Advertising

This post is a turn-around from what I've done previously. Here, I'd like primarily to expose some stuff I've found, rather than generate some way of thinking about something. I feel as though advertising is something I know very little about, and one lecture was definitely not enough for me to make an opinion that I could type out for an hour. So, instead, I just googled and tried to come up with some sweet ads. This site had a zillion, so I picked my three (3.5?) favorite. There's four, and two are from the same campaign.

Tide Football Ad
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/tide_football?size=_original
This has some just wonderful graphic art done for it. I love the juxtaposition of the small red blob with the large white one, and I feel like the logo feel is right-on.

World Vision Sex Trafficking PSA
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/world_vision_sentence
This is pretty intense. I don't think it necessarily is a grammatical sentence, but if you don't pass out by the end, it really doesn't matter anyways. It's certainly bold, but in a non-obnoxious way. Maybe because its message is actually agreeable?

Same message, new medium
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/world_vision_do_disturb?size=_original
The reason I'm posting this one as well is because it utilizes a totally unheard of medium. Now, there's always the problem of reading it as "do not disturb" out of habit, but 10/10 for the idea. I'm curious to think about campaigns that rely entirely on media such as this one.

Penguin Books Success Story
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/penguin_books_malaysia_success?size=_original
At this point, I can't really think straight. But this is a really good ad, I have to say. Between the allusions, puns, ironies and great graphic work, I feel smarter just reading it. Well isn't that strange. I suppose that's really what they were going for. Maybe I'll feel smarter if I read books printed by Penguin.

What have I learned by looking at a hundred ads and picking the ones I liked best? Well, first of all, they're edgy. Edgy is really an overused word, in my opinion. But then again, about the only non-buzzword we actually mention in vital ideation is "ideation". And "ecomimicry", but we made that one up. Go figure. Anyhow, edginess comes in many forms, and it's a fine line between tasteful and tasteless. However, because those lines for each individual don't match up, it certainly seems in a firms best interest to design somewhere along an average edginess for an average audience.

Ah, well now that I've spent an hour doing this post, I feel like I could go on for another hour. Perhaps some other time...