Collection: Marketing is Everything: the BREWGOD collection

BREWGOD ‘Marketing is Everything’ collection description

Do you believe that marketing is everything?

Yuval Harari writes that what defines us, and made us successful as Homo Sapiens are stories. Our ability to create stories that others in post-ape groups will believe and follow. Not only those we can see – the tree, the river - but also the family tree, the river of life.

Marketing is the greatest story ever told. Guaranteed to make you buy shit you don’t need with money you don’t have. When you wake up and feel dissatisfied with life and a little rubbish compared to everyone else. We should know that it is the job of the smartest minds and best paid people in the world to make you feel that way, every day. It is no secret that self-help books come in series. There will always be one more bottle of £10 Prime being pushed on Youtube videos for kids and Whatsapp posts shared by football team dads. This is sugared, coloured water.

Capitalism, is our all-pervasive doctrine that binds together the most compelling stories of money and cravings with a never-ending stream. This product will change your life. We want to believe. It is in our very nature. To cope, not only in ape groups of 80 or so, but in tribes of millions, we need to believe in stories, and we need to have trust that they are true.

When James Watt wrote in his management bible, Business for Punks, “Marketing is Everything”. He meant it. He voiced his own audio book with these words. They were then played back by the BBC in 2022 with some very damning mood music and reporting of some fairly immoral, messianic behaviour. This art collection sends up the ‘Toxic Brewing Culture’ that was exposed. A ‘Post Moral Classic’; the ‘Dead Brand Club’; ‘Cool Aid IPA’; a ‘21^st Century Deception’ and a ‘Values Neutral Company’.

You may not mind the expropriation of the anarchic, indie punk culture by a business that began with a Tesco supermarket contract, but we don’t like being lied to. Any business and brand that is built on aspirational and ethical values, freebies for tattoos and small investors, which then turns out to break their own moral code is… well you be the judge, but is certainly ripe for parody.

Satire is a very British weapon, used for centuries to lampoon power and injustice within the establishment. It is useful, especially if those wielding the moral compass are wearing paper-thin clothes of the anti-establishment, or indeed any clothes at all.

This collection presents marketing and packaging as veneer-thin, with branding and slogans pouring off the cans. Designs are available hand-finished with acrylic paints dripping sidewards off the canvas.

Bill Hicks, the late-great Texan comedian said, “He’s smart, he’s going for the anti-marketing dollar. That’s a big dollar.” Well, yes I suppose I am. After all, irony is my medium. This is art that makes you think, ripe for satire.

The BREWGOD collection has been exhibited in London at The Brick Lane Gallery. If you would like to see or commission specific editions from the current six can series, please contact me via Instaglam or the web contact form below. A variety of hand-finished media available.