-- Enric
--- In [email protected], "Jan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Jen! Well said. Brava, chica.
>
> I deeply relish walking the goofy line between art and commerce, but
for my
> own nefarious art purposes, advertising stuff and people and ideas I
admire
> and I daresay, love. The advertisement is one of my favorite art forms.
>
> Check out this ad I took out in 11211 Magazine, wherein I've had half a
> dozen or so 1/4-page two-color ads in the last few years. This was
the first
> ad: < http://static.flickr.com/6/9940881_d18b25a602_o.jpg >
>
> XOX,
> Jan
>
> --
> "It isn't done alone. Pay more."
> http://fauxpress.blogspot.com - movement
> http://dagnyhemingway.blogspot.com - machinima
> http://vlogpresskit.blogspot.com - media
> http://blog.urbanartadventures.com - literature
> http://the-hold.blogspot.com - art
> http://homepage.mac.com/janmclaughlin/loveletter/iMovieTheater26.html -
> filmmaker
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jen Simmons" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 8:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [videoblogging] Current Contradiction
>
>
> don't be duped.
>
> the advertising companies have realized that the 30 second spot where
> they say "buy this product, it's the best one, it will do great things
> for you" is dead. No one buys the rhetoric anymore. (Compare that to
> 40-50 years ago when our culture was such that most people would say
> "really? That's the best one? Oh I'll have to be sure to buy that." I
> remember my grandparents being very trusting like that. It seems so
> naive now, but that's how advertising worked several decades ago.)
>
> These days, given how skeptical we have gotten, and how quickly we
> change the channel / look away from the billboard, now the advertising
> companies are trying to figure out what technique is the new best way
> to get people to buy / get truly interested in/ be loyal to the object
> of their advertising campaign. Some are working hard at the product
> placement angle: so if viewers are going to change the channels when
> the commercials come on during The Apprentice, we'll make the product a
> major part of the show.... we'll get the viewer to imagine how they
> might sell this product in the streets of New York or design and event
> promoting the product... and then the idea goes, that viewer will be
> more likely to think -- hey I want that / I want to buy that when they
> are in the store. (Do you really think Trump + "the executives" cares
> about a badly-done party in a NYC bar to promote _X_? Hell no! It's the
> 20 minutes of screen time that _X_ gets while following around the
> group planning that party that matters.) Or Survivor... imagine being
> in a jungle for 23 days... you haven't had anything to eat besides some
> boiled snails. And then, all of a sudden you work your ass of and win a
> contest by a fraction of a second, and WOW for your reward you get a
> Coke and a Snickers !!! Man, wouldn't that taste good! Hey, I can go to
> the store across the street and get a Coke and a Snickers myself, right
> now, man that would taste good... yum, let me go buy that....
>
> There are many other approaches -- I'm sure you see them everywhere,
> too. The text message / internet survey contest. The cool billboard
> with "no" ad that just has the URL to go to a website -- 16 zillion of
> them, all giving tiny clues, but none tying directly to an obvious
> product. Crazy MySpace promotions. I can see a push and pull between
> the advertising creatives and the corporate executives -- where the
> creatives are saying, hey, there's this cool new way to get to people,
> let's try this, and the conservative fearful executives are saying: why
> should we pay you to play on MySpace or to put up a zillion billboards
> that don't even have our product's name on it??? But as the fears of
> these executives subside, we will be seeing more and more and more and
> more of this kind of all-inclusive, 'secret' advertising.
>
> Infiltrating the "independent film" scene is just one more part of
> their 'try everything to find the next big hit' approach. I've seen
> film festivals that are all about getting indie filmmakers to create
> "short films" for major corporations like BMW and Nike and Dock Martin
> and American Express. The corporation gives the filmmaker $20,000 (or
> $5,000 or $50,000) -- which seems like a HUGE budget to us artists
> trying to make work on $0 or $500, but which is a total steal for a
> corporation use to paying _much_ more than that for a 30 second
> commercial. The terms of the deal is different every time, but it can
> be / is frequently like this: filmmaker gets to make "any film they
> want", with a plot and characters, and a cute / cool / action-packed
> story. (right "any film they want". How about a film with characters
> who are gay or have lefty politics or ____? ) Frequently the product of
> the campaign does NOT have to be in the commercial (although I see
> filmmakers putting the product in anyway, just out of 'love' /
> appreciation for getting such a 'huge' budget for their 'artistic'
> work). Then the corporation looks cool to the indie film world for
> 'supporting the arts' -- and buzz spreads via word of mouth and the
> internet about how cool this thing is. The finished films are put on
> the corporation website with a lot of dressing to make the whole
> project seem like its about filmmaking / the arts // like it's a film
> festival or something. Tons of traffic is driven to the site by all the
> cool buzz.... and oh, while you are at the site, hey, you know, like,
> check out the shoes. And when you are in the show store and are trying
> to figure out which shoe is cooler... well, you know.
>
> Sometimes specific filmmakers are hired to make a film, other times
> there's an open contest held, and anyone can submit a film, which
> serves to create even more buzz. Again, the contest isn't usually a
> contest for an ad (although sometimes it is) -- it's an "independent
> film contest"... but at the root, the entire thing is an advertising
> campaign.
>
> I think it's confusing for people -- definitely blurring the line
> between art and adverting. And hey, many of us do work for major
> corporations, and many of us do make commercials for a living. Of
> course, that's a valid choice, and can be very creative... but at least
> in those cases you know you are working in advertising and you know you
> are making a commercial. You can put as much effort into the
> advertising that you want -- or not. You can take that money home and
> use it to make your own work. It gets weird to me when people are
> signing up for these campaign contests without realizing what's going
> on -- what the bottom line purpose of these things is. It seems like
> people's personal creative process and art-making is getting eaten
> alive by the advertising machines and we don't even quite realize
> what's going on. Just check out "We Are the Media" and see how many
> "hey dudes, look at this coool contest" promos are listed. What in the
> world does that have to do with the idea of _we_ being the media?
> That's like We Are Getting Courted by 'the Man' to Make Media / Aren't
> We Cool / We Have Arrived.
>
> I think this solicitation by L'Oreal and Current TV is exactly one of
> these advertising campaign infiltrations. It's a major corporation
> realizing that just putting a perfectly gorgeous airbrushed face in
> slow-mo over a white background with amazing lighting doesn't really
> convince people of anything anymore. Every cosmetic and hair product
> 30-second spot is doing exactly the same thing -- so instead.... use
> some feminist rhetoric, mix in the embracing of the indie film /
> videoblogging world, add a bit of 'everyday-people' aesthetics -- in a
> kind of anti-perfection = _real_ = you can trust us... and wa-la, a
> whole new advertising craze is born. And we fall for it like my
> grandparents fell for the "our toilet cleaner works better than anyone
> else's" of 50 years ago.
>
> It's sad that the advertising world might be all over videoblogging
> before the general public is. (That didn't happen to text blogging.)
> It's sad that this personal creativity explosion is getting eat alive
> this fast. I don't want everyday people to spend their time making
> short films that corporations are using to look cool. I want everyday
> people to make new work, different than the masses, unusual and perfect
> in its own way, that expresses what is truly on people's minds and in
> people's hearts. I want to be blown away by people I don't know
> expressing themselves in ways I could never image. That's why it's
> upsetting to me to see people copying this media that's designed to
> sell products and sell ideas and sell the rise and profit of major
> corporations that are not acting in the best interest of _people_, but
> instead are solely designed to maximize profits for their shareholders,
> no matter what the cost to the environment or to their workers or to
> public health. Those corporations want to take over the imagination of
> the vlogosphere... and they are. Do we want to fall for that?
>
> jen
>
>
>
> jenSimmons
> http://www.jensimmons.com
> On May 15, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Josh Wolf wrote:
>
> > Hey everyone, Current TV is currently working with L'Oreal, a
> > cosmetics company, to solicit videomakers to profile women whom they
> > know who are "women of worth." (http://www.current.tv/studio/create/
> > vcam_loreal_wow.html) - I'm curious how the vidoblogging community
> > feels about an ad campagin sponsored by a cosmetics company to
> > profile women who are working to improve the world they live in?
> >
> > Obviously a series of PSA's giving these women credit for the work
> > they are doing would be a good thing, but, is the fact that this
> > thing is being underwritten by a cosmetics company and considered an
> > advertisement by Current diminish the redeeming quality the project
> > might otherwise have?
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Josh
>
>
>
>
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