The last 10 days have been pretty hectic, and culturally diverse.
It started with a best friends wedding at The Landmark Hotel in London; followed by a 4/5 day planning session with the Emirates marcomms team in Dubai, and topped off with family time & a quintessentially English Saturday at the “The Henley Show”.
Without doubt, a week full of contrasts.
Sandwiched in there, were 4 hours spent in “non-places” ..... airports.
“If a place can be defined as relational, historical and is concerned with identity, then a place which can not be defined as relational, or historical, or is not concerned with identity will be a non-place”.Marc Auge (French Anthropologist)
This eerie yet strangely beautiful video by Aaron Meyers helped clarify how much of a “non-place" an airport is.
I just wish that I’d understood the “non-place” 4-5 years ago when I was planning and writing creative briefs for Bacardi-Martini’s travel retail / duty free work.
A non-place requires non-marketing and by default non-briefs. An airport’s duty free shopping area is the Room 101 of marketing communications, a place where bland briefs rule – cultural identity is negated – oversized logos are king – individualism and cultural identity are left behind in the pursuit of mass global brand appeal.The airport is devoid of cultural symbols. Apparently, it lacks codes which can be interpreted as "national" or "ethnic" ones. It objectivates freedom and equality - virtues of individualism. At the same time, the airport may function, for the traveller, as a kind of catharsis: The moment one passes through immigration into the departure lounge, one is removed from the impediments of society: Once there, neither the tax collector nor the family can reach you. You are a free individual.
(Døving, field notes)
