Art & Copy

We recently watched the film Art and Copy in my Advertising & Imagery class. It shows some of the advertising industries most influential characters, and there work in the industry. It also showed how the major organizations such as Tommy Hilfigire and how they rises to the top tier of their respective industries practically over night. One character I really enjoyed during the film was Lee Clow who has been called the "advertising art director guru" by Advertising Age. He focused on breaking away from the normal attire of the business place and put a huge emphasis on creativity and focused on an environment were people can comfortably present and use there idea's no matter how controversial they may be. Another one of the influential characters in the film that liked to push the limit was George Lois who was the man that put Hilfigire on the map virtually over night.

George Lois pointed out something that I found very interesting during the film. You have to take the chance while making an ad, you have to push the envelope and make a ad that takes a shot at the big names. It's an awesome idea because while he did work with Hilfigire he took a shot at the bigger organizations like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein by comparing their names to the emerging brand.

I'll use the ad shown to also start posing a question, is the advertiser responsible for alerting us that we are participating in/with the ad. Louis' ad clearing is alerting us that we need to participate with the ad for us to even get the face meaning. But what about ads that we don't know we are participating in? Do they lose anymore meaning with us? I personally think that the advertiser is responsible for alerting us. If it is not clear then the ad can fall on its face and lose its power to persuade.

Diving deeper into the question you want the viewers participation because it creates a more memorable experience for the individual but it needs to be easy to grasp yet stimulating. This may be a double edge sword, ethics come in to play with some ads push the limit of viewers a little too far and can be offensive. But I think that when the question is examined in terms of ethics the ad agencies should not be held accountable. Instead it should be on the companies and media outlets that run their ads. For example Vogue should be held accountable to screening the ads and making sure that their viewers wont be angered. I think this is the natural course of action because when ads go too far you never here bad about the ad agency but rather you blame the newspaper, magazine or network that aired the ad.

A good example example of ads that might have gone too far are these shock ads.

Art and Copy was an awesome film that captivated me with all the stories of the ad campaigns and their guru's behind them. The other thing that I really enjoyed about the film was that if you watch it while thinking of a question like the one raised it really makes you think about the advertisers. Ad agencies and the people are always looking to raise the bar and turn heads. Advertising is a different world in itself and the movie is a fun way to look at it!

The Century of Manipulation

I recently watched the documentary The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis. The documentary shows how those have used Freud's work and adapted it in an attempt to control the masses of people in our society.
While watching this highly interesting and in-depth documentary one portion really stood out to me which I would like to give a little more focus on. In the first part of the film Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, also known as the creator of public relations, is shown to be the first to use Freud's work to influence the art of manipulation. Bernays came to the idea of public relations while in Europe looking at how propaganda had glorified an individual during war and wanted to achieve this in time of peace.
Bernays' early experiments included creating a want for women to smoke which at the time was very taboo. He went to the aid of A. A. Brill, a psychoanalyst, told him that if he could turn smoking into a way of challenging male power concerning cigarettes. He coined it the torches of freedom which showed women smoking in public. This exciting peace of work done by Bernays using the help of psychoanalysis made it socially acceptable for women to smoke.
The first part of the film brings more of a focus to the change that took place and the few beginnings while the latter parts support the purpose of the documentary. Bernays truly helped changed America from a needs society to a desire driven society.
This was only within the first twenty minutes of the film and it continues to get better and better throughout the film. If you would like to check out the film the first link will bring you to a website to watch the documentary for free. We truly live in a century of manipulation and it is a fascinating subject.