10 September 2008 123 views No Comment

Mexico, having not withstood an industrial revolution or Modern era, is an environment of unregulated marketing and mass media and popular cultures created by being catapulted into a stage of postmodernity (or ‘late capitalism’) due to its geographical location as the poor nearest neighbor to a world superpower.

Walking the streets of any Mexican settlement, from the smallest town to the capital, provides two very obvious examples: the soft drink industry and the beer industry.  The logos and other branding tools used to represent the multiple products that these industries swarm drive onto the streets, into shops, into supermarkets and then homes, cars and hands, are unavoidably present in the visual field of humans of all sizes, ages and class.

High-colour, hard-sell, buy-me, remember-me advertising ranges from a small metal sign denoting a certain brand’s dominance over the only corner shop in the village to the very common 100%-branding paint-job of a miscelanea’s (newsagent) external surface or blatant fifty feet-long slogans and marketing regalia that cover any spare wall space who’s owner has decided to rent to an eager multinational.  Some retail businesses who refuse the extra remuneration for exclusivity even have one external wall painted by one brewery and the next by their fierce rival.

The marketing executives of the companies that negotiate these deals and blot the landscape for a living are ruthless and wield American Express Corporate Cards to impress business acquaintances and have access to huge budgets in ensure success in reaching their target markets.

Some of this advertising is fun - driving around Mexico City at night, particularly on the new upper-deck of the periferico which puts you about 7 floors above normal street level is a lot like guest starring in a Spanish-dubbed version of Bladerunner - but most is an eye-sore that signals the short-term thinking of a developing nation and the end of its long-lived cultural heritage, I quote the enormous Sol beer advert on the way from Oaxaca to the pilgrimage destination of Juquila and the Walmart sneaking out from behind Teotihuacan as examples.