I consider myself a student of all forms of visual art, and that includes the art of the ad. Despite all of my doodling and paintings, I do have a (useless) degree in graphic design from an accredited school, so I've definitely spent time learning how to operate in the overlap in the Venn Diagram of art and commerce. Some ads, particularly from the 1900s through the 1960s, have very succinct illustration styles associated with their particular periods that I enjoy immensely. Others, as the decades progressed into the 70s, 80s and beyond, with more photography-based ad work, have various lighting and stylistic earmarks that I enjoy.
Sometimes you see an ad campaign that is clear, concise, obvious in what it's trying to get across to the consumer. The brand in question has a transparent tone and recognizable visual language, as most do, and with the application of a clever catchphrase or memorable image, it becomes, at least, a memorable ad; at best, a pop cultural reference point. Sometimes you see an ad that moves into abstract territory, but still works despite its ambiguity. Here are some fun examples of that. Note: I said successful, not "good". Despite an ad's success, the quality lies in the subjective eye of the beholder. I'll let you be the judge of that.
The ads I've chosen for this post fall into one of two categories: either weirdly unimaginative or overly obvious; kind of a middle marker in the ad land mentioned above. They are largely for consumer electronics (with a liquor ad tossed into the mix). I don't necessarily find these ads "bad", per se; I'm more intrigued by the choices that led to their execution.
1. Pioneer DEX-77 CD/Tuner
We have an image of a woman looking somewhere between a Nagle and a Olivia De Bernardinis painting, with an image of the car CD player face clumsily collaged on her eyes as if they were sunglasses. I guess it's going for a cyberpunk aesthetic, but it just doesn't seem to really gel with the elegance of the rest of illustration. And the re-use of the same image of the CD player display at the bottom of the page seems pointlessly redundant. Another weird choice is the "The DEX-77" text in large serif type, angling from the very wordy column of ad text on the left of the page, towards the woman's partially covered chin. It's spaced poorly, it doesn't bridge any information from one side to the other; it just looks like an afterthought.
2. The Searcher 7000
Sex sells, clearly. What a topless woman with her jeans unbuttoned has to do with The Searcher 7000, I couldn't say. Is it suggesting the two are comparable? That The Searcher 7000 boombox is the audio machine equivalent of a hot and ready sexual partner? Is it suggesting that the woman is turned on by the stereo? I have no idea. Maybe it's as simple as a woman covering her chest with a portable stereo with speakers that symbolically could be suggestive of breasts. I guess I'd like to see the hard numbers (pun intended) on how many units were purchased after the release of this ad. It has the backlighting-and-fan-enhanced glamour and natural sex appeal of a halcyon 1970s-era Playboy pinup.
Maybe cassettes were miniature reel-to-reel sex magnets! I don't know, cassettes were fazed out in favor of CDs about the time I was a junior in high school, so I wouldn't know. This Sony ad (below) seems to be part of the "exposed flesh while listening to tunage" marketing campaign. I have a number of practical questions about this one.
3. AKAI VS-IU VCR
This is one I find charming in its oddball nature. Of course a guy sitting on his theater seat-red sofa, with generic, brand-less paper popcorn and soda cups, would be planted in the cerulean glow of his television, because the AKAI VS-IU VCR unit is comparable to a theater quality experience in the home! Right? Something about the fact that the man in the ad isn't a model-quality hunk, but more of a dorky everyman, and the goofy expression on his face–somewhere between joy and watching in anticipation as his stitched-together creation is receiving the juice that may or may not bring it to life–really makes me enjoy this generally gloomy presentation.
4. Tanqueray Gin
My research tells me that this ad is from 1989. I don't know if the art director for whatever firm handled this project was consciously referencing punk rock or not, but if they were, they were a little behind the times. By about five years. At this point the fashionistas from the more fashion-conscious English and L.A. punk scenes had moved on to the witless hardcore movement and were more concerned with shaved heads and 3/4-length cargo shorts than with colorful hair and cool shades. The Strip wasn't hopping with The Germs and Black Flag so much as with WASP and Poison. Visually striking? Yes. A male model who looks like he could be a long-standing veteran of The Bold And The Beautiful very adroitly communicating what a cool dude he is, and, how cool Tanqueray is by association (though I think they wanted it the other way around). It comes across as a bit generic in that, hair color aside, this could be an ad for anything from that time period. That bottle of gin could, and essentially was, replaced with anything and everything from cigarettes to a Nintendo game to the then-latest Mötley Crüe album.
My research tells me that this ad is from 1989. I don't know if the art director for whatever firm handled this project was consciously referencing punk rock or not, but if they were, they were a little behind the times. By about five years. At this point the fashionistas from the more fashion-conscious English and L.A. punk scenes had moved on to the witless hardcore movement and were more concerned with shaved heads and 3/4-length cargo shorts than with colorful hair and cool shades. The Strip wasn't hopping with The Germs and Black Flag so much as with WASP and Poison. Visually striking? Yes. A male model who looks like he could be a long-standing veteran of The Bold And The Beautiful very adroitly communicating what a cool dude he is, and, how cool Tanqueray is by association (though I think they wanted it the other way around). It comes across as a bit generic in that, hair color aside, this could be an ad for anything from that time period. That bottle of gin could, and essentially was, replaced with anything and everything from cigarettes to a Nintendo game to the then-latest Mötley Crüe album.
5. Sharp Personal Stereos
Perhaps more so than the others, this one is definitely a bit of its time preserved in digital amber. Though the 80s and early 90s have hit hard again as en vogue nostalgia radiates to placate aging thirty-somethings who were children from that time. Just check out this KitKat commercial, should you need proof. It was made in 2017, by the way, not 1987. Yes, this ad looks like a static, 2-D version of the Saved By The Bell opening credits sequence, but it also has a lot of movement and color and is bouncing with a visual jazz that doesn't get utilized a lot today. These days we're all about the understatement. lowercase serif fonts. with periods. after every couple words. just casual. I like the noise and bombast and the colors! Yeah, it's a dumb ad trying to sell us portable cassette players, but it's doing a hell of a lot better job enticing us than the Sony Walkman ad below it.
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