Advertising is not art, and this art is not advertising

Via Ads of The World

The concept for this Brazilian lingerie ad is simple enough: Even famously-topless mermaids can't resist a Nonsanta bra. But the execution? The illustration is dark, desperate and utterly unpersuasive.

I am always baffled when art directors take the first part of the titles too seriously. The "art" of advertising is about clear and memorable visual communication, not forcing the viewer to work to develop their own interpretation of its deeper meaning.

Art is a wonderful thing. Advertising is not. But it has an important job to do.

What examples of ads overshadowed by their art have you seen recently?

Amnesty ad compares arms trade to tsunami disasters

(Cross-posted at Osocio)


Oh, dear. Remember this fiasco?

Created by DDB Brazil for WWF Brazil, it ignited a firestorm of protest, which WWF's international office first disavowed, then admitted may have been the approved regionally. On this year's September 11th anniversary, Buzzfeed's Copyranter named it #1 in his list of "The Five Worst 9/11 Exploitation Ads".

You could say that it simply tells an inconvenient truth about inconsistent cultural attitudes towards tragedy and death. But that point would be made at the expense of causing further hurt to the families of the World Trade Centre attack, as well as to those deeply affected by it.

Now, strangely, the 2005 tsunami tragedy that is being exploited to make a point about war and the arms trade:

The ad is by TBWA, Paris, for Amnesty International.


This brings the saga of over-produced, tragedy-exploiting ads full circle: "an epic and tragic natural disaster killed more people than an infamous terrorist act, but the arms trade is even worse."

(Admittedly, it could also be a reference to the more recent Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.)

Once again, creatives go for maximum impact to make one message of human loss at the cost of trivializing another. This kind of trade-off is a devil's bargain, in my opinion. It's all bad. You don't need to get into a comparison of which is worse. From my perspective this looks like lazy strategy and the elaborate (yet derivative) execution is blatant award-bait.

And I say this as a member of Amnesty. You can do better than this. You often do.


Tip via Ads of the World

No one will hear you...

When I first saw this ad on Ads Of The World, my first thought was that it was a campaign against domestic violence. But then I saw the other two:

They're ads for soundproofing, from Ogilvy Thailand. But the symbolism would work well to portray neighbours not listening as well as it shows not being heard.

Nice art direction.

F'd Ad Fridays: Really Slitty Ads

These ads, for an automatic door closer thingie company in Brazil, only sort-of work when you view them at full size. So click the pics, squint your eyes and prepare to be...

...confused? Here's a hint. This one is called "cocaine".

This one is called "crossdressing".

And this on is "Thief". Yeah, it doesn't work at all. But just look at all the whitespace! These "slits" are an Art Director's fantasy.

Ads by Dim`Canzian`Facci, São Paulo, Brazil.

Via Ads of The World.

In defence of nothing

The National Post reports that Mississauga City Councillor Carolyn Parrish has declared war on the "overuse" of colour and whitespace in city print ads, challenging Mississauga's communication people to reduce their ad budget by 30%.

Now, I'm all for being efficient, and I appreciate the Councillor's push to get her city's communications into the modern digital world. But the insistence that municipal ads are "too large, utilize too much blank space or have too many colorized features" is something I have heard many times before. And it's a mistake.

Smart use of whitespace (or "negative space") is an important technique used to get print ads noticed, especially when they're floating in a text-heavy page of editorial.




For example, this sentence, with no other art direction to help it, stands out.




Unfortunately, though, many clients look at their media spending, and dislike the idea of paying for several column inches of nothing. And you end up with a mess like this:



Instead of a show-stopper, like this:



Restrained use of colour highlights can also be effective:



So, if there's one thing I'd like to say to people like Councillor Parrish, it's give your print ads a break. They need all the help they can get.