Post-Ironic Commercials
There are a couple of commercials I've seen lately that just make me wonder what the hell the advertisers are thinking. Or are they thinking at all? The first is a GE commercial for cleaner coal technology that shows supermodels working in the mines. Yes, they're beautiful. Yes, they're ripped. Yes, they're sweaty. No, they don't appear to have black lung. All this is incongruous enough, but they soundtrack it with Tennessee Ernie Ford singing his huge hit from somewhere in the mists of the past, Merle Travis's "Sixteen Tons." Yes, that's right, GE chose a song that blasts the coal industry's vicious, immoral exploitation of its workers. And they don't even bother to edit around the words that damn their own industry:
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Do they think people won't notice the disconnect? Are they right? Adweek and the Chicago Sun-Times are both impressed. Here's a link where you can decide for yourself (scroll down--you'll recognize the ad we're talking about).
The second commercial that strikes me as weird is one for Target that uses a duet by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.: "Me and My Shadow." I first heard this a couple of years ago, and it's certainly got its camp appeal, especially as it spotlights how tone deaf the culture at large of forty years ago was to racial insensitivity. But using it in a commercial doesn't make a wry statement about racial insensitivity, it just assumes that insensitivity for itself. Has this not occurred to anyone at Target? If it has, do they just think it goes over our collective heads?
If by some quirk of fate, there are any ad execs out there reading these words, perhaps they could offer some enlightenment about how such decisions are made. It makes no obvious sense to me.
posted by Doug @ 11:34 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I think what's happening is that there is so much competition for eyeballs now that advertisers are intentionally looking for visual and audio images that can and will cause controversy, perhaps figuring that even bad press is better than none at all. Or maybe they think that as a culture we are so dumbed-down that we don't see racism and sexism when it's thrown at us. Guilty as charged.
The coal miner ad is striking, and it certainly gets your attention. But is it enough just to raise awareness? In selling something, does it really not matter if it makes a good impression or a bad one? The Target ad is more inconsequential. Seeing it again, it's talking about pets (who shadow you, I guess?). If you don't recognize Frank and Sammy, there's not much to it. But if you do, how can it not come across as racist?
Almost every ad is controversial to somebody. Every time I write a radio spot that uses the word "crazy" or "nuts" or "insane," I get a letter from the local mental health advocates. A poster I designed for a local college, which used a 1930's style heroic illustration, generated a letter from an alumnus furious about the "communist imagery." A "newsreel" style TV spot for a local jeweler was seen as an insensitive reference to Nazi propaganda films.
I haven't seen the Target spot, though I am generally impressed (as is almost everyone in the industry) with their invention and style. As for the GE spot, Tennessee Ernie Ford ain't exactly Woodie Guthrie.
A more interesting question is why are these sculpted and smoothed communications, regardless of insensitivity, generally viewed by business interests as entertainment, while films like “F911” and “Supersize Me” are seen by these same interests as propaganda?
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