Andre Platteel
Lecture Marketing has become the language of our culture. It has penetrated almost every sector of society – not only the economy, but also politics, the media and the arts. However, the narrative marketing use is starting to lose its charm. Brands and consumers cannot be defined as unambiguous entities. By using single-stage scenarios, marketing is turning everything into products and images (fixed identities), even our bodies, desires and fears. A counter movement against this mechanism is impossible as the marketing machinery has become so clever and intense that it is simply using that critique as an image again – every critique is cynically exploited. Although marketing's main focus has always been in finding fixed identities, consumers no longer believe in unambiguous brand promises. They no longer want to be reduced to consuming machines only allowed to absorb predigested experiences. The contemporary cultural condition asks for a different narrative structure, one in which advertising will no longer be imposed on consumers as something fixed – instead, it's value can be generated over and over again. This will open up an unexpected and interesting creative era. Platteel discussed several ideas that lead to a radically different relationship between brands and consumers. Andre Platteel founded the interdisciplinary thinktank Somanydynamos and is the author of culture-critical books such as Symbol Soup and Margeting – inventing a different marketing language.
