Setting the Stage: Collective Selection in the Stylistic Context of Commercials

Abstract

While the settings (e.g., furniture, props, clothing) employed in television commercials and other media are carefully selected by production personnel to convey desired imagery, little is known about the process whereby the surroundings so depicted are chosen over many other stylistic possibilities. The study investigates the degree to which the process of collective selection, where cultural specialists adhere to implicit cultural formulae in making stylistic decisions, is operative when settings to be used in television commercials are created. In a simulated preproduction task, 25 professional property masters were asked to choose from among an assortment of three types of props to dress the set for four different commercial scenarios, each of which varied the gender and implied social class of the actor who would appear. Extremely high convergence among participants was obtained for prop choices, and these selections systematically varied as the actor's demographic background was alternated. This consensus highlights the need for further research on stylistic context in advertising — the physical and sensory cues that “place” a product in some real or imaginary setting.