Let me start this post by saying I love commercials. I especially love commercials that are completely ambiguous until the very end. The new "Go Forth" campaign by Levi Jeans is attempting to bring back the American jean company to a more homely, down-to-earth visual aesthetic. I think we've all seen this ad but tell me what you think.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I think this video is very nice. I love the black and white footage and think it presents the jeans in a visually interesting way. The images are beautiful.
That being said, kind of along the same lines as what Ben said regarding the sheep video, it bothers me that this meaningful, quasi-political poem (Walt Whitman's "America") is reappropriated as an advertisement. Levi's Jeans have nothing to do with what Whitman is talking about here... which is essentially going forth and making the world yours, regardless of either your status, or that of the world. So to me, this comes off as somehow simultaneously pretentious and arrogant.
But again, if I disregard the audio and its message, the video is pretty cool.
Here's an interesting article about the video also:
http://adage.com/garfield/post?article_id=137733
Just to clarify, I haven't commented on the sheep video (though I like it and have seen it before in it's pre-advertistic state). I just want to state that it in no way bothers me to see these videos being appropriated by big companies for advertisements. Conversely, I think there is something oddly promising about this fact. I won't go into it all now here, but it also doesn't bother me that the commercial has nothing in particular to do with levi's. It is an intangible value that it creates, and it need not be more than that IMO. Commercial just continue to get better and better, smarter and smarter, more and more aesthetic. Again, IMO.
It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and critique advertisements, but it's also easy to sit in an ivory tower and appreciate ads for their "aesthetic" "smartness". Yeah, the Levi's ad looks good, but I'm sure Third Reich propaganda was aesthetically pleasing, and Hitler's speeches were nothing if not smart, and charismatic.
Advertisements are meant to sell product, and as Ben notes, they do this by attaching their (rather marginally important) goods to intangible value: happiness, freedom, virility, youth, independence, et cetera. These are intangible because they rely on spiritual and emotional fulfillment that in my mind should not rely on material posession. IMO.
I feel strongly about this highly sophisticated and highly subliminal advertising because I feel it has largely contributed to the passive, apathetic, and depressed America we live in today. People are overweight because they're looking for the happiness McDonald's promises them in a burger, they are in debt because they spend all their money searching for the freedom in a Ford Expedition or the marital harmony in a Tiffany bracelet.
Ads like these are so much more than just smart, or good looking. They are selling a lifestyle and people are buying into it. I find it completely irrational to accept this as status quo (just as we accept late capitalism as status quo), IMO. Just saying.
Aha! Nicely put, Joanna. A more impassioned dialogue is forming here, and I encourage others to chime in for sure. 1st, I need to ask, what kind of alternative do you imagine? When, I would ask, or where, in history, have people been anything but what we are today. Do you think if you offered everyone the opportunity to solve their apathy or depression by going back to the land, and spending their whole day milking, farming, and building with manual labor (sans PDA), that it would be a more preferable world? I want someone to suggest a serious alternative to the current situation that isn't just a complaint about the way things are. As it is, I think it's pretty good that we have tiffany bracelets to advertise and not third reich. But in reality, we are exposed to lots of propaganda too. Political campaigns push for various stances on ideals from abortion to health care and death penalty. Even Whitman uses it's own means of creating a propoganda-ish image for people to want to BUY an education here. I mean, when does it stop? How does it stop? What should we do to change it? Why would we change it if it is pleasuring us all? Hasn't capitalism in many ways been tied to the quest for freeing us up to work less and thus,be carefree and apathetic if we choose? What is the new goal for change? How do you imagine a truly happier or more functional or healthy world? What should we do? Make a communicative commercial about why we shouldn't make seductively aesthetic commercials? I'm being a bit devil's advocate here, but I would really like people to throw out what they see as a viable alternative to this type of material culture, and not just to argue against it as this "bad" thing. Whatever your vision, can you imagine yourself in it? Maybe even try to create it (though that of course is a tall order). What does it look like? Hope to see some more comments, thoughts, opinions pile up here.
I really like this commercial. The footage seems raw and in real time while presenting a sense of real people. The cinematography is really captivating. I think what Levi is doing realigning themselves with America creates a certain sense of nationalism that really has nothing to do with jeans. Either way, the images are very beautiful and I agree with Joanna that the purpose of ads is to sell products and tap into a certain ideal or lifestyle in order to so.
Post a Comment