This document discusses how Andy Warhol's artwork contributed insights into consumer behavior and consumer research. It analyzes Warhol's famous works depicting brands like Campbell's Soup and Coca-Cola cans, and how he developed a strong personal brand and brand equity through his distinctive pop art style that featured mass produced consumer products. The document examines how Warhol's work provides insights into areas of consumer research like brand equity, imagery, packaging, and self-concept.

1. How does Warhol add to the semiotic statement of the readymade?
Solution
ABSTRACT -
This paper "breaks out of the box" by discussing the work of the artist Andy Warhol as a form
of consumer research. The paper asserts that Warhol’s career- successful artist, experimental
filmmaker, prolific writer and diarist, celebrity-offers insights into consumer culture that
reinforces, expands, and illuminates aspects of traditional consumer research. Through
illustrations, criticism, and interpretation, five specific areas of consumer research that Warhol’s
work might contribute to are introduced: brand equity; clothing, fashion and beauty; imagery;
packaging; and self-concept. This project joins recent efforts by consumer researchers to include
humanities based methods such as literary criticism and semiotics into the consumer researcher’s
toolbox.
I love America and these are some comments on it. The image is a statement of the symbols of
the harsh impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It
is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, the practical but important symbols that
sustain us.
- Warhol 1985, p. 78
Humanities based research has changed the parameters of consumer research. Groundbreaking
applications of semiotics (Mick 1986), literary theory (Stern 1988; 1989) postmodernism (Firat
and Venkatesh 1995), history (Jones and Monieson 1990), visual studies (Scott 1994)to- name a
few-have broadened the consumer researcher’s alette, adding useful tools to an interdisciplinary
paintbox. Belk proposes that art offers a useful medium to study consumption-citing literature,
comics, painting, photography, etc., as valuable records of materialism and non-traditional
sources of data for consumer researchers (Belk, 1986). Art and science do differ in their
methods, biases, and purposes, Belk insists, but there is much more overlap than is usually
thought. He concludes by suggesting that uses of art in research "are attempts to draw on art as
data for evidence to validate a point or to provide a thicker, richer description" (Belk, 1986, p.
27).
This paper proposes that Andy Warhol-through his worldwide success as an artist, his choice of
subject matter, his public statements, and his marketing techniques-may offer insights into
several issues of consumer research as an additional way of learning about consumer behavior
(Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989; Hudson and Ozanne 1988; Sherry 1991). Through a turn to
the tools of art criticism and art history, Warhol’s "contributions" to our understanding of

2. consumer behavior are placed within the frame of consumer research. Warhol, while not trained
in experimental methods, nonetheless offers unique insights into consumer behavior through his
success as an artist who focused on the mass produced world of brand names, fame, and
consumption.
In his career as a commercial illustrator, artist, filmmaker, and author, Warhol produced a
voluminous output of material. After his death in 1987, his estate helped fund an Andy Warhol
museum in Pittsburgh (Sozanski 1994); another museum houses his work in his ancestral home
of Slovakia (Gruber 1993). His name lives on in the news; his estate auction garnered millions
and elevated cookie jars into the realm of valued collectors’ items (Bourdon 1989). A protracted
battle over the value of his estate also served to generate heated interest in his stature as an artist
and cultural icon (Peers 1996). Warhol transcended the rarefied world of fine art and became
known simply as Andy Warhol throughout the world. His obituary in Advertising Age
remembered Warhol this way: "His work pointed out the similarities between mass produced
goods-soup, cleaners, celebrities, news "events"-in a way that made clearer how images are
manufactured. In this pop culture, Andy Warhol saw America. Through him, America saw
itself." (Skenazy, 1987). Breaking out of the box, this paper sketches Warhol and his work for
their relevance to consumer researchers.
To frame Warhol as a consumer researcher, this discussion focuses on four aspects of the Warhol
oeuvre: several famous artworks, his own writings, critical discourse, and Warhol himself. The
methods, training, and outlook of artists and consumer researchers may be quite different, but the
underlying issues they are interested in often overlap considerably. Five content areas were
selected to paint a portrait of Warhol as consumer researcher: brand equity; clothing, fashion and
beauty; imagery; packaging; and self-concept. Two levels of analysis are offered-one focuses the
production of Warhol’s art, another considers Warhol himself as the ultimate commodity. Thus,
Warhol’s artistic output can be scrutinized for insights into consumer behavior as well as his
self-generated production of the Warhol "brand." Suggestions for systematic application of art
criticism and art history are offered, along with a call for broadening the conceptions of who
might contribute to the interdisciplinary field of consumer research.
ART AND CONSUMER RESEARCH
Art Criticism is the humanities discipline that investigates art and its objects as cultural
documents-reflecting and shaping the culture that both produces and preserves them. Discourse
on art has ancient roots-visual images preceded written language as a means of communication.
Closely linked to the related fields of aesthetics, art history, art theory, and archeolgy, art
criticism requires an understanding of the styles and functions of art, the social and cultural
contexts in which artists have worked, and the technical factors that affect artistic execution.
Issues that art criticism addresses include evaluation, value, classification, identification,

3. comparison, etc. (Stokstad 1995). Commentary on art has its origins in Plato’s dialogues, in
which he established representation as the main function of art; the field of art history became
institutionalized within academia during the nineteenth century (Roskill 1989). Like literary
criticism, writing on art is characterized by a myriad of schools employing a variety of
approaches to the subject, context, meaning, and production of art (cf. Stern 1989). Because art
has physical-as in architecture-as well as cultural functions, the object of study varies
considerably, depending on the purpose of the analysis. For example, one writer distinguishes
between journalistic criticism, pedagogical criticism, and scholarly criticism (Feldman 1987).
The art world of museums, collectors, scholars, and the public has increasingly included 'low’
forms of art, for example graffiti, advertising, comics, etc. within the realm of fine art-thus
focusing critical attention on a wide range of visual communication (e.g. Stich 1987).
Whereas the field of art criticism conceivably offers consumer researchers an astonishing array
of tools with which to interpret and understand images, few studies within consumer research
have taken advantage of a art-centered approach. However, many art historians have ventured
into issues of consumer behavior. For example, Simon Schama discusses many aspects central to
consumer research in his monumental study of Dutch art, such as collecting, demand, luxury
goods, etc. (Schama 1988). Other art historians take a consumer research approach to the art
market, demonstrating that art is governed by market forces similar to manufactured goods (e.g.
Watson 1992; Goldthwaite 1993; Jenson 1994). For example, Goldthwaite (1993) includes a
chapter titled "Consumer Behavior" in his thorough analysis of the art market during the Italian
Renaissance. While art historians are surveying consumption of art, consumer researchers have
been slow to turn to art to analyze consumption-a central feature of the culture that art depicts,
packages, comments on, and is sold within. One recent paper recognizes the influence of the art
market in corporate strategy, dubbing corporate sponsors of art "the Modern Medicis" (Joy
1993). However, most consumer research from an art centered approach focuses on advertising-
an important, but limited, application of the rich tradition of art history (Ball and Smith 1992).
For example, Scott’s (1994) exceptional system for analyzing visual rhetoric, which borrows
language and systems from art history, focuses on advertising imagery. Stern and Schroeder’s
(1994) turn to literary and visual theory to analyze a Paco Rabanne cologne advertisement.
Promising extensions of the use of art based approaches include Percy’s (1993) use of art history
to look at brand equity; Heisler and Levy’s (1991) photography based research technique,
autodriving; and Havlena and Holak’s work on nostalgic images (1996). Following Belk’s
(1986) call for art based research on materialism, Schroeder (1992) investigated the connections
between materialism and the Pop Art movement, demonstrating the complex links between a
consumer research derived concept and artwork. The draw toward art based criticism prompted
this observation: "investigating the Pop Art movement through a consumer research framework

4. can shed light on consumption; Pop Art provides impressive and eloquent content to examine
materialism" (Schroeder 1992, p. 13).
Another stream of consumer research has focused on aesthetics-an important branch of art
history useful for scholars interested in the phenomenology of consumption (e.g. Holbrook and
Zirlin 1985). Aesthetics within the consumer context usually refers to a response to a sensory
stimulus produced by media, entertainment, or the arts (Holbrook 1980). What sets artistic
responses apart is an appreciation of the stimulus for its own sake. Painting, then, enjoys a
esthetic reaction due to its existence as a end in itself, rather than a means to some other end. For
example, Holbrook has called for a study of the experience of art and its creation as a basis for
understanding aesthetics within artistic organizations (Holbrook & Zirlin, 1985). Aesthetics and
our perceptual systems are integral to our understanding and appreciation of art (e.g. Arnheim,
1966). The role of the image is critical in understanding issues central to mainstream consumer
research-perception, categorization, brand image, advertising response, for example. Thus,
borrowing from art criticism seems a logical choice for a more complete analysis of consumer
behavior, with the goals of understanding the historical, cultural, and representational contexts of
consumption.
CONSUMPTION INTO ART: ANDY WARHOL AND THE POP ART MOVEMENT
By preempting the celebrity of his subjects-from Campbell’s soup and Coca-Cola to Marilyn
Monroe and Elvis Presley-[Warhol] parlayed his own name and face into commercial
commodities that became recognized-and valued-around the world -Bourdon 1989, p. 9
Pop art utilized subjects "that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split
second-comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke
bottles-all the great modern things" (Stokstad 1995, p. 1130). Pop borrowed from the world of
advertising, grocery stores, billboards, television, etc., to an unprecedented degree. Warhol, in
particular, focused on the objects he consumed on a daily basis-Campbell’s soup, Coca-cola,
money, famous people, and newspapers. These are stimulus materials for many consumer
behavior studies, and provide an important link between the world of art and the realm of
consumer research. Depicting material goods and consumer artifacts was not entirely new to the
art world. The history of painting is replete with examples of scenes of wealth, possessions, and
display (e.g. Berger, 1972). The Dutch, to illustrate, favored paintings of the abundant goods an
affluent society produces (Schama 1988). What set Pop apart is the critical and commercial
success of a group of artists, all having a common concern with the problems of the commercial
image and popular culture (Mashun, 1987).
The Pop movement was, in part, a reaction to the current dominant form of painting of the day,
Abstract Expressionism, which focused on the inner imagination of the artist and the technique
of creating art. In contrast, Pop artists drew from the popular culture in achieving an easily

5. recognizable and reproducible art form. Warhol realized that people receive the same message
over and over, and often like messages or images sheerly through repetition exposure (see
Figure). He claimed to eat the same thing day after day, including-yes, indeed-cans of
Campbell’s soup and lots of Coca-cola.
Unconcerned with painterly style and brushwork, many Pop artists utilized mass production
techniques in their work. Indeed, several influential Pop artists, inluding Warhol, were trained in
commercial art and printing and advertising techniques. Pop Art gained commercial and popular
(if not always critical) acceptance in the early 1960s. Along with Andy Warhol, success came
rapidly for artists such as James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy
Lichtenstein. Warhol, however, became an icon for the movement, and was dubbed the Pope of
Pop.
Warhol was trained in commercial art at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now part of Carnegie
Mellon University) and was a highly successful commercial artist in New York City during the
1950s. His advertising work won him several awards and constant work (Bourdon 1989).
Warhol’s forays into fine art-producing images not driven by specific commercial jobs-drew its
inspiration from comic strips and advertising slogans. His first huge success resulted from the
Campbell’s Soup can series, which attracted widespread attention and notoriety (e.g. Stuckey,
1989; Swenson, 1963, 1964). Other works of this period include the Coca-Cola series, consisting
of repeated images of Coke bottles, Brillo box wood sculptures, reproductions of commercial
shipping containers, and celebrity portraits. He produced many self portraits throughout his
career, as well as dozens of films, several books, and, after he was famous, continued to do
commercial work (Bourdon 1971; Hackett 1989; Warhol 1975, 1983, 1985). The Andy Warhol
Museum opened its doors in Pittsburgh in 1994, and is the largest museum in the U.S. devoted to
a single artist (Sozanski 1994). Currently, his work commands high prices at auction (Vogel
1993), and the "cult" is alive and well (e.g. Gruber 1993).
WARHOL’S CONTRIBUTION TO UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
An analysis of five areas of consumer behavior in terms of Warhol’s work and reactions to it
demonstrates the potential of placing art within consumer research. The five areas were chosen
for this study to demonstrate the diverse potential of turning to visual artists to understand
consumer behavior. As a masterful producer of cultural discourse, Warhol isolated and reified
the banal and commonplace objects of consumption. Insight gleaned from this exercise
complements and reinforces concepts and ideas developed by consumer researchers. This multi-
method approach is capable of offering confirmation of experimental research findings,
generating new research ideas, and uncovering hidden aspects of consumer behavior. Material
for this analysis is drawn from several sources; the art itself; critical comments; Warhol’s own
reflections and quips; and scholarly writing about Warhol. Warhol’s statements are notoriously

6. unreliable-he constantly misled interviews about his background and intentions (Bourdon 1989).
However, for the purposes of this paper, his comments provide interesting findings about an
accomplished marketer whose most successful product was himself.
Since the birth of Modernism around the turn of the century, a significant project for artists is the
development of an individual style (Jenson 1994). Thus, art history might offer lessons in brand
equity-an identifiable trademark, designed for consumption (Percy 1993). Andy Warhol was
extremely successful in building his own version of brand equity, interestingly enough by using
an imitator strategy of adopting ready made symbols in his art.
BRAND EQUITY
Andy Warhol developed one of the most globally recognizable styles in the history of art, even
though his work lacked signature brushwork or technique (Stokstad 1995). Moreover, of course,
many of his most famous subjects were originally designed by others-the Brillo box designer
sued Warhol for breach of copyright (he lost) (Bourdon 1989). Despite the fact that he did not
"create" the original image, Warhol became irrevocably linked to his flat depictions of
Campbell’s soup cans. In essence, then, he developed a strong brand identity and brand equity.
By introducing images that were easily identified and linked with himself as an artist, Warhol
achieved his own style-in marketing terms, his own brand: "it is one the many paradoxes of
Warhol’s career that [his images] should be so inescapably his own" (Rockwell 1991, p 347).
He aggressively pursued potential buyers for his art; "his metamorphosis into a Pop persona was
calculated and deliberate" (Bourdon 1989, p. 6).
Warhol changed the way we look at products, especially Campbell’s soup. The Campbell’s
brand has meaning apart from that of a heavily advertised consumer product, because of
Warhol’s art and ensuing fame. Indeed, the Campbell’s soup company, initially antagonized by
Warhol’s use of their trademark, hired him to paint a series of Campbell’s dry mix soup cartons
in the 1980s (Honnef 1991). Warhol’s major work prefigured scholarly attention of brand equity,
but he was very aware of the powerful associations found in his Pop images: "Andy always
seized on the most familiar and recognizable objects" (Bourdon 1989, p. 90). Popular brands
tended to promote equal opportunity for consumers, Warhol stated in a famous quote: "A Coke
is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke" (Warhol 1975, p. 100). His eye,
trained in art, and focused on mainstream success and fame, gave him "an uncanny gift for
selecting motifs from the glut of visual information characteristic of a modern industrial society
overwhelmed by consumer products, newspapers, magazines, photographs, television, and the
cinema" (Livingstone 1990, p. 118). Warhol was a shrewd marketer of both his work, and
perhaps more significantly, his image. His background in advertising assisted him in knowing
what sells and how to sell it.
Through his international success, Andy Warhol became a major "brand" himself, allowing him

7. to command high prices for his prolific output, and amassed a fortune valued at $400 million
after his death (Peers 1996). Andy’s persona matched that of his art-detached but friendly,
familiar, yet distant. His pursuit of fame was legendary, he became a product endorser through
his celebrity, appearing in ads for a variety of products (Pomeroy 1971). In 1986, he came full
circle by creating Absolut Warhol, thus inaugurating the artist produced Absolut Vodka series.
Warhol was a shrewd marketer, his public image designed for maximum impact and appeal. He
was driven a desire to be famous-for anything: "I wish I could invent something like bluejeans.
Something to be remembered by. Something mass" (Warhol 1975, p. 13). Warhol assured his
immortality through the creation of the richly endowed Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts, which helped develop the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. His success has become its
own icon: "Warhol’s Dollar Signs are brazen, perhaps even insolent reminders that pictures by
brand-name artists are metaphors for money, a situation that never troubled him" (Bourdon
1989, p. 384).
Warhol also attempted to create "superstars"-celebrities known for their association with him.
He had some success in promoting the careers of the rock group The Velvet Underground, the
film personality Edie Sedgwick, and an entourage at his studio, dubbed the Factory. This is an
interesting example of brand extensions-new "products" associated with old favorites.
Warholwas tremendously invested in his "aura," and one company expressed interest in
securing his services to promote their products (Bourdon 1989). Warhol represents a charismatic
figure totally concerned with strategically marketing the ultimate commodity, oneself. He was
careful not to become confused with other early pop artists, such as Roy Liechtenstein, who
worked with comics. His insights and concerns with his identity will be addressed further under
"self-concept."
Warhol showed us that a well recognized brand name might succeed in attracting consumers in a
different context-brand extension. He demonstrated that consumer’s positive feelings about
products often lay far outside the product itself-he did not paint Campbell’s soup, after all, he
painted the branded can. His success was phenomenal evidence that brands are psychological
entities, with associations far outside the context of consumption. Moreover, he showed that
equity is linked to recognizability. Advertisers may have known this far some time, but Warhol’s
contribution extends beyond the domain of marketing-for his art has created an extra layer of
brand equity to such well-known products as Campbell’s soup and Coca-Cola. Cigarette brands
like Camel and Marlboro are pursuing this concept by selling clothing and Marlboro gear to
consumers. Harley Davidson figured out that they can sell more t-shirts and wallets than
motorcycles. Coca-Cola has started selling clothing. Perhaps these are more sophisticated
examples of brand value, but Warhol remains an compelling figure in the history of brand equity.
CLOTHING, FASHION AND BEAUTY

8. Warhol was fascinated with celebrities and was profoundly affected by Marilyn Monroe’s
suicide in 1962. He began to work on a series of paintings of her, starting with a publicity
photograph of her he had purchased. In the next several years, he produced what many art critics
consider to be his strongest work, the Marilyn series. In the work, Warhol used a silk-screen
technique to highlight Monroe’s features with brighter than life colors. In this period he began
experimenting with repetition, mass production, and "mistakes"-poorly aligned images and
smudges. In a famous image, Marilyn Monroe Twenty Times, Warhol experiments with repeated
the image of Monroe over and over, creating subtle differences in each repetition, while
maintaining the mass produced appearance of a consumer good. Moreover, his work comments
on the reproduction of images, art, and originality (see Benjamin 1968).
FIGURE 1
CAMPBELL'S SOUP CAN AND DOLLAR BILLS, 1962
Celebrities are like goods, Warhol seemed to be saying, by creating similar works with Coca-
cola bottles, S & H Green Stamps, and even U.S. currency. Warhol helps us realize that
celebrities have brand equity, consumer awareness, etc. In Warhol’s paintings, Monroe gazes
coolly out at the viewer behind a publicity smile and heavily applied makeup. Warhol felt these
paintings were an homage to Monroe’s beauty and fame, but art critics have pointed out the
ghoulish nature of reproducing the image of a beauty queen amidst evidence of a tragic life and
death (Mamiya 1992). In one example, a single image of Monroe is surrounded by a field of
gold, like a Byzantine icon: "By symbolically treating the famous actress as a saint, Warhol shed
light on his own fascination with fame" (Livingstone 1991).Warhol shows us the construction of
fame and beauty. He was perennially dissatisfied with his looks, undergoing plastic surgery and
wearing a wig at all times. His portraits of Liz Taylor and Jackie Kennedy also dealt with issues
of fame, beauty, and tragedy. Once again, his choice of material rings true- tragic undertones
infuse many great works of art and literature. Warhol returned to Marilyn Monroe several times
throughou his career, producing an eerie reverse-color series late in his career. In Reverse
Marilyn, the image is as recognizable from his earlier work as from Monroe’s fame-but it seems
fraught with trauma, her face darkened and eyes glowing as if on fire. Warhol was willing to
show us how we consume celebrities, while also providing a thoughtful reminder of the
discrepancies between public persona and private identity. This theme was tremendously
important in his own life, as evidenced by his friends and his written work. Warhol was always
on stage, even when writing in his diaries, which were produced for public consumption (Hackett
1989).
IMAGERY
Mr. Warhol was among the first to point out that we are a country united, most of all, by
commercialism. He opened our eyes with art. Whether silk-screening soup cans or Marilyn

9. Monroe, he showed us that the things we know best and react to most instinctively are those
images brought to us via mass markets, mass media, and mass production.
-Skenazy 1987
Imagery is the area that Warhol made perhaps the most profound contributions to issues of
consumer behavior. Warhol injected many images into the cultural discourse. His repeated
motifs are classics of twentieth century art. Warhol investigated ideas of originality and the
original image through his choice of subject matter, technique, and reproduction (silk-screen,
prints, reworking). His success, however, was in becoming an icon himself, the image of a
fabulously famous artist. His preeminence as a cultural icon is summarized as follows: "In the
postwar era, if an artist wants to do more than merely fuel the art apparatus, the most effective
strategies usually involve working with the institutions of culture. The artist who most fully met
this challenge and who is the paradigm of the artist-producer is Andy Warhol" (Staniszewski,
1995, p. 262). Another critic concurs: "Warhol’s art represented the culmination of dilemmas
about the relationship of art, media, and advertising that artists had confronted since the turn of
the century" (Bogart 1995, p 300).
Warhol’s most successful images are tied into the mainstream cultural symbols-abundance, mass
marketed products, images of the good life. His subject matter revolves around high involvement
images . His art, and the Warhol phenomenon instructs us in how we consume images and
symbols. When his household belongings were auctioned, Sotheby’s estimates were far
exceeded, commonplace cookie jars sold for $1000. People were eager to own something that
belonged to him-he probably would have been thrilled. His image had been carefully
constructed-his wigs became progressively more noticeable and odd, his face often caked with
white foundation and make-up. He was an original, yet his art blatantly copied mainstream
designs. He reflected the ideal of mass marketing techniques-appealing to uniqueness through
consuming mass produced goods: "Buying is much more American than thinking and I’m as
American as they come" (Warhol 1975, p. 229).
PACKAGING
Warhol’s "boxes" series isoates package design, focusing our attention on the package as an
object in its own right. These works are wooden sculptures, made to look exactly like shipping
cartons for popular consumer goods-Del Monte canned fruits, Brillo cleaning pads, Campbell’s
soup. Warhol achieved a great deal of notoriety, scorn, and press from the boxes series, and they
remain some of his most successful works. In the Campbell’s soup can painting series, Warhol
takes a close look at packaging, too. In Big Torn Soup Can, for example, he shows us the
package behind the label, calling attention to the object of consumption. In this painting, a brand
extension, if you will, of his earlier soup can paintings, the Campbell’s label is torn, hanging off
the can, but still instantly recognizable. The can is exposed, and in some hints of a painterly

10. technique, its steel case reflects light toward the viewer. One is struck by the dual packaging of
the image-the label and the can. The can looks plain, uncovered, unlabeled without the Red and
White Campbell’s. We realize that labels reassure us of safe contents, protecting us from harm.
Once again, product designers and market tests might pick up these insights, but Warhol made
them available for all. He also fixed his attention on the packaging of Coca-cola, painting the
patented bottle over and over.
Warhol’s work comments on the packaging of celebrities, as well. Marilyn Monroe and Elvis
Presley, two of his major subjects, both lived desperate lives in marked contrast to the media
image they enjoyed. By choosing their publicity images, Warhol deliberately pointed out
contradictions of the package. However, the image of Marilyn Monroe as a beauty outlived her
personal anguish, with Warhol’s disturbing portraits of her a vague reminder of her private pain.
SELF-CONCEPT
Writing about Warhol’s cultural contributions in 1971, one art critic suggested that one of his
most important contributions was to show the evolution of a personal mythology by means of an
extremely consistent persona (Josephson 1971). Warhol’s self portraits are an interesting study in
an expression of the self-concept. He was fascinated in the relationships between image and
reality-especially his own: "It must be hard to be a model, because you’d want to look like the
photograph of you, and you can’t ever look that way" (Warhol 1975 p. 63). He completed many
self-portraits throughout his career, eventually adopting his repeated techniques for his own
image.
In all of his self portraits, he remains aloof, composed, and very much Andy Warhol. It is his
self-portraits that are the most well known images of Warhol as a person. Thus, he controls his
image by producing it. Warhol’s many self-portraits can be viewed as a great marketing
campaign for himself. For a Pop exhibition in Germany, he provided a huge self-portrait-a
glorious ad for Andy Warhol (Bourdon 1989). Warhol knew that the best marketing for his art
was the creation of celebrity, and his self-portraits were an important component of this strategy.
Warhol’s public record shows a remarkable consistency throughout his career, stretching back
into his college years, that is a hallmark of psychological conceptions of the self-concept. His
self-portraits offer evidence of the construction of self-concept; a process we all engage in, albeit
with somewhat less intention than Warhol.
CONCLUSIONS
Warhol’s impact on art and society was tremendous; this paper offers a highly restricted view of
his potential for consumer researchers. By applying some methods of art criticism to his vast
body of work, insight was gained in key areas of consumer research: brand equity; clothing,
fashion and beauty; imagery; packaging; and self-concept. Art history is equipped with much
more theoretically challenging theories and frameworks-this paper gleaned insights from a

11. surface skimming of the treasures of art criticism and art history. Further work is necessary to
articulate how art historical techniques might complement literary tools that have earned a place
within the consumer researcher’s toolbox.
As we move into a postmodern society, dominated by visual images, informed by five hundred
cable television channels, and obsessed with global symbols, visual literacy takes on greater
importance to both the consumer and marketer. Art criticism seems a useful area to study the
central role images play in consumer behavior-joining successful applications of other
humanities based approaches. Marketing, in particular, encourages symbolic associations:
products to images, images to products. To fully understand consumer behavior requires an
appreciation of the long heritage of art scholarship. This project represents a step toward mining
the rich ground of art history to extract nuggets of wisdom about consumers and the society they
live in.