Posts Tagged ‘advertisements’
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are”*…
Food regularly plays a role in religious life, in forms that range from communion wine to Kahlua cheesecake…
A sampling of 34 cloistered comestibles: “A Guide of Heavenly Cuisine.”
* Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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As we devour with devotion, we might recall that it was on this date in 1993 that the first “Got Milk?” ad premiered. Created by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board, it was later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers nationwide. The campaign launched with the now-famous “Aaron Burr” television commercial, directed by Michael Bay.
“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable”*…
Camille Corot – Recollections of Mortefontaine
Artist Etienne Lavie has taken photos of Paris in which advertisements in the background are replaced with classical paintings…
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – La Lecture
See more of the series– “OMG Who Stole My Ads?”– at Lavie’s site.
[via Laughing Squid]
* George Bernard Shaw
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As we appreciate the finer things, we might recall that it was on this date in 1886 that Thomas Eakins, the realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and teacher widely regarded as one of the most important artists in American art history, resigned from the Philadelphia Academy of Art. Eakins, almost obsessively interesting in the precise rendering of the human form, had stirred scandal in the school by employing a nude male model in one of his classes.
Eakins’ self-portrait
The authors of yesteryear…
Vintage ads for vintage books– at Flavorwire.
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As we luxuriate in the Lost Generation, we might send lyrical birthday greetings to Edgar Lee masters; he was born on this date in 1868. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman. But he is best remembered for the Spoon River Anthology. A friend had given him a copy of Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, a collection of 4,000 poems written between 700 B.C. and 1000 A.D.; the short autobiographical poems inspired Masters to write his masterpiece– and thus to have the deep influence that he did on writer in the 20s.
In a flash (mob)…
Over 27 million YouTube viewers have watched Saatchi & Saatchi’s “T-Mobile Dance,” a (supposed) flash mob that comes together at London’s Liverpool Station in terpsichorean tribute to the wireless carrier– and winner of “Commercial of the Year” at 2010’s British Television Advertising Awards.
Rival agency M&C Saatchi took the same concept and used it in Beirut…
It’s no more a genuinely-spontaneous gathering than the British “mob” on which it riffs. But this testament to social media, shot (earlier this month,on March 5th) in a Middle Eastern airport in promotional service of international travel and commerce (Duty Free), coexists with the regional reality of spontaneous social and political unrest– unrest that actually has been abetted by social media, unrest that actually has the emergent character of flash mobs…
The ironies abound.
[via VSL]
As we monitor our Twitter feeds more closely, we might celebrate another example of “art-in-the-service-of-commerce imitating life– only more so”: on this date (April Fool’s Day) in 1963 that the ABC television network aired the premiere episode of General Hospital, the daytime drama that became the network’s (and television’s) most enduring soap opera– and the longest-running serial program produced in Hollywood. (The world’s longest-running soap opera currently airing on television is the British series Coronation Street, on air since December 9, 1960.)
85% confusion and 15% commission*…
Advertising is about selling desire, dreams. But compared to the dreams that animate the creators of advertising, well…
More glimpses into the fantasies of the Marketing-Industrial Complex at Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising.
* “Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission.” – Fred Allen
As we console ourselves with Thomas Jefferson’s observation that “the most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1985 that Playboy, a periodical valued by its loyal male readership for its enriching articles and informative advertisements, announced an end to the stapling of “centerfold” spreads.
1985 issues, unfettered by staples (source)
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