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An advertisement run by Johnson & Johnson in
the local Fiji newspapers for baby powerder missed its audience when
it ran in the early 90s with a pretty white woman dressed in a lacy white
peignoir set cradling her creamy-skinned infant in her arms. Although
a typical dark-skinned Fijian woman might relate the product to this
idealized situation, chances are she would simply think that it is something
used by wealthy white women she's familiar with, European Colonials or
expatriates, all perceived to be wealthier than she could imagine. There
was nothing to tell her the product was meant for her, unless she was
being asked to imagin herself as the woman in that advertisement, something
she might well have grown to resent. Later in the mid-90s when Fiji's
only television station became "permanent", I couldn't help
but notice that a television version of the same print ad ran, instead,
with a more "Fijian-looking" woman and infant with the dress
and surroundings more representative of the growing "middle-class" Fijian
family. It was gratifying to see a change towards more direct targeting
of the local audience.
An Anthropological
Example
Consider a Time Magazine article, February 13, 1995
(US edition) on artwork from the Cro Magnon period, drawings over 20,000
years old on the walls of newly discovered caves in Europe. The article
discussed the "framework" of the viewer of the art. The writer
defined art in this story as "communication by visual images" demonstrating
the advancement of the brain to "associative thinking -- the power
to make one thing stand for and symbolize another." The problem faced
by anthropologists, they admitted, was that in order for these learned
scientists to understand the true meanings and puposes of the drawings,
they required the knowledge of the cultural context in which the drawings
were created. As beautiful as they are, the 20,000 year old drawings have
little meaning outside the current western aesthetic that we apply to them.
In applying this example to the challenge at the university, in this case
a wide range of students across the Pacific may lack the framework to apply
associative thinking for the visual mnemonics being presented to them and
therefore may fail to understand the meanings intended.
Logo
for The University of the South Pacific.
A
Pacific Logo The
logo for The University of the South Pacific is a good example of how
the mneomonics of one culture could have drastically different meanings
for another. As with many logo designs in theSouth Pacific, the university
logo incorporates the coconut palm, in this case the sprouting coconut.
It also incorporates this with a simplified "drua" representing
a sort of generic Pacific sailing canoe. To the westerner, especially
those from North America, the coconut palm and canoe would conjure
images of leisurely activities, swaying palms, ocean breezes, life
at ease away from the pressures of the "rat-race". This certainly
does not meet with the need of the logo to represent a highly acclaimed
educational institution.
But, in defense of the design of this logo, to the vast
majority of its audience who are residents of the Pacific Island countries
who send their best and brightest to study there, the logo has vastly different
meanings than the ones just described. The sprouting coconut, for instance,
represents not leisure but personal as well as community growth and development.
It stands for bounty, fruitfulness, future harvests, and sustainable development.
From the coconut, they not only receive nourishment but building materials,
wood from the trunk, sinnit from the husk, basket and roofing materials from
palm fronds, oils for cooking, and so much more than I only just began to
learn of. Translating this to more metaphorical meanings, the sprouting coconut
suggests the sustenance and development of the people of the Pacific. It
could refer to the "harvesting" of their most talented who will
bring good fortune to their communities through the completion of their studies
and subsequent return to share in their newly developed skills and knowledge.
How is this so different from the use of the maple leaf as Canada's national
symbol?
Juxtaposed with the sprouting coconut is the canoe which
is meant to represent the continual exploration, discovery and expansion
of intellect and knowledge. It also connects the people of the Pacific both
literally and figuratively, demonstrating that the vast ocean spaces between
the islands are merely routes by which we travel in order to reach our neighbors.
Therefore, in the context of the marketplace, the Pacific Islands, the mnemonics
of the logo are more than appropriate for their use, which is to represent
the expansion of knowledge and development in the region.
