Modernism and the LMS ad's.

The LMS ad's were created to reflect the modernist period of the time. Unlike the works of pre-modernism, the ad's are quite minimalist and simple, although colourful and eye catching. They were each created by different artists, but with the same colour blocked style poster appearance.

 

 

The ad's were created to advertise places of interest in the UK. They were created during a time of a rising population density, with rising cities and busier people. The ad's needed to be eyecatching and easily recognised, to be seen by the bustling and busy population. Also at the time, with photography becoming a threat to art, artists needed to find a different way of capturing people, with techniques such as colour blocking and minimalism. They may have also been purposely targeted toward those with a more busy city lifestyle, showing them that there is a quiet place outside of the complicated city, where they can relax and enjoy the simplicity.

 

 

 

 

 



M, M & M.

Magritte, Modernism and Meaning.

 

 

Magritte emerged in the advertising boom of the 1920's. Although well known as an artist, Magritte also became involved in advertising. This can be seen through his creative responses to society and advertising at the time.

 

Magritte's work suggests his response to industrialism, which would have been a significant change to society at the time, with the accessibility of transport such as trains and newly structured urban living.

 

Magritte also connected a relationship between words and images much like advertising, and found that they are able to reflect eachother. He believed that these reflections created meanings to be in 'a constant state of flux', suggesting that the meanings that were associated were changing constantly, with different perceptions and society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surrealism

Surrealism by nature is interesting, because its based around the surreal and the things you wouldnt see in everyday life. This itself makes it good for advertising, if it works, it intrigues the viewer. It's the human way to be curious and to want to find the answers to things, and since surrealism is the un-answerable it catches the eyes of the people who see it.

 

The pictures below are the ads for Absolut's 'In an absolut world' campaign. The campaign itself is based around surrealism, the things that could'nt happen, but what could happen in an ideal or 'absolut' world. Like the idea of buying the 'perfect man' in a box and putting him together yourself, or politicians who's noses grow when they lie, like pinocchio.

 

 

 

 

 

The picture below is a campaign for Lifebuoy hand wash, 'You eat what you touch'. As the picture suggests, your croissant is actually your cat if youve just pet your cat.

 

 

Influenced by Salvador Dali, a famous surrealist, this ad for Volkswagen perfectly illustrates surrealism. It shows the connection between high energy consumption and low energy consumption, depicting the Volkswagen Polo to be as energy consuming as clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

So Clean! The influences on Lever's Sunlight Soap ads.

 

 

William Lever was the founder of Sunlight Soap, and was the man who turned advertising around with his addition of art in advertising to a country where ads were predominantly copy.

 

 

 

Lever's influence for these ads mostly came from society and culture at the time. His ads were firstly inspired by art, such as the picture above, which would have been percieved as modern at the time. He chose art works depicting women mostly, wearing white materials or around white materials and also young children.  He chose these as having white coloured, clean materials and clothing at that time would have been a sort of luxury. Also, with culture at the time placing women in the home as housewives, women would have been the primary target market for the soap.

 

 

Lever's use of children in the ads was influenced by the high infant mortality rate at the time, he also brings connotations of youth, life and purity through their use.

 

 

During the first world war, Lever's ads were inspired by imperialism and Britishness, as can be seen in the above picture. The ad is also similar to war time propaganda, which would have been very popular at this time.



Myth-sterious advertising.

Myths, legends and known folklaw can be found within a lot of advertising, some that are obvious and some that secretly reference. They are used to (sometimes indirectly) further promote a product, such as the brand 'Nike' whose name is taken from the greek goddess Nike (greek goddess of victory) who is known for running and flying at a high speed, thus depicting the products uses in sport etc.

 

One of my favourites and most memorable ad's which promotes myth in advertising, is the skittles 'Midas Touch' campaign. Just as the name suggests, the ad is based around the myth of King Midas, who's touch turned objects to gold. Although in this version, everything that the man touches turns to Skittles. Just like the myth, the ad depicts the man's suffering although it is percieved by others as a gift, "But is it really awesome when you can’t hold your new born baby? (A line from the ad). This also linking Skittles with gold, therfore adding value while also being an interesting and comical ad.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0WBiME_fM

(The ad)

 

 

 

 

Along with Nike, there are also many other ad's who turn to Greek myths when advertising their product. A few I have found include Old Spice and Muller Greek Style Yoghurt.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtN9CW01QDM

 

The Old Spice Centaur campaign was to promote the new old spice 'double impact'. "its one thing that makes a really awesome thing out of two totally regular things" as the website says. The idea of a centaur, being half man and half horse sums Old Spice's idea's up perfectly, while also hinting the idea of strength, as Centaur's are usually depicted as warriors and such in Greek mythology.

 

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/features/1126409/

 

Much like the Old Spice campaign, Muller uses the Greek myth of Centaurs to promote its 'Greek Style Yoghurt'. The ad depicts two women conversing about the idea that fat free yoghurt is a myth, when the one leaves its then seen that the two women are actually centaurs, suggesting that what they believe to be a myth is real (fat free yoghurt) as we see that centaurs are real. There is no hidden meaning in this ad, unlike the Old Spice, the ad just uses the idea of myths to illustrate how fat free yoghurt isnt one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My chosen brand: Arriva

For this context of practice module, I have chosen to focus on Arriva.

 

"Arriva is one of the largest transport services organisations in Europe, employing some 47,500 people and delivering more than 1.5 billion passenger journeys across 12 European countries every year" - (Quote from http://www.arriva.co.uk/arriva/en/)

 



 

 

I have chosen to base this module on Arriva as it has been established since 1938 and operates accross Europe as well as in the UK. I also depend on these guys to get home to and from South Wales.

 

Its core principles are:

 

Safety

Community

Employees

Environment

 

 

Safety is obviously a 'big one' for Arriva, as operating travel services as they do can be quite a dangerous job and reputation for safety is crucial within the travel industry. Also, the environment plays a large part in the service as with the new scientific studies on climate change and carbon footprinting, Arriva must keep the environment in mind as to keep up with times, and to stay away from being sued by the government. And lastly employees and community; as the entire operation is only successful through the hundreds and staff and its placement within the communities accross where Arriva is situated.

 

 

As for branding, Arriva's logo is tagged onto all of its buses and trains. And as travel is a huge part of many peoples lives, not seeing the name 'Arriva' is pretty difficult.

Here are some ad examples for arriva.

 

 

Billboards

On a ATM machine screen.

On coasters

 
They also create awareness ad's, such as this one for anti-social behaviour.


A More Cultural Aston Martin!

 
Aston Martin zooms into India! and that's what we've been looking at today. Upon looking at Aston Martin's new venture into India we looked into the cultural adaptations of the ads, as any old British ad wouldnt quite fit the bill over there! We explored the cultural differences and how we would go about creating an ad for such a different part of the world

We found that the biggest dilemma with trying to advertise for any car in India is the traffic congestion, you can see from the above picture that even attemptin to drive around however long the journey would be a pain! We also looked into the target audience, we decided it would be the wealthy as they were the ones most likely to afford it.

 

 

We then looked into the cultural aspects of India, the ideas and concepts that we could bring into an ad campain. A topic that could incoorporate heritage and culture, while associating with cars is what was needed.

 

 

We then found that although British, the world has found a connection between Aston Martin and James Bond. So we decided to explore it.

 

We never did have time to fully complete our idea's into a campaign, but it was still a useful experience. I now know that when tackling the creation of a campain of a different culture the trick is to research, research and do some more research! Maybe even take a sneaky trip over there if you have the loan to cover you.