What Picasso knew, and all marketers need to learn

In the early 1900s, artists from all over Europe congregated in Montmartre, a community made of cobbled streets, vineyards, and windmills on the outskirts of Paris. In Montmartre, these impoverished artists lived a Bohemian ideal, gathering in low-rent ateliers to create “art for art’s sake.” Among these artists was Pablo Picasso, whose goal was to “live like a pauper, but with plenty of money.” Picasso knew he was a great painter, but also realized his talent wouldn’t be enough. He had to create an aura to prompt fascination and intrigue beyond his art.

Throughout his career, Picasso worked tirelessly on his art but also on establishing his brand. First, he changed his name from Pablo Ruiz, to Pablo Picasso and finally to Picasso, becoming the first artist known only by a single name, well before Cher, Madonna, or Prince.

Picasso also knew he needed a wide range of products to sell. He produced an estimated 50,000 pieces of artwork during his lifetime, spanning from painting to drawing, sculptures, and ceramics. To help him market his art, Picasso worked closely with art merchants (Kahnweiler first and Rosenberg later) to gain exposure, monitor competition, and restrain distribution.

Picasso did not only create art for art’s sake. He produced work that was highly differentiated to stand out and that would endure the test of time to last. By the time of his death in 1973, Picasso had achieved name recognition of 95 percent in most countries.[1] His net worth was then estimated at $500 million. Today, Picasso’s art is no longer the exclusivity of a handful of rich collectors. It exists through mugs, T-shirts, tableware, and even in a song by hip hop artist Jay Z.

The dominance of the intellectual elites is over

Unarguably, Picasso was an extremely talented, prolific, and visionary artist. However, at the time, creating, marketing and even enjoying the arts was limited to a handful of artists, merchants, and collectors. Back then, an elite group of connoisseurs determined what art was "important,” created scarcity and fostered exclusion by limiting access to both artists and their audience.

Today, the dominance of this intellectual elite is over. Thanks to technology and digital media, we are now all creators, curators, collectors, and marketers. There is only one Picasso, but we are all artists.

To their credit, these elites discovered and propelled talents such as Picasso, Fernand Léger, or more recently Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and numerous others. "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?" said Picasso of his gallerist Daniel-Henry Kanhweiler.[2]

But times have changed. While a microscopic community of collectors still spends millions at auction houses, the arts are no longer constrained to a single standard of quality. Digital media and technology enable anyone to call himself an artist if he chooses to and provides us with a platform for creating, viewing, and sharing art on an unprecedented scale. Film, short videos, and video games are now seen as being as culturally and artistically relevant as traditional arts such as theater, painting, and opera. Each of us can now decide and share what provokes us, changes us, makes us react, and triggers our emotions. The cultural center no longer lies in cliquey art galleries and auction houses, but a multitude of cross-media chains, websites, apps, events, and meetups.

That said, the democratization of art does not take anything away from traditional institutions. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: conscious that a six-inch screen doesn’t do the arts justice, digital media drives people to go see the original artwork. That’s why American museums are visited approximately 850 million times each year, which is more than the attendance for all theme parks and sporting events combined.[3] Also, museums are evolving their offerings to stay current by delivering immersive experiences that bring together visual arts, technology, and performances. 

The same goes for advertising and branding. Sure, the advertising industry owes a lot to the original mad men who ruled Madison Avenue in the late 50s. Back then, the likes of David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach, and George Lois brought to advertising the power of creativity and storytelling. However, David Ogilvy himself reckoned that senior advertising executives and creative directors did not have the monopoly on great advertising. Junior employees, researchers, and everyday people were just as capable to come up with big ideas.

As consumers, we are drowning in stuff, tears, and trash

Consumer spending in the United States has reached an all-time high to $13.3 trillion in the third quarter of 2019, from $10.5 trillion in 2010 and $8.2 trillion in 2000.[4] We are spending more than ever on personal care items, consumer electronics, and clothes. The average American buys 66 garments a year.[5]

Consuming has become easier, as we no longer have to comply with restrictive store opening hours. Goods have become cheaper, even when we must ship them halfway around the globe. We also dispose of the products we buy faster than ever, when they reach programmed obsolescence or simply because we get bored of them.  

Most of these products ultimately end up in landfills. The average American disposes of 4.4 pounds of trash every day, which translates into 728,000 tons of daily garbage, or 63,000 garbage trucks.[6] Every year, we throw away 9 million tons of furniture, 9.4 million tons of consumer electronics,[7] and 14 million tons of clothing (up from only 7 million tons 20 years ago).[8]

The more we consume the lonelier we feel

We consume all these goods because marketing convinced us they can make us happy, loved, and esteemed. That’s how consumerism has worked its way into our psyches, encouraging us to structure our life around owning more goods.

Even still, most of the products that make us happy for a moment make us feel miserable the next. Research shows that the more people value materialism, the lower their happiness and life satisfaction is, and they experience fewer pleasant emotions. Indeed, people who value the promises encouraged by consumer society are more likely to experience anxiety, substance abuse, and depression.

People with materialistic values also act in less cooperative, generous, and empathic ways. More generally, people who are bombarded with messages that urge them to acquire more stuff show a decreased wellbeing, negative affect, and social disengagement.[9] Younger generations, who tend to spend the most time on social media, are the most affected. Almost half of Millennials and Generation Z report feeling lonely and isolated.[10]

That said, the problem might not be consumerism per se, but rather the brands and products themselves. If we trash the clothes, furniture, and electronics we bought months if not weeks ago, it is because these products are not meaningful to us. We don’t feel emotionally connected to the object nor the brand.

Most of all, we’re overwhelmed with the hundreds of brands and thousands of products we must choose from. For example, there are over 190 brands of bottled mineral water in the U.S., up from only 50 in 1998. Yet, blind tests show that consumers wouldn’t recognize any of the named brands, sometimes even preferring tap water over $2.49 Fiji Natural Artesian Water.[11]

The arts enable creating powerful and purposeful brands

The arts, through culture and creativity are the solution for brands to stand out, connect with their audience on an emotional level, and do good for our society. When PepsiCo decided to create a new brand of premium water, it introduced LIFEWTR, a bottle with eclectic and colorful labels designed by emerging artists. And to tie together marketing, brand purpose, and philanthropy, PepsiCo’s LIFEWATR has endowed a $100,000 annual fund for the Brooklyn Museum and donates art supplies to public schools.

LIFEWATR is just one example of how the arts are becoming pervasive in branding across numerous categories. Although luxury brands like BMW and Louis Vuitton have long collaborated with artists, the rise of social media and the blending of pop culture with contemporary art has accelerated collaborations between artists and mainstream brands. Uniqlo collaborates with emerging tastemakers in art, film, and interior design. Emerging artist feature their work on its T-shirts and Uniqlo sponsors a grant for public artworks in New York City. Calvin Klein enlisted artist Sterling Ruby to redesign its flagship stores in Paris and Manhattan. Adobe, Kickstarter, and Facebook host artists-in-residence programs in their offices. Even dating industry giant Ok Cupid retained Maurizio Cattelan and his collaborator Pierpaolo Ferrari to create an ad campaign based on the duo’s surrealist imagery. The campaign reclaims the initials DTF (“Down To Fuck”) and replaces the invitation for sex with non-sexual activities and interests such “Fighting about the President” or “Finishing a novel.”[12]

By blending art and marketing, these projects enabled the creation of unique brands and products that stand out from competition. In the short run, they spark a conversation among consumers, art enthusiasts, and marketers. These projects also receive extensive media coverage, which far outweighs the cost involved in creating the campaigns. In the long run, the arts enable brands to become timeless, transcending the test of time and generations.

To survive and thrive, brands can no longer merely market products that are culturally relevant or repackage the cultural content others create. Moving forward, brands will need to become artistic and cultural agents, whereby they must become a legitimate form of expressive art and culture.

Bibliography

[1] Widmaier Picasso, O. (2004), Picasso: the real family story, Prestel, New York, NY. P.275

[2] Richardson, John (1991). A Life Of Picasso, The Cubist Rebel, 1907-1916. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-307-26665-1

[3] https://www.aam-us.org/programs/about-museums/museum-facts-data/

[4] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-spending

[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/583372/consumerism/

[6] https://www.saveonenergy.com/land-of-waste/).

[7] https://earth911.com/eco-tech/20-e-waste-facts/

[8] https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html

[9] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/consumerism-and-its-antisocial-effects-can-be-turned-onor-off.html

[10] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/despite-social-media-generation-z-millennials-report-feeling-lonely-n980926

[11] https://www.businessinsider.com/blind-taste-test-tap-water-premium-fiji-water-evian-2017-5

[12] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/maurizio-cattelan-okcupid-ad-campaign-1185068