Geography 300
Lab 4: Interpreting Visual Imagery
Sample Essay
The Ford Explorer became famous for a series of “rollover” crashes in the 1990s, but despite its unsafe reputation, it remains one of the most popular vehicles on the road. One of the major reasons for its popularity surely lies in the effectiveness of Ford Motor Company’s marketing strategy. Ford apparently has convinced consumers that this gas-guzzling, atmosphere destroying, death-trap of a road hog is a great vehicle to own. Curious as to how Ford has constructed their marketing campaign, I explored Ford’s website (http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/explorer/) so I could better understand how the Explorer is presented to potential customers. Perhaps the major component of Ford’s marketing strategy lies in how they use visual imagery to sell both the SUV and a lifestyle that clearly very few people are lucky enough to enjoy.
The Explorer’s website allows prospective buyers to examine important vehicle data, such as its horsepower, luxury options and advanced safety features, including a reassuring new “Advance Trac” stability system to help keep you from finding yourself upside down on your way home from soccer practice. The centerpiece of the page is however the large photograph of an Explorer climbing a hillside, while trees and a creek seem to fade into the background. Just above this photo is a prominent link to a photo gallery, where more pictures of the Explorer in action combine to provide a more complete account of Ford’s marketing campaign.
The default photo in the gallery is the same in the Explorer “home page”. Clearly Ford wants the viewer to believe that the Explorer is a rugged SUV - after all it did climb a great hill in the first picture. Since the background is slightly blurred, we are led to think that perhaps this Explorer is actually moving, yet somehow miraculously has managed to only get its tire treads slightly dusty. The caption beneath the photo tells us that this is the Eddie Bauer Edition. Setting the tone for the others in the photo gallery, this photo depicts a clean, convenient escape to the outdoors for Explorer owners. Virtually every Explorer in the gallery is set in rugged outdoor locations, including mountainsides and coastal cliffs. Only one photo sets the Explorer in the city, where it actually stays 99.9% of the time. People appear in none of the pictures, nor is there a hint that children might ride in such an intrepid explorer’s vehicle.
The obvious message that Ford is trying to send is that this is a rugged SUV, capable of taking you into the wilderness. However, since Ford surely knows that very few people ever take their SUV’s up a mountain or even off pavement, the importance of the implied message contained in the marketing campaign becomes magnified greatly. Rather than trying to sell a car that can go up a mountain, Ford tries to sell you an object that is associated with a highly desirable lifestyle. Ford knows that consumers do really desire hill climbs, but the freedom to abandon their responsibilities as one does when they are climbing hills. They know their consumers are sick of buying groceries, of commuting, of a slaving away for an inconsiderate, jerko-boss, of ferrying kids to lessons and practicies, of fighting other drivers in crowded Wal-Mart parking lots and a thousand other daily hassles.
Ford seeks to exploit these desires by showing the Explorer in places where prospective buyers would be unshackled from such burdens. One of the photos cleverly shows the Explorer driving up a paved mountain road….on the wrong side of the line, no less. Now that’s freedom! Ford hopes that by placing the Explorer in isolated wilderness settings, you will mistakenly imagine that their product can deliver the freedom that you so badly desire. What’s more, you can do it Eddie Bauer style! By co-branding the Explorer with Eddie Bauer, Ford taps into another mountain of lifestyle imagery that is likewise outdoorsy, but also somewhat exclusive in a white-middle-class-country-club way, that is both safe and effortless. The Eddie Bauer imagery mimics almost perfectly the squeaky clean Explorer atop the muddy mountain road. Nobody’s hair even gets messed up when they camp with Eddie Bauer gear.
Many people want to escape to the kind of landscapes shown in these pictures, but would rather not deal with the exhaustion, the mud and the mosquitoes that such isolation generally requires. For others, it is just too costly to escape. Ford recognizes this and capitalizes on our desires by selling us imagery that helps complete our little fantasies. And even if you don’t completely buy into that fantasy as you drive around in your Explorer, the neighbors have seen the commercials and maybe they will envy you because they now have come to think of you as the rugged, outdoorsy type with freedom at your fingertips.