Dream marketing

Netherlands – Animated film producer Studio Smack has imagined a world in which brands have the power to influence your dreams.

• The work was commissioned by the Netherlands Museum of the Image (MOTI) as an exploration of contemporary visual culture
• In the film we journey into the subconscious mind of a person whose dreams have been ‘infected’ by a leading brand

In the words of author James B Twitchell: ‘The real question is not: How many ads do we see? The real question is: What do we have to do to see no ads? And the answer is: go to sleep.’

Citing research into deciphering brain activity from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Studio Smack envisages what it might be like if brands had the ability to control the content of our dreams.

In the film Branded Dreams the Dutch company appropriates the imagery of a famous soft drinks brand, which re-appears in a series of weird and wonderful ways as the subconscious mind journeys through an enchanted forest.