COMM2411 GROUPASSIGNMENT 1.06.2010Group members:Melanie Gleeson (s3286349), Lucy Burgemeister (s3281825), Thomas Nijam (s3195356) andMadaline Edye (s3284168).

Through studying the city as a text, we may perceive the creative means by whichMelbourne’s urban youth culture is communicated; specifically through the advertisingartefacts of the MX press, a Metro link train ticket, Street Press and the Starbucks coffeelogo. Advertising proves to hold great potential in enhancing the branding of a city, and thusthe chosen artefacts demonstrate an interrelation that ultimately illustrates Melbourne’s streetculture identity.

Artefact 1: MX Newspaper

One only has to pass by Melbourne’s inner city train stations, bus stops or major urbanintersections on any afternoon weekday to note the profound presence and social influence ofthe free, daily tabloid newspaper MX. Originating in Melbourne (and expanding to Sydneyand Brisbane in its success), the newspaper is a unique advertising resource which assists inthe development of urban economics, commerce and social relations on public transport. Thepaper’s ‘talk’ section proves powerful in stimulating interaction between commuters and localcompanies, whilst simultaneously communicating Melbourne’s imagined geographies and

cultural identity; ultimately encouraging travel to be seen as a social experience, rather thanpurely practical activity.

Dependent on advertising revenue for its free distribution, MX can be seen as an essential,strategic marketing medium to connect young readers with Melbourne’s ever-changingcommerce, sporting, artistic and stylistic spheres. Indeed as is explored in the 2009promotional trade reel, MX’s highly visual format has an urban authority unrivalled by othermedia in the market. In drawing upon the commerce, festivals, bands, performances andfashion of the community, it can advertise and entertain for numerous groups and parties, allthe while leaving the readership with “a sense of ownership,” (2009), a concept that alleditorial content is representing the city through which they literally and figurativelynavigate.

The MX ‘talk’ section specifically engages with advertising in more ways the one; creativelycomplimenting Melbourne’s multifaceted identity. Thus it also acts as an advertising sourcefor its public’s thoughts, interests, humour, and views, utilising current local, national andinternational affairs (often of an entertaining, eccentric nature) as stimuli for engagingdiscussion. Numerous media scholars and journalism professors view such content as ashortcoming of ‘free dailies’ (Bakker, 2002), suggesting the paper’s reliance on advertisingrevenue diminishes the editorial content. They argue that the abandonment of ‘real news’ forattention-grabbing information fails to truly articulate the societal and community issueswhich the newspaper should report (Franklin, 1998). In many respects, the increasing profitsmade by free newspapers accurately reflect their favouring of advertising over news, andtheir negative effects on urban paid-papers, however MX does not attempt to be marketed oridentified as a high-profile news bulletin. It instead aims to be consumed differently (MXtrade reel, 2009) in its interactive, inclusive style; to celebrate and further social relations onpublic transport whilst engaging a demographic of young, busy individuals who areincreasingly difficult to reach with traditional media.

The success of daily commuter newspaper cannot be denied; the very “MX” logo can now beconsidered an image which consequently represents many images of Melbourne. Theadvertising and commerce which act as a framework for the paper ultimately reflectsMelbourne’s urbanity: we have forever been acknowledged as a business-oriented city, asmuch as it is a cultural and sporting hub.

References:

· Franklin, B 1998, ‘Chapter 10: No news isn’t good news: the development oflocal free newspapers,’ in Murphy, D, Franklin, B, Making the Local News: localjournalism in context, Routledge, London, New York, pp 125-139

· Bakker, P 2002, ‘Chapter 6: Reinventing Newspapers: Readers and markets offree dailies,’ in Picard, RG, Media firms: structures, operations and performance,Lawrence Erlbaum associates publishers, London, pp 69-76 (Bakker = media firmscholar

· ‘MX 2009 Trade Reel,’ 2009, News Limited, Melbourne, viewed 18 April 2010,<http://player.video.news.com.au/heraldsun/#jgS4ncEGXClsSvvCBWpfEohnvYB08rA_>

Artefact2: Metro Link train ticket

The simple artefact of a train-ticket proves to represent our city in many forms. Despite beingan everyday object we so often discard effortlessly and unthinkingly, it can be viewed as anobject with powerful potential to communicate the everyday life and social relations of thecity of Melbourne. The Melbourne City Council have taken the opportunity to advertise onpublic transport tickets, promoting the city’s rich cultural and arts calendar all year round.Ultimately, in utilizing the communication profession of advertising, Melbourne can promotea defined city of cultural imaginaries.

Advertising is undoubtedly a profound tool in the global marketplace, having the power toaddress and establish a brand identity for a city. In viewing the city as a text, the concept of

ticket advertising encapsulates the essence that advertising is everywhere. In closeinvestigation of this omnipresence, it becomes clear that Melbourne has become a brandedcity parallel to the likes of New York. New York reinvented its brand identity in 1979through strategic use of urban branding, paying particular focus to advertising an energeticcity that they could sell to tourists. Advertising plays a huge role in defining a city’s climatefor tourism and New York effectively shaped a utopian image of a city to play and live(Greenberg 2008). Comparably the Melbourne City Council have used the simplest form oftransport tickets to advertise a lively city and cultural Mecca bursting with arts and socialevents to intrigue tourists and to present an identity to a global audience. Thus in hisdiscussion of marketing New York to tourists Greenberg (2008) highlights the importance ofmarketing the city as a ‘luxury product’.

The advertising on public transport tickets clearly reflects the cultural climate of Melbourne.However it is interesting that advertising can be limited to promoting cultural status orcharitable causes in a media-saturated city. Events that are advertised in Melbourne highlighttourist attractions, places of interest in the city and things to see. As is evident with thechosen artefact, the train ticket is part of a greater series which advertises Victoria’s Shrine ofRemembrance. The artwork on the ticket thus draws upon the city’s history to communicate aperspective of Melbourne’s cultural and social relations. The events promoted on tickets havethe capacity to be exposed to a mass audience, consisting of public transport commuters andtourists; Flinders Street Station in Melbourne alone attracts over 110,000 commuters on anaverage weekday (Melbourne Transport 2010). Interestingly, of this number, almost all ofthem would appear to be oblivious to the reality that they are exposed to the advertising ofMelbourne’s brand image on their ticket stub.

The form of advertising on public transport tickets indeed highlights the branding ofMelbourne; a process which profoundly illustrates how the city has defined and constructedan identity through its rich social and arts culture, and promoted said images to a mass localand global audience.

References:

· Department of Transport, 2010, History of Flinders Street Station, viewed 18May 2010,<http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/transport.nsf/AllDocs/60FC28D7E8B7CB46CA2576A8001AFA38?OpenDocument#more>

· Greenberg, M 2008, ‘Marketing the City in Crisis: Branding and ReconstructingNew York City in the 1970s and the Post 9/11 Era’, in Consuming the EntrepreneurialCity, eds A Cronin & K Hetherington, Routledge, New York, pp. 19-24.

· Greenberg, M, 2008, Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to theWorld, Routledge, New York, pp. 32-40

Artefact 3: The Starbucks logo

Like the train ticket above, the simplistic and mundane coffee cup is highly significant whenexamining Melbourne’s contemporary and urban lifestyle in accordance to its coffee culture.The logo, inspired by Moby Dick, depicts an image of a "twin-tailed siren" which is said toevoke the romance of the high seas and represent the seafaring traditon of the erarly coffeetraders. The advertising/promotion on the side of the cup works to endorse and encouragecoffee drinkers to head to the American base chain, however in doing so, it opens a debateregarding the belongingness of the coffee giant in Melbourne, underlying the primary notionof Melbourne’s love hate relationship with America.

Due to the many boutique coffee shops that produce exceptional coffees around the city,buying coffee from Starbucks is often frowned upon within Melbourne’s coffee culture; infact, there is an undefined coffee war and rule that states real Melbournians should neverpurchase coffee from the American coffee giant. The Starbucks’ ‘rule’ opens a debate betweenmembers of Melbourne’s coffee society to a point where a logo on a coffee cup, similar to theartifact, can show allegiance to one side or another.

“The Starbucks Brandscape and Consumers’ (Anticorporate) Experiences of Glocalization”study looks at the role Starbucks plays as homogenization power in an industry of small,single-sited establishments known as the local coffee shop. With much of the study focusingon the Starbucks’ stratospheric growth and market dominance, Arsel & Thompson (2004,p.635) form a primarily negative stance towards the Starbucks industry, depicting the coffeegiant as no more than a “Conservative, relatively banal cultural space, catering to an equallybland corporate clientele” . In this secondary resource, Starbucks, through its marketdominance, is epitomized as a “diabolical force” (Arsel, Z & Thompson, C 2004, p.635) ofevil. Similarly, Cooke portrays a similar view in his article suggesting that the day “Starbuckscame to Lygon Street was like Scientologists setting up in Vatican City. Sacrilegious” (2008)however, in Dickinson’s opinion, Starbucks serves to effectively and forcefully position theconsumer in a particular space and time responding to the “difficulties of finding and makingstabilized places in a postmodern world” (2002, p.6)

References:

· Arsel, Z & Thompson, C 2004, “The Starbucks Brandscape and Consumers'(Anticorporate) Experiences of Glocalization”, The Journal of ConsumerResearch, vol.31, iss.3, pp.631-642, viewed 10 April 2010, EBSCO host· Cooke, D 2008, “American coffee culture gets roasted”,The Age, 2 April,viewed 11 April 2010, http://www.theage.com.au/national/american-coffee-culture-gets-roasted-20080801-3olt.html· Dickinson, G 2002, “Joe’s Rhetoric- Finding Authenticity at Starbucks”, RhetoricSociety Quarterly, vol.http://www.informaworld.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/smpp/

title~db=all~content=t716100769~tab=issueslist~branches=32 - v3232, iss.4, pp. 5 –27, viewed 10 April 2010, EBSCO host

Artefact 4: Street Press Magazines

The roots of ‘Stress Press’ can be traced back to the boundless thirst for information andknowledge by Melbourne’s inhabitants, and thus it marks a key communication devicethrough which the city presents and examines its contemporary, urban lifestyle. Thesemagazines, generally published weekly, are made all the more accessible by free publicationand distribution to city hotspots.

Melbourne’s Street Press magazines, most of which are made with high quality productionvalues, contain information that is in high demand by demographics who show an interest inthe art; it is thus necessary, and evident that Melbourne’s contemporary live music scenetakes up numerous pages in the majority of the magazines. These publications are usuallyfound on the doorsteps of trendy cafes and music shops, universities and retail outlets andtheir abundance of significant, well-written editorial content ensures that copies are rapidlycollected.

When Melbournians become consumers of Street Press, their lifestyles become affected andmolded by the information contained within each publication, and hence over time, thesuccess of this lifestyle becomes linked (if not dependent on) the continued publication of themagazines. This reliance is pointed out by Leung (1998) in his statement that, “the productsthat people use are a marker of their lifestyles and the adoption of such objects reflects theinterdependent roles of lifestyles and the consumption objects to classify”(p. 142). The needfor such publications ultimately creates a form of interpellation, a bond between the city andits inhabitants, as they are used by individuals to establish a personal and communal, socialidentity for Melbourne.

The relationship that Melbourne has with its residents is formed partly by the inflow ofinformation that Street Press provides. Naturally, the city’s citizens turn to such publicationsto increase their knowledge of local events and affairs, and thus develop a dependency on themedium when planning their social calendar and to learn. As Lewis (1984) points out,“community information available in free papers carries all kinds of ‘living information’ thatis useful in everyday life (p. 148).” The fact that these publications exist indicates that there isa relationship between the readership and the city, effectively molding and transforming themeaning that it has to different people.

Melbourne can take on many different meanings, shapes and sizes but in relation to StreetPress, it can be defined as a city which celebrates the arts; one that uses this love to create

strong relations between its identity and its people. It is even acknowledged on the StreetPress Australia Website that the publication is “the leading choice in reaching Australia’syouth” when compared to other forms of media. Overall, it is a free, distinctly ‘Melbournian’resource which covers the fantastic food and live music scene that is offered within the city,and illustrates the strong link between advertising professions and youth street culture.

References:

· Leung, L 1998, ‘Lifestyles and the Use of New Media Technologies in UrbanChina,’ New Media Technology in China, Telecommunications Policy, Vol. 22, no. 9,P. 781-790.

· Lewis, P Ed. 1984, ‘Media for People in Cities: A Study of Community Media inthe Urban Context,’ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.London. P. 141-157.

· The Street Press Australia Story, Street Press Australia. Viewed April 16, 2010.<http://streetpress.com.au/w3/>