WE ARE ALL WORKERS...
especially little six-year-old boys...?
Ok, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. But I remember when this Levi's ad started appearing on bus shelters months ago, I had to do a double take. Have you ever seen a billboard or magazine ad or commercial that just makes you go: "Uhh... that could really be taken the wrong way..."? I feel like they're everywhere if you're really paying attention, but we've all grown so numb to being bombarded by constant multi-media advertising that we often just don't notice anymore. Anyway, all I could think when confronted with these particular ads was "Uhhm, what now Levi's? Are you trying to say you use CHILD LABOR?" Hmmm. I mean, ok, the kid in the oversized shirt is cute and all, but maaybe not the best use of matching slogan to image, if you really think about it. Perhaps not the greatest advertising choice ever, considering the connotations it evokes. Just saying.
i think this is supposed to be a weird contrast to the ads of their other brand, Dockers, whose ads featured "men wear the pants" and "some people's work is more important than others'"
ReplyDeleteOh, good god. I guess the better question is what's wrong with THAT picture!
ReplyDeleteoh man, i remember the docker ads in bart! the "wear the pants" ads.
ReplyDeletewhat disturbed me was seeing a protein shake advertised with the slogan "go from couch potato to cougar bait."
and they actually MEANT it to be what it's taken as.
someone once said advertisers were just failed artists. they said it in more eloquent words, and i agree on certain days.
My old history professor liked to say (in an awesomely thick french accent): "Great art requires ambiguity."
ReplyDeleteI think one of the huge differences between "real" art and advertising (besides art being for the sake of itself rather than to sell something) is that a piece of art is open to a million different interpretations, whereas an advertisement is meant to purposefully incite a specific reaction, and if it doesn't, it's failed. Which is why it's so glaring when an ad just doesn't work the way it was meant to. With art, if you don't get it you can just shrug your shoulders and say, "Hey, it's art!" Of course these days what with the Super Bowl and whatnot commercials seem to be leaning more and more towards pure entertainment value...
that is quite possibly the best i have ever heard it put.
ReplyDeleteOh man...yeaaaaa not the best ad.
ReplyDelete