A few ways in which advertising has enriched my life
Occasionally I hear the complaint that advertising has ruined one song or another for its listener. The whine usually goes that some poor sod will now forever associate Let It Be with Persil Automatic or Rhythm is a Dancer with Pampers when they should have remained forever pure as a a context-free arrangement of musical notes.
Well, nothing exists in a vacuum so here is a random list of absolutely brilliant things I only found out about through advertising:
That Leftfield track off Surfer. It’s about 10% as good without the horses.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine.
In fact, a whole load of fifties and sixties soul through Levis.
Crosstown Traffic (I don’t have a copy of the relevant Wrangler ad. If Mr. Denton is reading this, perhaps he can send it over.)
What has advertising done for you?
all the above and chris cunningham, spike jonze and errol morris
Of course. And Kaye/Glazer.
And I got a pension at 22 because of an ad I read in the D&AD Copy Book. Whether that ends up as a good decision remains to be seen…
a house.
Alan Waldie.
Paul Arden.
Posh, fit birds.
Guinness isn’t genuinely good for you. VW’s aren’t particularly reliable and certainly not more so than Honda. A whole load of tosh has got into the public’s consciousness and we wonder why we got to where we got to.
Charlie Gillett.
Being shown how film actually works (used to be quite important a while back…)
One or two quite dreadful hangovers.
Write The Future
Windowlicker
Cog
Cannes
A house
Guaglione
Wassup
Levis
Awards Nights
Stunt City
Doing charity ads for no money
Frank (get well soon)
Tom & Walt
Tested
Old Spice
Tag
Getting blown in a toilet while snorting charlie of some fit posh birds back (a producer I think. I can’t remember now).
A drug habit.
Advertising funds many great things and make many enjoyable things possible for free, TV (Sopranos, The Simpsons, Come Dine with me) Radio, Cinema, Marathons (not the bar), Premier football, Tour de France, almost all sporting events, the intramawebs, the revenues from advertising in whatever form make these possible.
Oh and great sayings like, it does exactly what it says on the tin or just do it, or finger linkin’ good.
so this is supposed to be a serious blog deserving serious answers, yes?
dont ask what advertising has done for you. ask what you can do for the advertising community.
http://vimeo.com/28342311
the missus
the kids
the divorce
the father’s for justice batman suit
The Castlemaine XXXX ads.
Its given me flatulence.
That CLOO things seems like a weird rip off of the “iToilet” app featured in this Curb episode…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hSIIoyTKJA
This ad made me realise you don’t need to write a novel to say something profound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqk2U1MoaVQ
This ad made me realise you can film a whole movie in 60 beautiful seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVvlyHQVjs
This ad made me realise that tone of voice was everything:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bqq38WZctA
And they’ve each made me appreciate that brevity is much harder than it looks.
This post has made me realise it’s a long, long time since anyone did work this good.
A few ads got me into some music from these guys.
Joanna Newsom (Orange?). Violent Femmes (Fosters Ice?). Jose Gonzales (Sony).
anemia
…and the conviction that the shadow of the axe hangs over every joy
Nice anonymice.
Advertising has enriched my life by making me realize that 90% of things in it aren’t actually that important.