a culture of homophobia and

hetereosexism (see Borgerson, Isla, Schroeder and Thorssén 2006; Frye 1983). In the CK

one ad, homosexuality is also sublimated to heterosexual pleasure, and becomes merely an

exploration for Moss’s (assumed heterosexual) experience. Her image usurps the others

through her fame, her sexual identity – inscribed by her presence in Calvin Klein’s more

heterosexual-appearing advertisements – and her feminine demeanor, diminutive, thin, and

submissive. The image teases with a potential lesbian encounter, then retreats, leaving us
unsatisfied, discontent. Moss’s control over her body – demonstrated here in her aloof pose –

is paramount to her fame and success.

In comparison to most advertisements of the mid 1990s, the world of CK One appears

to be an unhappy place, populated by dissatisfied, angry people. In the words of one of my

students ‘it looks like a freak show, as if the only thing these people have in common is that

they look strange.’ This echoes an art historian’s claim about representations of difference in

fine art: ‘the rhetorical traditions of Western painting have long traded in the coin of social

class and racial difference as a means of marking human value. Thus there is a radical

distinction between portraits...and scenes from everyday life, especially those involving the

lower social orders, representing not individuals, but types – simply ‘people’ defined en

masse’ (Leppert 1997, 173). The CK One imagery signaled a shift in advertising

representation toward grungy looking models – a short-lived trend, but one that paved the

way for shock advertising, and provides a visual vocabulary for contemporary brand

repositioning campaigns such as Burberry’s highly successful move into a hip market

segment, via the use of Kate Moss and group portraits reminiscent of CK One images (see

figure 6).

Insert Figure 6 about here

By using stereotyped models, CK One draws on cultural codes of appearance

influenced by social relations, the media, and prejudice (cf. Jhally 1987). In a variation of the

CK One ad, we see a big, burly white guy with a shaved head – coded ‘skinhead’ – talking to

a black woman. Given no other information to contradict cultural representations, we may

assume that they are not having a lively conversation about a mutual friend. Within the

media, skinhead is a codeword for racist, neo-nazi, and intolerance – iconographic functions
rooted in representational practice. This is not to say that all white men with shaved heads

are in fact racist, only that the overpowering image of skinhead is associated with violent

fanaticism. In the absence of disrupting information within the ad, the reading of this image

may be overdetermined (Goldman 1992). In addition, until recently, advertising showed very

few individuals who looked like this. This fact accentuates his difference – he is pitted

against traditional male models that populate fragrance ads. In showing these two figures

engaged in what appears to be a heated discussion, the ad further draws on stereotyped

conventions of race and gender. Imagine these two as lovers, smiling, arms draped around

one another. Or perhaps both laughing together, bodies engaged in mutual pleasure. These

images might serve to disrupt stereotypical notions of gender, race, and ideology. But this is

not what is represented. Instead, we see a white skinhead arguing with a black woman,

physically engaging with her space, using his mass to make his point. They are portrayed as

natural antagonists, playing into cultural stereotypes of racial and gender relations (see Davis

1981). Given the skinhead’s large size, and aggressive in-your-face gesture grounded to the

social reality of the historical and current oppression of black women, it is not difficult to

interpret this image as racial oppression. Given the history of white men’s exploitation of

black women, for slave labor, for sex, for wet nurse, for nannies, the meaning of this image –

contextualized within a racist world – must be read as reflecting, not challenging, the status

quo (cf. Gordon 1997).

Visual genealogy, critical analysis, and research insights

Many insights emerge from critical visual analysis that would be difficult to generate

with traditional social science approaches. Links to the tradition of fine art serves to remind

us that advertisements have a visual and historical genealogy. For example, the CK One ad
can be understood within the art genre of the portrait, particularly guild portraits associated

with the ‘Dutch masters’ – mainly a masculine tradition. The form of the ad is, of course,

situated within the world of fashion, specifically fashion photography, which is largely a

feminine realm, that is, women’s fashion dominates the fashion scene. I argue that

recognizing and analyzing the juxtaposition of these gendered genres affords new insights to

the representation – and commingling – of gender within the CK One ad.

Genre analysis produces generalizable insights into contemporary marketing images.

Quoting or mimicking an art historical tradition helps ground it for the viewer, drawing

associations to the visual tradition. By noting and investigating the links between a new

image with an old tradition, we generate clues into how CK One establishes itself through

visual representations that transcend the here and now.

Drawing upon aspects of the group portrait contributed to understanding the

perceptual categorization of people pictured within a frame as belonging to a group, or

having something in common–what I call the ideology of the group portrait. In other words,

there is nothing ‘natural’ that tells us that people who appear together in a frame share some

essential identity characteristic. Rather, we have built up this cultural association to the point

where it now underlies perceptual and cognitive processes of group attribution – when we

see people together in a picture, we assume that they belong to some group. So, in the CK

One image, this perceptual effect contributes to the underlying assumption that the models

pictures share something, their use of CK One. Once again, as sophisticated ad viewers we

should realize that they may or may not actually use the endorsed product, and that their

group membership lasted only a day or two for the shoot. Thus, engaging critical visual

analysis reminds the viewer and researcher alike that the CK One group is constituted via

their appearance in the image, and the group did not exist prior to or after the photographic

session. In contrast, we assume that the Militia companies and guilds in Dutch portraits
constituted a group before, during and after the portrait making. The CK One group is

identified by consumption, the Dutch group by production, visually expressing a complex

cultural transformation of the past several centuries.

Finally, critical visual analysis points out limitations in an information processing

model of consumption, one in which culture, history, and style are attenuated. For example,

the ‘white space’ of the CK One images – the studio backdrop – does not neatly fit into

cognitive models; from a strictly ‘decision making’ or ‘persuasion’ perspective, this white

space carries no ‘information’, it is ‘lost’ amidst persuasive or rhetorical devices. In contrast,

critical visual analysis points out how white space imbues images with meaning. In other

words, white space is not ‘nothing’, it helps to situate subjects within images, and its use

links images to a broader cultural world of aesthetics, luxury, and value.

Critical visual analysis points to the cultural and visual context of ads within the flow

of mass culture, underscoring the powerful role marketing plays in both the political

economy and in the constitution of consuming subjects. A key element of critical visual

analysis often entails constructing a visual genealogy of contemporary images, to

contextualize and historicize them, and point to the cultural domain of contemporary visual

consumption (see Schroeder and Zwick 2004). I have argued that CK One ads exemplify a

spectacular combination of old and new representational systems. An important issue to

consider is how the art historical antecedents and connections discussed affect viewer’s

perceptions. Most consumers are not necessarily visually literate, and art historical

references and conventions may not consciously inform their viewing of an ad. Likewise,

most language speakers have a limited awareness of the linguistic horizon that shapes their

use of vocabulary, grammar and syntax; nor a well developed sense of how language

developed over time. However, historical conventions shape communication. In this way,

even if the target market for CK One has no experience of Dutch group portraiture, the
representational conventions of portraiture, fashion, and advertising photography impart

influence on contemporary visual expression, and the art directors and photographers

responsible for producing the ad certainly were aware of art historical referents discussed

here. Furthermore, the renewed popularity of Dutch Art, spurred by the success of books,

exhibitions, and films such as of the Girl with the Pearl Earring, demonstrate how Dutch

images recirculate through culture.

Conclusion

The interactions of identity, consumption, and image represent one of the critical

imperatives of contemporary consumer culture. Critical visual analysis affords new

perspectives for investigating specific cultural and historical references in contemporary

images. Researchers can take advantage of useful tools developed in art history and cultural

studies to investigate the poetics and politics of images as a representational system.

Constructing a visual genealogy of contemporary images helps illuminate how marketing acts

as a representational system that produces meaning beyond the realm of the advertised

product, service, or brand, connecting images to broader cultural codes that help create

meaning.

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Acknowledgments: Thanks to Janet Borgerson, Laurie Meamber, Craig Thompson, Barbara

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Figure 1 CK One advertisement, 1994 (2 covering pages of 6 page spread)

Figure 2 CK One advertisement, 1994 (overleaf foldout)

 Figure 3 The Militia Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz, Roosecrans c. 1588,

Corneius Ketel, Riksmuseum, Amsterdam,

Figure 4 CK One advertisement, 2005(foldout from 4 page spread)

Figure 5 Dolce & Gabbana advertisement, 2004
Figure 6 Burberry advertisement, 2002