Unsolicited Advertising Part 1

So, I hear the advertising game is hard to break into.  Lot's of creative types out there, nibbling the nipple of the American Dream one ad campaign at a time.  Clever slogans.  Stunning Photos.  Ass loads of $.


On the flip side, there are interesting things happenning in advertsing, too.  Have you seen the new Domino's Pizza ad campaign...Check it out.





Domino's  is officially soliciting its customers to send pics of them eating Domino's Pizza to potentially be used in an ad.  A prize of $500 for four finalists. POTENTIALLYusing the picture in an ad, if they think it's good enough. HOLY SHIT!!! Domino's just saved lot's of money...they are shelling out $2,000 for a potential ad campaign.  You know there will be some good photographers submitting their shots, becaue people who think they are good will think this is their chance to make it big.


This isn't the only wild shift happening in advertising.  Products like Heineken Beer and Belvedere Vodka have started using a different look in their print ad campaigns.  Granted ,they still spent lots of money to secure top photographers, like Terry Richardson, who shot Belvedere's "Luxury Reborn" campaign, but the final look is that of a photo taken by a point-and-shoot camera, something any dip shit could take.  These are high class products being marketed to folks with money, but the look is down to earth, accessible, real.


Side Note: Terry Richardson is the Shit!


Example:

Example:  

The shift comes along in a time where social networking is all the rage, the bees knees!  People are interacting with products in ways never before imagined. Every company, product, corporation has a Twitter, a Blog, a Facebook.  People can literally interact with products from the genesis of the product.  And because everything is digital, just like the amateur looking photos, it's all simple to use.  And people are using it.  User generated content is saving the bottom lines of companies across the world.  A one time payment of a few hundred bucks guarantees a company a stead influx of potential advertising fodder from the consumers. There is no residual, no contract, no future...Just bang and done.  Crafty corporations, I give you propers. 


So, here's my spin.  UNSOLICITED ADVERTISING. Trademarked, copyrighted and all that fun stuff!  I use products...I like products...Sometimes I even have my camera around when I'm using some name brand this or that.  So I started taking pictures of the products being used, in a time and place by real people who are enjoying the shit out of using them.  That's what advertising wants, right?  To show other potential consumers that the people who are already consuming the product are loving the shit out of consuming it.



What follows is a few of my UNSOLICITED ADVERTISING campaigns. Simple looking.  Simple feeling, similar to this new wave of big money bullshit.   


I'm trying to sleep with Miss American Dream, too.  I'm trying to get her to come and play.  While the big fish are lapping at her aureoles, I'm sliding one hand up her shirt and the other around back to feel that nice, plump, shelf-like American Ass.   


Cheers!




Miller Lite:

Swenson's Drive-In Restaurant:

The Gap:

The most important songs...Pt. 1 of ???

Some days, you wake up, and you feel like you might have been crying in your sleep.  You feel the sticky, transparent, salty residue on your cheeks...but don't remember how it got there.  What dream created it?  From there, know that the day will be an emotional day. A day when laughter and sadness can come hand in hand, for no reason at all.  Days like that, songs will tap the emotions hard.  Hit them rather, like one of those sledgehammer games at the fair.

I love music.  I love how songs and sounds create feelings.  I love what music can do to educate us, as people, about ourselves and each other.

I want to compile a list of influential, powerful, meaningful, fun songs...with help from you of course.  The list will grow infinitely. It's exciting.

So, to make this work....post a comment here, or on my Facebook saying what song means the most to you and why. And I'll add it to the list.  Let's see what kind of playlist we can create!

  This is song number 1:

Colors of The Wind from the movie "Pocahontas."

You think I'm an ignorant savage

And you've been so many places

I guess it must be so

But still I cannot see

If the savage one is me

How can there be so much that you don't know?

You don't know ...

You think you own whatever land you land on

The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim

But I know every rock and tree and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?

Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest

Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth

Come roll in all the riches all around you

And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers

The heron and the otter are my friends

And we are all connected to each other

In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?

If you cut it down, then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned

We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains

We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still

All you'll own is Earth until

You can paint with all the colors of the wind

Those are some powerful lyrics to go along with a beautiful melody and composition of instruments.  Having been in Ecuador for the past 5 weeks, I've been exposed to the culture of the indigenous people.  There knowledge of the physical world, their use of nature for everything--like the woman I met who makes medicines from plants to keep her Diabetes in check--to the stories about mountains, lakes, clouds, the sun...it's all fascinating.  And in stark contrast to the mindset of many people in many places--lets build a commercial shopping or housing development where the beautiful woods are.

This could lead to song number 2--that song by Joni Mitchell, I don't know the name, and I'm not going to look it up...I just know it goes like this:

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone.  It could be paradise, and they put up a parking lot."