Monday, October 19, 2009

blurring subliminal lines




Subliminal advertising has always been something close to my heart,Its proof that Darwin's theory of evolution exists even in the world of advertising,The FDA and broadcasting ministry may not want products like alcohol and tobacco advertised in mass media but this has driven ad agencies and producers of these products A.K.A merchants of death, to evolve and find a loop hole in the system to show bottles of vodka on billboards and boy oh boy have they done it.If you deconstruct a Jack Daniels ad or a fosters ad, in essence they have to advertise a product by saying "look i can t show you what it is or tell you what it is, but just buy it anyway" and the beauty of it all is ... it actually works i saw the new absolut campaign which bravely sports the tag line absolut subliminal, these are the lengths that agencies are willing to go to push their product. and the creativity in these ads really comes on to its own as the makers of these ad s have to work within strong constraints, but there is a flip side, a slap across the face of subliminal advertising which can be seen in kingfisher s new campaign which boldly displays a can of drought beer but the advertiser s can get away with it since it does nt mention the product is alcoholic or neither shows the beer.
This is an ad made by a lawyer and not by a creative director.the end result is mass appeal but at the cost of creativity, Constraints are brought about so ad makers can push the envelope and go beyond slapping their product on the centerfold of a magazine.so the next time you look up at a bill board and don t see a pint but still fancy a drink, know that some one somewhere did a damn good job.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

The creative catastrophe


Creativity is often construed as a gift for those who hold their head high end attend tea parties wearing expensive tuxedos and speaking with an accent that begs an enema, but this not true these are the people that want to ape the creative bunch,creativity is a calling, its a state of mind, which is brought about by the will to be different. i m sure Beethoven thought he could do a better job than Mozart when he started composing his first symphony, creativity draws inspiration from something and then strives to make it better,and this is proof in advertising when i look at an ad i draw inspiration from it and constantly use that as a base to make it better.but creativity has taken a nosedive with advertising agencies rolling out identical insurance ad s where kotak mahendra looks the same as met life,creative ad s have become hard to find, with more advertisers moving to the rule of thumb "if all else fails put a puppy or M.S Dhoni in it.its a sorry state of affairs but lets hope and pray that some creative director somewhere is watching a fevicol ad and going hmmm i can make this better.