exaggerated advertising-Mas Cera Polish: More polished floors

This is yet another interesting print advertisement campaign published by Mas Cera Polish in Venezuela to strengthen brand image. The campaign focuses on elaborating the efficiency of the product in an appropriately exaggerated manner. The advertisements are trying to convey that the product has the capacity to polish floors to such an extent that it makes ice or figure skating possible on the floor. The campaign is showing a couple is enjoying figure skating in the kitchen and another ad is showing a lady is skating in bathroom.

The campaign has displayed a decently exaggeration of a remarkable idea. The presentation of the campaign is obviously expressive and conveys its message convincingly. The campaign evidently revolves around the product benefit and is itself vividly expresses it. The punch line of the campaign reads, ‘more polished floors’. The campaign was created by Leo Burnett, Venezuela.

jun

exaggerated advertising & puffery advertising

Hey, sorry guys, I post my stuff so late…forgive my poor English, I have to spent a long time to read all of the texts. I found some information about the rhetoric in advertisement, especially for the exaggerated advertising. Hope this can help.

An advertisement’s only purpose is to make the potential consumer buy it’s product. As we know some advertising used exaggerated, this kind of advertising not only give an impressive to the audience and consumer. But also, for the clients, used the rhetoric in advertisement can improving the product sales. However, sometimes will turn out to be a clumsy sleight of hand.
e.g. Citroën pokes fun at genocidal dictator, apologizes to protect itselfPrint advertisement from Citroën advertising the C4 in Spain. The advertisement was withdrawn after complaints from Chinese who couldn’t take a joke about the Communist leader.

On the other hand, deception is a type of exaggeration. Advertisers have formulated cunning ways to confuse the potential consumer into seeing or hearing things that are not evident. This advertiser’s are so cunning, that their false tactics are not considered lies; and are not legally deemed as false advertisement.

Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception.

I would like to take two examples for the puffery advertising.

A)

it is a Anti-aging cosmetics advertisement, I think it is an exaggerated advertisement. But it more seems like puffery advertising. I just wondering why don’t laws restrict this kind of advertising.

b) Pasta Puffery(it is an exemplary puffery phrase)

Published October 14, 2004 - Ontario, Canada

A recent decision of the United States Court of Appeal for the 8th Circuit concluded that use of the statement “America’s Favourite Pasta” was not false or misleading advertising on the basis that the statement was simply commercial “puffery.”

American Italian Pasta Company sold pasta in association with the Mueller’s brand in the United States. The packaging for various sizes and types of dry pasta contained the statement “America’s Favourite Pasta.” New World Pasta Company claimed that use of the phrase violated the Lanham Act.

The Act provides that any person, who in connection with any goods, uses a false or misleading description of fact, or a false or misleading representation of fact, is liable in a civil action to any person who is damaged by such an act.

The Court stated that the Act applies to two categories of actionable statements:

. Literally false factual commercial claims, and

. Literally true or ambiguous factual claims which implicitly convey a false impression.

However, a category of a non-actionable statement exists which is popularly known as “puffery.” Puffery exists in two general forms:

. Exaggerated statements of bluster or boast upon which no reasonable consumer would rely, and

. Vague or highly subjective claims of product superiority, including bald assertions of superiority.

Typically, a factual claim can be judged as true or false by empirical verification. To be actionable, a statement must be a specific measurable claim, capable of being proved false or of being reasonably interpreted as a statement of objective fact.

Puffery and statements of fact are mutually exclusive. If a statement is a specific, measurable claim or can be reasonably interpreted as being a factual claim (i.e. capable of verification) the statement is one of fact. Conversely, if the statement is not specific and measurable and cannot be reasonably interpreted as providing a benchmark by which the veracity of the statement can be ascertained, the statement will be considered as puffery. By defining puffery in this fashion, advertisers are left with considerable leeway to craft their advertisements, allowing the free market to hold them accountable for their statements, which in turn ensures vigorous competition and protects legitimate commercial speech.

When these principles were applied, the Court concluded that the phrase “America’s Favourite Pasta” by itself was not a statement of fact. It was not a specific measurable claim and could not be reasonably interpreted as an objective fact. The phrase was subjective and vague.

In Canada, the Competition Act precludes the making of a “representation” that is false and misleading or a statement of product performance or efficacy that is not based on adequate and proper tests. This provision is broader than the U.S. legislation. Canadian cases have given effect to a puffery defence for exaggerated statements on which no reasonable consumer would rely. However, the same cannot be said for claims of product superiority. The result in a case involving “Canada’s Favourite Pasta” could be different unless the advertiser had the largest market share or other objective reasons to substantiate the claim.

This article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. ©John McKeown 2004

jun...

Hi everyone!

You may heared of this group before:
"Guerilla Girls"
































"We’re feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman. How do we expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture? With facts, humor and outrageous visuals. We reveal the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, the and the downright unfair."

So,
if you haven't heared of it before or, if you want to look their website deeper,
just check it!

http://www.guerillagirls.com/

Pelin

what is graphic design anyway?

What is the interpretation of design?

If design exists as a feature of culture life, what is it? Is it, as civil engineer Henry Petrosky suggests, the dissembling and resembling of the parts of nature? Or is it, as Nobel Prize-winning economist and scientist Herbert Simon suggest, a new domain best described as the science of the artificial? Or is it others suggest, a new form of communication? The possibility of meaning has led to diverse ides and claims about design.

Through my research until now, I fount a lot of arguments about the definition of graphic design and what is graphic design for? ”

I read an interview of John Maeda (An American designer), and at the question “what is graphic design for?” he answered “ Graphic design is not an art. It may look like art but it isn’t. Graphic Design is the collaboration between a designer and a client to creates is a bit of advertising and promotion material. What a graphic designer creates is a bit of marketing propaganda, a piece of folk art for technological merchant culture, a factional statement promoting a product, a candidate, an event. Once that factions end-the product discontinued, the candidate forgotten, then event over-then what it is?
It’s not art, it’s an old advertisement. I say it is a cultural artifact. Graphic designers don’t produce art, they produce artifacts.”

So… what is graphic design anyway?

Georgia Evagorou

Gender Ads.com was begun a number of years ago to provide gender studies educators and students with a resource for analyzing the advertising images that relate to gender.

so, the web site is http://www.genderads.com/Gender_Ads.com.html

( if you are interested in gender roles in advertisement, click it and check it out! )

Pelin

Hi everyone,
these days, I made some resarch about usage of sex in advertisment. So, i start with copying with some basic information about that. Later some deeper research will be posted by me.

Sex in advertising is the use of sexual or erotic imagery (also called "sex appeal") in advertising to draw interest to a particular product, for purpose of sale. A feature of sex in advertising is that the imagery used, such as that of a pretty woman, typically has no connection to the product being advertised. The purpose of the imagery is to attract the attention of the potential customer or user. The type of imagery that may be used is very broad, and would include nudity, cheesecake, and beefcake, even if it is often only suggestively sexual.
Sex has been employed in advertising since the beginning of advertising. At the beginning, wood carvings and illustrations of attractive women (often unclothed from the waist up) adorned posters, signs, and ads for saloons, tonics, and tobacco. In several notable cases, sex in advertising has been claimed as the reason for increased consumer interest and sales.
The use of sex in advertising can be highly overt or extremely subtle. It ranges from relatively explicit displays of sexual acts, to the use of basic cosmetics to enhance attractive features.
Over the past two decades, the use of increasingly explicit sexual imagery in consumer-oriented print advertising has become almost commonplace. Sexuality is considered one of the most powerful tools of marketing and particularly advertising.

-and if u want to review a selection of posters of sex in advertising, check this website:

http://www.gallup-robinson.com/tableofcontents.html

Pelin

Crowdsourcing in Graphic Design

These are websites that relate graphic design directly to the 'Cult of the Amateur' and can in the process devalue the creative process.
Design on Click Design Crowd and 99 Design

These web sites highlight a process coined as crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe. It is the process whereby projects are outsourced to an online group. I believe that this process in dangerous for both the designer and the client. As Florian Schmidt suggests in Eye Magazine, it turns the designer into a slave, whereby there is no guarantee that payment will be made at the end of the design process.

Crowdsourcing is heralded as a breakthrough for enterprise, lowering the cost of production, but does this not cheapen the brand. Looking at the examples on these web pages, I get the feeling that there is a plethora of designs submitted, but that the designs don't have a chance to explore more deeply the client's requirements. They appear to be quite one dimensional, fulfilling the requirements of the brief and no more. Plus, I believe that the designs are becoming too dependent on digital media and forgetting the beauty of traditional media in graphic design.

Here is a video of Jeff Howe outlining the idea behind his book Crowdsourcing.

Jonathan