Summary on Documentary: Art & Copy
ADVERTISING
ART & COPY
AMANDA'S
The one and a half hour documentary, "Art & Copy" showed me an interesting glimpse of the advertising industry in an impressive way. I used the word 'glimpse' because it was assured that there were so much more in the advertising world that were still left untouched and unsaid in the documentary. However, it was useful. It showed the power of advertisements and also the strong strategies that people have used as ways to convince a consumer's heart. I never truly knew advertising had such deep meanings into it and the multiple levels of connection and creativity that was required in this field. But now I am able to comprehend much more about the sciences and formulas behind the advertising industry.
Advertising probably started in an image form. It could have been on a poster, a magazine or signboard. And it further progressed into a moving print advertisement. But soon, it came up with a motion advertisement that has given a significant impact - a theatre-like experience. Because a lady whose name is Mary Wells, she wanted to create something different. She knew that the advertising business was a right place for her to be in. So she brainstormed and made a legendary commercial clip for an airline called "Berniff". She introduced an "Air Strip" concept that was happening in the advertisement itself. She made something fun and exciting. And it caught the attentions of the consumers. Based on what she has said, I believe that advertising is all about a kind of excitement or persuasion that will capture the eyes of the people. Drawing perceptions into societies is what it does best as well! One of the sayings from this documentary stated that advertisements came from satellites, and satellites came from advertisements. Because without advertising, there would not be enough money to fund the satellites. This saying suggested that without advertising companies, only a few businesses will exist. The presence of advertising is vital for businesses' survival.
I have recognized the fact that adverts and commercials are always occurring in my everyday life. Even if I was on a busy routine, I could still see advertisements on a bus or on a lamp post. And it would also appear in my gadgets or on social media. It is getting stronger and more impactful to our daily lives. Statistics in the documentary showed that the global advertising business will exceed $544 billion
in 2010. And I am sure it did. Nowadays, the advertising campaigns are one of those that earn high profits. Because almost everything requires an advertisement to promote or to persuade or to enlighten or even to amuse. Whatever purpose it has, a commercial is essential.
One of my favourite scenes in the documentary would probably be the milk product commercial from the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in 1993. They have used the "Got Milk?" idea which was so creative! One of them said that the aim of advertising is to make a form of connection to society in an entertaining way. And it's certainly accurate. People love to relate. And that is why an advertisement's idea has to be created in a world of where we belong; something that we would be able to relate to. But of course it must also be interesting and impressive with creativity's touch. Another important fact that was mentioned is that advertisements should be honest in any way. They should not project out false ideas such as a man drinking gallons of milk. That would be insane and unrealistic. Whereas, it would be true and convincing if it was a man preparing cereals but has found no milk.
If I was asked to join the advertising business, I would most probably say a no. Because people who work in this industry have to be ambitious. These creative people are the ones who think out of the box and step out of a normal world. They aim to do something beyond imagination. They yearn to make a difference and to take high risks. They even sacrifice their nights to generate new concepts. All these requirements may not fit my ideal working environment. Like what the lady said in the documentary, the advertising industry is not for the faint-hearted. It gives a lot of pressure compared to other careers. And it is very competitive at this point of time. We have many advertising agencies in this world, but only a few are large companies that attract potential clients. Furthermore, this business can seem to be a dangerous one because of its controversial ideas and opinions. Because commercials need to be unique and persuasive in its own way, and hence many companies in today's world are fighting to make more "crazy and unique" ideas which may lead to wrong beliefs. I would consider this industry to be for the ones
who are meant to be in. It is for those who can discern well and also with imaginative thoughts.
One thing that we know is that a society without advertising would not a be a complete society. Perhaps, not even a society. Because advertising is so vital in our world. Everything needs to be promoted, reminded and highlighted. And we cannot do it without the aid of advertisements. It is a way of publicity. Advertising campaigns help to elevate the society. They also embark new thoughts into us. An advertisement may also act as a mirror that reflects our living styles. Thus, a society without ads would eventually turn into a very not lively society.
In short, advertising is a career that is hard to pursue. However, many people are born specially for this industry. It has changed over the years and the advertising campaigns are becoming more enriched and empowered. If I was to say a phrase connected to advertising, I would like to say, "Advertising defines art. And an advertisement refines the world."
AINA'S
In the wake of watching this documentary, I have without a doubt taken in a great deal more about advertisement. Before watching this documentary, my meaning of advertisement was it act as a tool that individuals utilize just to promote they are selling. Truly, it is really something greater. It is about art and creativity. Each commercial tells a different story and each of it has a different approach when producing one.
Art & Copy let us know the stories behind some of America's most well known ad campaigns, including I Want My MTV, Just Do It, Where's the Beef? , Got Milk?. The greatest effect that this industry did to America was the It's morning in America commercial that assisted Reagan with getting re-elected. It is astounding to consider how broad some of these have been, a long way past just boosting offers of a specific item. I Want My MTV aired when the cable channel was new and numerous frameworks didn't convey it; those companies were quickly bombarded with telephone calls from youngsters requesting their MTV to be available, which prompted MTV a whole new era. Other than that, Just Do It was the tagline for some individuals who never purchased Nikes yet required a mantra to persuade them. The idea of Got Milk? was actually turned down. Everyone thought it was ridiculous and it was not even grammatically correct. Though majority of them did not approve of this campaign; its innumerable imitators and farces were found everywhere showed how powerful this campaign was.
As the documentary Art & Copy pointed out, it is not so much that we despise advertising; it is that we hate terrible advertising. In the event that a commercial is diverting, unique, or candidly capable, we have no issue with it. Individuals would not fret being advertised to, as long as it is done in a manner that catches their advantage. I was exceptionally fascinated with the way that it has provoked an era of Americans to religiously tune into the Super Bowl just to watch those short films that promote their products.
Two men in this documentary definitely caught my attention. Lee Clow, the barefooted surfer behind Apple's Macintosh dispatch and the Think Different crusade, who now serves as chief creative officer at Chiat/Day and the really overwhelming George Lois, a one-time art director for Esquire magazine who later slung MTV, ESPN and Tommy Hilfiger from nobodies to world influencers apparently overnight. I was truly in awe watching George Lois who did an amazing job to promote Tommy Hilfiger, a fashion designer who was not well known at that time. George Lois was the only man that was brave enough to put Tommy Hilfiger’s name on the billboard and compare him with Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Even Tommy Hilfiger doubted himself. It definitely changed Tommy Hilfiger’s life.
I definitely got an inside scoop about advertisement from watching this 90 minute documentary. That, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment. It leads me to believe that unlike many other documentaries that attempt to use scare tactics to get their point across, Art & Copy is calm, collected, and reasonable. Subsequently, it is a learning background; one that will without a doubt make them think whenever you see a commercial, billboard, or daily paper promotion.
Society without advertising is like human beings without food to consume. While advertising can get annoying, advertisement is pretty important to allow customers to distinguish products and alert them to their presence. If firms could not market their product there would be less incentive to create the project. Competition would be drastically reduced; barriers to entry much more massive and leading to natural monopolies among firms that manage to actually establish themselves. Without advertising, the only way to differentiate products would be by price. So either you will have communism or a society of inferior goods being sold out of nondescript storefronts. Life would be sad indeed.
Through this documentary I have discovered that working in advertising is not about making up lies, keeping in mind the end goal is to motivate somebody to purchase an item. It speaks the truth engaging shoppers to make keen, wise buying choices. Obviously, in order to do that, you first need to stand out enough to be noticed, and that is where the challenge of being an inventive individual comes in and it is a direct result of that I would consider to join the advertisement industry. Working in advertising permits you the chance to set out on an incredible vocation in an industry with clout. You will likewise gain the absolute most looked for after transferable abilities in advertising and correspondences. You will coordinate with offices, customers, suppliers, media proprietors and specialists, which gives a plenty of future open doors. Advertising is a meritocratic industry and this is proven through George Lois and Lee Clow in the documentary.
TZE XIN'S
Before starting, I want to share the trilogy of mine after getting out of bed which are waking up, checking the unread messages or social media, and cleaning up. I guess I am not the only one who does it every day in the city, everyone does it. As we tap on any application, the advertisements will start showing up on your phone or your timeline, it shows that we are actually spending quite much of times on only facing all the advertisements. In my opinion, a succeed advertisement always able to persuade the masses to buy things they do not really need, it also changes the perception of audience on one thing. There are both pros and cons sides on affecting the masses. In 20th century, the advertisements now can be considered as one of the effective way for companies to pass on the product’s messages, it causes the rising of revenues and demand of a product if the advertisement success to catch the audience’s attention. In the meantime, the advertisements also boost the competition for talents. The advertising also guides the expenditure of the particular products. An advertisement has its own right side and vice versa. From the incident of unscrupulous businesses, there is one thing undeniable which masses are easily misled by false advertisements, therefore it causes spiritual and financial loss or even life healthy loss if the consumer misplaced trust on some product through advertisement. Nowadays, some of the advertisers are more focus on gentries because they found the buying power is much more higher compare to lower classes, they tend to propagandize luxury brands; however, for those who are at the lower classes in the society, these advertisements are difficult to avoid the resentful and it might also increase dissatisfied with lives, they will start blaming others for their unhappy state and affairs. The worst thing is, advertisement promotes the growth of competing and it also gives rise to improper and unhealthy competitive context. Some particular companies are too relying on advertising to achieve new record for sales volume, revenues and earnings. It causes these companies are actually competing the creativity and strategies on advertising, they have no times for emphasizing the quality of the enterprise product, although the price of the particular product rises but the quality still remains the same or even another higher risk is starting to deteriorate because the cost has increased due to the advertising expenses. From the ancient times till now, advertising has been watching the people and eras throughout the years, it became the most telling witness of history. There is one thing that never changes which is whatever the advertisers do is the demand of the public. But, during these years there is a tendency of rising of advertisements in our daily life. The more you expose to the social networking, the higher the chances getting to receive the advertisements. I want to point out one of the most obvious ‘ads-overwhelming’ situation from our daily life, this is very annoying to see the pre-roll ads pops up before the video. Majority of us will just wait for the skip-ad button comes up and click it. This real life instance has proven that our society now are in the world of advertisements, as long as you are using your mobile phone and able to access internet, unlike the old times all the advertisements just popped up on television or appeared on newspaper.
In this documentary, there is a scene which promoting the ‘I LOVE NEWYORK’ caught my attention because of the theme song. I have no idea why is it sounds so powerful to me, in that vintage advertisement with this kind of beautiful background music and those performing scenes, by hearing and watching this I feel like wanting to experience the beauty and the great state of New York City. According to this music and tourism campaign advertisement, there was a speaker stated that Advertising makes foods taste better, makes cars run better, makes everything better. Advertising always able to make the perception you want to show up, they change the perception of everything, you can create any kind of impression to the audience. I strongly agree with this statement because I have experienced it many times on the things I have never met before, the advertisements help creating the perception of ones. Besides, there is also another advertisement that caught my attention which relates to Apple. The Apple Company uses the examples of historical figures on fighting the human right and the ways they made changes and marks because they think differently
to indicate that Apple Company also has the strong power to change the world because they do thinking out loud as well. It works because during that time, the topic of human right was one of the most controversial issue back then. This scene also made a deep mark in my heart because now I only realized how powerful it is when a company uses wordless but true incidents to indicate and reflex on itself. Lastly, ‘Just Do It’ slogan and the way they promoted the mind-set has made an impression on me. Based on the reactions from public, we cans see that the sign of everyone can do what athletes do for their health, and they also raised the healthcare awareness among women with good intentions. Nobody knows if they did it, but the mind-set spreads all over the country, people started to run for fitness. What matters is they succeed to make the people started to pay attention to their health, and finally the business triumph over the old concepts and starts to popularize sports, they made me believe that we can get healthier.
This documentary has further enlighten me about the future prospects of the field of advertising, but I would not be interested in pursuing a career in this field. Because advertising is like a great door for me to entrance, there is too much rules and conditions as an advertiser needs to follow. And sometimes there are so much of unknown dark sides behind the scene, I might be lured away to the dark side. Without advertisements, it would be one of the saddest thing in the world. Why? You might find advertisements are quite annoying sometimes especially you are waiting for videos but you ought to finish watching the mid-roll or pre-roll. However, through that documentary I started to feel that there are still plenty of advertisements have the potential to make the world a better place. For instance, there are advertisements from PETRONAS, no one could deny that those heart-warming advertisements have raised the family and friendship loves among the society. No one enjoys watching that typical kind of 30 seconds ads, but it does not mean that all the ads are the same. There are still a lot of heart shaking and thrilling advertisements if the advertisers could help the society to appreciate the unfamiliar things as well as cherish and value up the things that already existed. By the way, without advertisements, there will no longer be this much of cheap magazines, cheap movie tickets, and you even have to pay for watching videos apparently! Would it still be good without advertisements so far?
HAZEL'S
The field of advertising is crucial to the society these days because besides just immortalising a company name, it also improves the living standard of the society by keeping people informed regarding new products that are essential. “Advertising is a medium that constantly evolves with an unrelenting desire to find new and better ways to reach an ever-growing consumer marketplace.” Wuebben. J (2005). Advertising can be conveyed through different channels such as the television, radio, magazines or through online. Though advertisements are commonly found everywhere, the advertising field within the society is still very concealed. The society is still unaware of the effort that the people behind the advertising field have put in, and the recognition given to these people is still very undervalued. As the field of advertising is still unfamiliar, one does not consider entering the advertising field as simply as one enters the designing field or the writing field which are already established in terms of employment opportunities.
Though the advertising field is still not well aware of, but comparing it to 80 years ago, advertising has made tremendous advances. The amount of companies and organisations spend to advertise is 80% greater now compared to 80 years ago. Advertising started off when papyrus was used by the Egyptians to make sales messages and wall posters. During the 19th century, “the father of modern advertising” was addressed towards Thomas J. Barratt as he introduced many crucial ideas that lie behind successful advertising and as the economy expanded across the world, advertising grew alongside. During the 20th century in the United States, advertising expanded greatly as industrialisation expanded the supply of manufactured products. Advertising was also used as a vehicle for cultural assimilation, encouraging workers to exchange their traditional habits and community structure in favour of a shared "modern" lifestyle. In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in order to sell more radios to consumers. The advertising field then slowly progressed from the commercial television to the cable television to on the internet from the 1950s to the 1990s. Until today, advertising has already became one of the essential requirements of the society. As many organisations will continue to form in the future, advertising in the future will be one of the most crucial tool for a business to germinate. Hence, I believe that in the future, the advertising field will gain the attention it deserves.
From the documentary, a scene where George Lois mentioned how he created the initial advertising campaign to raise awareness for Tommy Hilfiger, a fashion designer, has caught my attention. Tommy Hilfiger then praised George Lois saying that “He is a visionary. He sees things normal people don’t see and he thinks about what they want to see before they know what they want.” This has made me realised that in the advertising field, understanding the consumers and affording to take risks are very significant to sustain the business. We must firstly understand the consumers to grab the their attention towards the product. As a consumer, I tend to pay more attention to advertisements that are exaggerated and ridiculous because it leaves a big impact on me. Hence, I have came to realised that only through this, the product is able to stand a chance to prove itself. The method George Lois used to gain awareness on Tommy Hilfiger though risky, turned out to be the most successful way in grabbing attention. By that, Geroge Lois has successfully introduced an unknown to the world of fashion overnight just by fearlessly coming up with an attractively bold advertisement.
The documentary, Art & Copy has enlightened me about the future prospects of the field of advertising as well. It has shown how essential advertising is in the daily life of the society. Not only does it benefit the organisation by immortalising its company name, it also provides essential informations to the consumers regarding a product. Realising that the advertising field requires a lot of thinking, creativity and effort, I notice that sustaining in the advertising field is not as easy as it seems. Other than that, I realised that advertising is more important than I thought it was. Just like me, there are still people out there who are still unaware of the importance of advertising. I believe that in the future, people will come to realise the being and importance of the advertising field. Though I am interested in pursuing a career in this field as coming up with ideas happens to be one of my interest, I will not enter the field. This is because the advertising field is still not guaranteed to become a success in the time to come. Though advertising existed for many years, it still has not succeed in familiarising within the society. Engaging onto this field will require a lot of courage, as there may be risks. And as a student, I would rather adopt fields which were already familiarised within the society compared to the advertising field.
Without advertising, there will be a drastic decrease in inventions and creations. Creators and inventors will lose motivation in inventing because it will be pointless to create products or inventions that nobody notices. This will hence lead to lack of businesses and organisations. As products cannot be promoted, the business will not gain profit as the product will not be able to gain attention from the society. Businessmen will find it hard to sustain in the business field, causing the business field to setback. Then, with a decrease in number of products sold as businesses are not doing well, the living standards of the consumers will decrease. This is because without advertisements, essential products will not be invented or even if it did, it will hardly gain attention. Consumers will not be able to gain informations on the variety of products and will constantly be consuming the same product. This causes the consumers to miss out a lot on greater products. Therefore, without advertising, there will be a decrease in inventions and creations, lack of businesses and organisations and decrease in the living standard of the society. To conclude, advertising plays a very important role in today’s age of competition. Advertising is one thing which has become a necessity for everybody in today’s day to day life, be it the producer, the traders, or the customer. Advertising is an important part.
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Editor: Hazel Ng Rae Nee