My Favorite Advertisements?
Hey kids, do you wonder why Grandpa or Grandma is so screwed up? It’s because of ads like this from the Soda Pop Board of America. Read that copy!! Not surprisingly, that’s a reversed image of a Coca-Cola bottle.
[Caution: this is one of those posts that started small and, well, just got out of hand as I began mulling over things. Enjoy. Or not.]
This is a peculiar post, because I am weary of ads. Ads are all you now see on TV, online, by the road, and in printed material. We’re inundated by the stuff, so now ad men are advertising in a “viral” way so that it appears to not be what it is. So, it takes some effort for me to think back and ask myself, “What ads have I actually enjoyed?” There aren’t many.
The first is a whole series put out by the Doyle Dane Bernbach firm for Volkswagen in the 1960s, when the task was to market a car designed in the 1930s, a “people’s car” to highlight progress from the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in the Fatherland. It was an antediluvian copy of an existing Tatra model, but it was still well thought out for what it was in that era, and it was inordinately tough. The Beetle was small and homely, and once it was timidly pushed into the market in an era when “longer, lower, wider” prestige were what sold, it was bought only by a few minimalist nonconformists seeking relief from the fins, chrome, and tonnage. What did the mainstream market look like? Like this:
The new 1960 Pontiac!
Or this: Read more…
Strolling Amok 