The Art Of Advertising: Photography Adverts (a misogynistic dream!)

As always at this time of year I write about advertising and it is important to recognise that there is a real art to creating adverts. As argued in The Independent (Glancey J. 26/07/1995) art and advertising are co-dependent as artists have reused, reappropriated and reimagined adverts with Andy Warhol's cans of soup to Richard Prince rephotographing the Malboro cowboys
 and claiming them as his own.  Art and advertising have a complicated relationship with copyright - owning ideas and concepts is difficult and often end up in court.  As explained here by 'Donn Zaretsky, a lawyer in New York who specializes in art law, is often approached by artists who perceive echoes of their own work in advertisements. “It does seem like advertising people are pushing the envelope on this,” he said. “They’re being more and more brazen in their borrowing. On the one hand, they should be mining the art world for inspiration, and you would expect them to be referencing works that people are familiar with. But more and more they seem to be getting into the territory of blatant rip-offs.' (Fineman M. 13/07/2008)

The importance of an advert is to grab the viewers attention in a second and that is why using familiar or well-known concepts works as it is already a part of people's consciousness however to create something new and really innovative is the holy grail of advertising, a brand that people will buy into and recognise globally such as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, M & Ms these are super successful in their branding, marketing and advertising. 

I, as always, love to look at photography adverts and I particularly like to remind myself that the misogeny is still rife throughout! Check out these adverts:

Ad Forum: If you have the usual thing in mind, now you have an option

In this Fujifilm advert the man gets to have it both ways, so to speak! with two versions of the instax 100 film.  

  

Bad Ads: Panasonic

Yet again - men get away with murder!  How interesting if I put on an advert that I was shooting my boyfirend I think teh outcry would be instant and I would be considered a murderous, man hating feminist however this is allowed all the time.  I am a feminist and I do not think it should be stated as an insult - just lately it seems to be getting a very bad name.  However when I look at these and other adverts like them there is still much inequality - in the western world we are comparitavely much better off as women however we should still stand up and remember that we are half the human race and where would they be without us!!!

References

Glancey J. (26/07/1995) Is advertising art? Art: THE CREAM OF BRITISH DESIGN & ADVERTISING Saatchi Gallery, London [Online] Available from: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/is-advertising-art-1593252.html (Accessed 07/10/2019)

Fineman M. (13/07/2008) New York Times, The Image Is Familiar; the Pitch Isn’t [Online] Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/arts/design/13fine.html (Accessed 07/10/2019)