[lit-ideas] Re: The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 10 Apr 2004 21:58:41 PDT
John wrote:
1) Eye-catching
We live in a world saturated with advertising and other messages.
If an ad doesn't grab our attention, it doesn't work at all.
2) News
The ad must show us something new. Otherwise its message will
be quickly forgotten.
3) Easy to understand
In the effort to achieve 1) and 2) the creators of ads often forget
that
ads must speak to mass audiences; they must have a common touch.
4) Add value to the product or sponsor
If, as in the case that Julie remembers, we recall the ad but not the
product or sponsor, the ad has failed as advertising.
5) Move the product
This is the holy grail...
---------------------------------------
If these are the desiderata, why are they apparently kept secret from those who
create advertisements? (I'm thinking mostly of TV here, and the ineluctable
modality of the visible.)
We have trained ourselves to mute not only George Bush, but _every_ ad that
appears on TV. So, unlike Paul Stone, I don't remember the jingles or the
possibly (but unlikely to be) witty and informative dialogue. What I see are
spooky visions, virtually indistinguishable from each other, in which crowds of
people move in slow motion across barren landscapes or through urban settings
(e.g. up palatial stairs leading to faceless buildings), as if yearning for
something even they could not articulate. Some of these apparitions are
apparently in support of large financial institutions and mutual funds; others
are improbably related to MS software. (The rest I forget.) I see adults with
spoons stuck in their mouths after sampling breakfast cereal; grown men
cavorting because they now, thanks to Viagra (I think it is) have semi-permanent
erections; automobiles of various makes, indistinguishable from one another qua
objects, slithering down deserted roads in a faceless country, where love never
was. I see mammoth SUVs trashing mountain streams, dislodging Pleistocene
boulders. (This gets my attention, I'll admit: it makes me want to kill.) None
of this is even visually interesting.
Most of it would make a serious person retch. Thank God I am not a serious
person, although Mike Geary must have to take Dramamine if he watches TV at all.
It isn't just sort of bad--it's Chainsaw Massacre bad, Martian bad,
flesheatingbacteria bad. Why is this? Billions are spent on advertising? Shut
up! Nothing is spent on advertising. It is spent on movies of Freud's early case
studies made by people who wear their hair styled with gel, who coudn't spell
Nietzsche at gunpoint. But. These. Ads. Are. Approved. By. Advertising.
Departments. Of. Large. Corporations. Who. Have. Big. Bucks. To. Spend.
--Impossible!
Say it isn't true, John. All I remember is that for everything else there's
MasterCard.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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