recent ads i've seen/heard

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Lately I've noticed advertisements getting smarter. . . from the Mini Cooper's fake milk carton in The New Yorker to Jeep's fake soak-in-water-to-watch-it-grow toy in Jane . . . and on the radio, more & more ads are sounding like actual songs & it goes far beyond McDonald's new hip/urban thing [i.e. "i'm lovin' it"]. I don't really know if this is something to talk about or what, I just find it sort of disturbing how these ads are self-aware yet very sneaky.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Can advertising become so self-aware that it doesn't work as advertising any more? Like, can the jingles come so close to songs that they just become songs and don't really make an impression as being about a product any more?

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't know . . . i mean, how different is it from brand placement within songs (for example, rap artists mentioning a specific liquor or whatever). somehow, i see this as different. maybe more subliminal or something.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:16 (twenty-one years ago)

We love the subs...
'Cause they are tasty subs...

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:54 (twenty-one years ago)

― kelsey (kelstarry), Monday, 28 June 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

It seems that advertising is becoming more sophisticated across the board--from gmail ads targeting an e-mail content-specific audience to increased product placement in television to clever art in magazines to deceptively non-jingle-like music on the radio to the increased use of real pop songs in advertising (e.g. the Cure's "Pictures of You" in the HP ad campaign).

A few years ago, Bulgari commissioned a novel by Fay Weldon to use as an ad vehicle, which I then thought was the pinnacle of evil advertising. I wonder if such a commission is qualitatively any different from, say, Renaissance patronage from the nobility or the church?

I think the line between art and commercial culture has always been more blurry than most artists are comfortable with. I agree that there's something sinister about ads masquerading as art, but I sometimes wonder if it isn't better to encourage commercial artists to raise their game. If we're going to be surrounded by advertising anyway, why shouldn't it be clever and sophisticated? Why shouldn't Quiznos embrace and highlight outsider art and get their product noticed in the process? Why shouldn't the Mini Cooper ad in the New Yorker be as clever as a Zadie Smith story? Even if it takes us a few seconds longer to realize it, we, as critical consumers, still recognize it as an ad. Maybe it's better than being treated like an idiot.

Or maybe it's completely evil. No matter how I try to rationalize it, I'm still more convinced by the latter notion...

― mck (mck), Monday, 28 June 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Kelsey, I assume the "?" was for me. Quiznos Subs has a series of commercials with some little mutated bulging-eyeballed monkeys singing "We love the subs," etc. They are very strange and cool commercials.

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WeLoveTheSubs.jpg

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:14 (twenty-one years ago)

The Quiznos press release says monkeys, but I think they look like hamsters.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

They are very strange and cool commercials.

"Cool?" I think they are fucking disturbing at best. Annoying as fuck at worst.

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:27 (twenty-one years ago)

To each his own. Disturbing is good in my book, and I don't see them often enough to get annoyed. (Once every 7-10 days at most.)

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

No, don't get me wrong... I'm not discounting your right to find them cool.

Disturbing is good in my book too, but in this case I meant it in the "It's disturbing that somebody thought this was a good marketing idea."

We have a TiVo where I live, so thankfully I don't have to view commercials much anyhow.

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

That's what I think is cool about the campaign. "Somebody at The Martin Agency actually talked the Quiznos execs into giving them money to produce these things. It gives me hope that all things are possible in this crazy world.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

You decide:

"all things are possible in this crazy world"

"quiznos' execs are a bunch of [possibly mentally challenged] kids"

It's a toss up really, no?

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I do see your point however.

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

The possibility that a bunch of mentally challenged kids are making big money selling sandwiches also gives me hope about this crazy world.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:47 (twenty-one years ago)

That should be Quizno's next campaign. A bunch of kids with Down's Syndrome sitting around a big boardroom table trying to come up with ways to sell sandwiches. It'd be as funny as it is meta!

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:52 (twenty-one years ago)

And the campaign they'd come up with would be the little bulging hamsters. Instant Moebius strip.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i liked the new audi / escher ad i saw last night, a real audi driving through an escher-esque townscape.

(i give it about 8 hours before JtN starts a new thread about how great the new audi / escher ad is)(not that i'm bitter...) 8)

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 07:19 (twenty-one years ago)

The Quiznos subs look like they are by the Rather Cool Videos guy (Pete Ashton) who did the Switch Maestro ads in the UK after being a hit on the web.

http://www.rathergood.com/

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 08:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Rather Cool = Rather Good obv

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 09:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i thought rathergood was all Joel Veitch...

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

oops yeah you're right.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

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