Advertising

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Bollywood, Rick Astley, and the Israeli Arms Industry

Amid growing international concern over the India-Israel arms trade, the Israeli firm Rafael unveiled the below marketing video — described by Stephen Trimble of The Dew Line as a “catastrophic collision of Bollywood and the arms industry” - at the Aero India 2009 defense convention in Bangalore. In the months since its posting, the video has become the [...]

Pre-history of the jingle

Might the jingle be a very old thing, pre-dating radio and television? Here is Bakhtin trying to explain the type of orality featured in Rabelais through the medieval and early modern cris, or street cries:
“The cris were loud advertisements called out by the Paris street vendors, and composed according to a certain versified form; each [...]

The Art of the Commercial Break

Now that I’ve switched from Comcast to AT&T, and seem to only watch pre-recorded programs off the DVR, I’ve become a little more attuned to the importance of the commercial break. We may say we hate it, but when it’s gone, or artificially eliminated rather, it’s hard to shake the feeling that something important is [...]

Endowing the News

David Swensen and Michael Schmidt make the case for turning newspapers into non-profits funded by a university-styled endowment. But is it necessary to characterize print news as what’s saving us from the dirty internet, that “‘cesspool’ of false information”? The New York Times is, after all, by all international standards one of the least credible [...]

The Politics of Tag Clouds and Meme Tracking

The Politics of Tag Clouds and Meme Tracking

In a thought-provoking post on I cite, Jodi Dean describes the proliferation and popularity of ‘tag clouds’ as capturing “the shift from message to contribution characteristic of communicative capitalism”. That is, in place of meaning and context, which in actuality govern discourse, tag clouds display information in terms of repetition, frequency, and intensity.
“The meaning of [...]

The ad creep of Scotchcal “ad wraps”

The ad creep of Scotchcal “ad wraps”

In a story related to yesterday’s post on the new NYC Transit window ads, it was noted that the semi-transparent film on which these ‘wrap ads’ are printed is manufactured by 3M for specifically that purpose.
Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, said the agency hoped that the film, called Scotchcal, would [...]

Subway ads as scratchiti deterrents?

Subway ads as scratchiti deterrents?

I’ve been racking my brain trying to recall other instances where advertising has been used as a crime deterrence strategy - or at least this is what NYC Transit authorities are giving as the reason behind their new ad policy. According to Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times:
“Despite the M.T.A. budget shortfall, transit [...]

Putting anti-obesity ads on playgrounds is a really bad idea

Putting anti-obesity ads on playgrounds is a really bad idea

The placement of the above anti-obesity ad - on the seats of swings in a children’s playground - is wholly inappropriate. Even if obesity is a problem amongst children, the last thing in the world you should be doing is putting signs where they play that say, in effect, ‘you are fat’. Eating disorders, after [...]

A World Wildlife Fund ad that can’t seem to make up its mind

A World Wildlife Fund ad that can’t seem to make up its mind

Advertising Agency: Germaine, Antwerp, Belgium
Creative Director: André Plaisier
Art Directors: Alexis Bellavoine, Jeroen Goossens
Copywriter: Pieter Claeys
Photographer: Kurt Stallaert
Retouching: Edwin Veer
Published: October 2008
Now I may be wrong about this but I don’t think the World Wildlife Fund explicitly promotes vegetarianism. (They were in fact recently caught selling fish sticks to raise money for fish conservation; but on [...]

Ambivalence in the study of the consumer subject

In the chapter “Mobilizing the Consumer: Assembling the Subject of Consumption”, from their recent book Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life, Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose give a fine summary of the state of consumer/consumption theory.
It begins, appropriately, with a sketch of the profound ambivalence that has marked consumer studies since the [...]

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