New Media Buzz

It’s almost a Pavlovian response. You see Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” and you think about anxiety, isolation, despair. Not exactly good timey feelings, but ones many people may be experiencing right now. But this isn’t another piece about the down economy. It’s about listening to your brand’s audience and responding in the way that’s most appropriate for your brand and its message which, you might be thinking, sounds a lot like social media. And you’d be right.

Social media’s focus on creating an interactive community of brands and users requires that brands become more attentive to the concerns and feelings of their audience and respond accordingly. That’s not unlike the task of an artist—be he/she painter, performer, graphic designer, etc—albeit in a more low tech way. The artist listens to the pulse of the times (or zeitgeist if you like ten dollar words) and presents his/her work as a reaction to, or even a rejection of, that pulse. Something at which Edvard Munch was rather adept.

The Munch tie-in is an exhibition here at the Chicago Art Institute called Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth. The installation presents not only the anxious feelings the Norwegian artist depicts in his work, but also how instrumental he was in fostering the mentally unstable, tortured artist myth people often associate with him. This public perception is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that a painting of “The Scream” was vandalized early on with the words “could only have been painted by a madman.” Yet the public was not the only actor in this story, the artist also played an important part.

Munch channeled his personal misfortunes into his work, including the death of his mother and sister and his ongoing battle with alcoholism. Yet when art critics characterized the painter’s work as decadent, degenerate, and indicative of mental instability, Munch chose to embrace this persona rather than placate the status quo with more conventional efforts. Thereafter the artist delved deeper into this “disturbing” subject matter further establishing his reputation as an “aberrant” artist.

The Norwegian also demonstrated his marketing savvy by capitalizing on the decadent artist myth he helped build around himself. When Berlin’s art association closed Munch’s 1892 exhibition, the sensation it caused greatly increased attendance at the painter’s subsequent exhibitions. Furthermore, since Munch correctly intuited that many of these visitors only wanted to see, and not purchase, these provocative art works, the artist arranged for gallery owners to charge admission to his exhibition—a highly unorthodox practice at the time—that he might profit from the notoriety of his reputation. Munch’s insights into the contemporary art market thus enabled him to position his work in a way that earned him enough money to continue his artistic pursuits without interruption.

Now, perhaps your brand wouldn’t benefit from embracing a public perception that you are decadent, aberrant or insane. We’re not all artists after all. But the simple act of listening to your audience and responding to their impressions and concerns would go a long way toward clearing up any of those misperceptions (It also might not be a bad time to rethink hiring Marilyn Manson’s former PR person).

Another example of responding to the spirit of the times centers around a recent website redesign Emerge did for the propane company Amerigas. Well into the redesign, the country was facing ever greater increases in gas prices, and energy companies were getting a lot of heat. Faced with this situation, Amerigas asked if we could feature the environmentally friendly aspects of propane more prominently.This led us to rework the site with rich natural imagery; deep, primary colors; and crisp, clean copy. Of course, the “Go Green” link didn’t hurt, but the look and layout of the site—the whole user interface—say it much more eloquently than the words do.

Before the days of film, television and sound recording, communal audiences played a much more direct role in creating impressions of art and performance. Now, with the rise of the internet and applications such as twitter, the general populace has taken hold of the reins again. Moreover, they’re not just giving the thumbs up or down on art and culture—the marketplace of ideas, they’re letting their voices be heard about commercial brands and messages as well—the marketplace at large. Though your audience’s opinions may or may not come in the form of a scream, the question is: are you listening?