I thought these were kind of creative, if not funny. My vision is rarely bad enough were I would experience a mistake of this magnitude, but I know people who have pretty bad eyesight. Enjoy!
via AdRants
Obsessed With the Right Things – Breast Cancer Foundation [NSFW]
This link (while they ads are technically art, they are probably NSFW) contains some great ads for what I would call putting breast cancer into perspective. The images are reminiscent of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition circa 2004 when they started painting suits (also NSFW) on the models as opposed to having them actually wear them.
Essentially they images are saying who cares about these things (the size of your butt, your hair, or a pimple) when there are so many things worse in life. Be happy with the good things in life and not consumed by those that ultimately don't matter.
One of the commenters of the original post asks the question "Do women like this?" He (I'm assuming) automatically assumes that a) no they don't and b) all those involved must have been men. I'm not sure you can jump to either of those conclusions, but it does beg the question of whether or not the message lost.
5 Years of YouTube
Just came across this clip on YouTube:
It kind of gave me chills. I don't know why except that I know I love finding and sharing clips. Maybe it is the thought of all the fun times I've had huddled around a computer screen with friends and family watching the clips. It is amazing to think that YouTube has only been around for 5 years. It seems like it has been a part of our lives forever.
In related news, YouTube will soon add a button allowing you to skip the ad before a video clip. At first this seems crazy, but it is actually a really good idea (IMHO UPDATE: and apparently others). The benefits are that you will be able to track how many people actually watch your ad (a statistic very hard to come by), advertisers will not pay for ads that aren't watched, and ultimately it will mean ad content that is better targeted to the viewer and hopefully pretty interesting.
Back in the Day… Advertising from Another Era
In school we were required to take a couple advertising classes that were heavy in the history department. History has never been my thing, but at least with advertising history there are old ads to look at. I won't bore you with the really old stuff, but there are some interesting examples from mid last century. I came across an article from BoingBoing about how there is an entire period of time where women were depicted quite poorly in advertisements.
By today's standards these are pretty bad. You just don't do this anymore. I might, however, argue that the woman in the lower left ad is rather enjoying herself. It is interesting to think about how this was socially acceptable at one point. This mentality is depicted very well in the AMC series Mad Men. I was never an avid watcher (debating picking it up now that Lost is over), but the premise of the show was clear: depict life at an ad agency in the 60's. Agencies were male dominated and an intimidating place for women to work. It isn't surprising the work they put out reflected a similar nature.
In Amanda's post she talked about a controversial ad of today in which an ad was overtly sexualized. We see that a lot in today's ads (as such, you'll probably see a lot of it here). This makes me wonder if we will reach a point where it will be socially unacceptable to use overtly sexualized imagery in ads. We stopped objectifying women in ads (okay, I admit, it may just have transformed into the overt sexualization), so I wonder what the next transformation will be. Either way, these classic ads are something else.
via BoingBoing
My Favorite Ad
I feel like I should start of with one of my favorite advertisements. I don’t think the commercial itself is what made me go into advertising, but I d think the characteristics that make this spot great definitely have something to do with it.
It is from Sony and it was for their line of Bravia Televisions. Here is the full 2:31 spot:
So why is this a good spot? First of all, I will freely admit that the budget for this ad was bigger than some companies ever put towards advertising. It isn’t that I like large budgets (well, I do), but it allows for some very cool results.
Ignoring the fact that not all ads get budgets like this, what this ad does well is to bring together the individual elements that make a commercial and utilizes each one to really drive home the message. Sony has a history of great commercials for the Bravia line (my second favorite being the paint one). The visuals are incredible, the music fits so perfectly, the story is great, and the fact that they really let loose hundreds of thousands of bouncy balls down San Francisco’s iconic hills. Fallon, the agency that was commissioned for the project, did a fantastic job of combining all of these elements to produce an ad like no other.
Fittingly the tagline for the for the Bravia
The other thing that I loved about this commercial is that they made a how-to video for it. I love learning about anything and everything plus seeing any behind the scenes for almost everything.
So, this is the beginning of what is hopefully and interesting look at advertising and other things [re: ramblings]. Please comment, please criticize, please send me ideas for articles, and please share the things you find interesting.