Scene sins against me... and a nation
Scene-sins against me
And so the other day, I'm listlessly watching tv and up comes the commercial for a skin moisturizer. I couldn't have cared less until I saw that these are the new positioning commercials for the brand. Being in advertising, and because I have a level of respect for the FMCG advertiser, my interest piqued a little. The proverbial look and feel was quite dark, dramatic and arty - quite different for a skin lotion.
"Skin" was represented by a sea of naked people, naked people moving in waves, naked people in water [i think] and so on, the idea being to show the different 'stresses' that skin undergoes and how amazing it is. But as the images kept flashing before me, I became a bit creeped out, the little hairs on my skin already standing up in their creeped-out-ness. Hmm, my face already turning away a bit...let's see where they're going with this one. I never saw where they were going with it, reason, the ad made my skin crawl, no pun intended, really.
Surely 'skin crawl factor' should be part of a campaign checklist? Please do not tell me about "emotional take outs"
And there are more...I don't know about you but I find it creepy when someone reaches out for the left side of my neck - urrrggh! just thinking about it gives me the hibbie jibbies! Anyway, I digress...I watched another ad for a roll on, apparently, it makes your underarms 'beautiful' - ookaaayy. The girl lies there on a beach, she's wearing a spaghetti strap top, her arm supporting the back of her head, so her underarms are bared for all to see. She asks the guy "what part of my body do you like? Is it here [legs],here [booty] or here [hhmm, forgot]", The guy them traces his index finger along ----yeegggg! ---her underam, slowwwwwwwly!
Come on! surely there's a "comfortability measure" for such things!
Last one, hair repair ads! they do that grey follicle thing all the time. I hate microscopic views of damaged hair follicles [aaaaaargh!] - grey, shreddy [coz it's damaged ok] and just well, grey - double eeeeww!
Scene-sins with nation-destroying repurcusions
No-one likes filth so an example that you can probably relate with having seen is the news, yep, SABC, 7pm news, dinner time for you dear reader. Particularly when reporting a story about the poor state of how the poor are living...case in point - the open air toilet saga, the camera man actually shoves his camera in there to show the entire nation someone's modified, petrified lunch - "petrified" - hehehe....anyway, [retch & barf].
Or the green, smelly drain/bath/laundry/piss/barf/etc water + rubbish -[one moment please - retch, retch barf] flowing between homes in Diepsloot we see when the story is yet again about the poor.
You know, on the last 2 examples, as much as journalists are reporting truth & extent of degradation, must it go that far? actually showing scenes like that? I think they shouldn't. We need to portray our people in a more dignified way, the situation has already taken away their dignity, do we have to add to the negative?
During the Egyptian revolution early 2011, a camera-man from CNN walked around capturing the 'dire' situation of no food and supplies of the Egyptian people. The scene was a queue of people waiting to get their ration of bread or water etc, amongst the queueing, were a few elderly people. The interviewing journalist, approached them to ask what they think of the situation they were in " please, go away, we don't want you to see us like this!" after which, a scuffle broke out about the journalists being there, recording negative scenes of the Egyptians. That old lady's comment came from a place we seem to have forgotten - pride and dignity.
In the same breath, journalists were told the same thing by a Japanese man after the horrendous triple disaster they went through, "Please, do not show us this way, we don't want you showing Japanese people like this".
Last word:
Brand managers: beware the disturbing scenes in your beautiful, clean ad execution, you might not have been aware of such a phenomenon but that's why I'm here *big grin*
Journalists: sensationalism may get you the sales now but you do that at selling the soul of a nation
And so the other day, I'm listlessly watching tv and up comes the commercial for a skin moisturizer. I couldn't have cared less until I saw that these are the new positioning commercials for the brand. Being in advertising, and because I have a level of respect for the FMCG advertiser, my interest piqued a little. The proverbial look and feel was quite dark, dramatic and arty - quite different for a skin lotion.
"Skin" was represented by a sea of naked people, naked people moving in waves, naked people in water [i think] and so on, the idea being to show the different 'stresses' that skin undergoes and how amazing it is. But as the images kept flashing before me, I became a bit creeped out, the little hairs on my skin already standing up in their creeped-out-ness. Hmm, my face already turning away a bit...let's see where they're going with this one. I never saw where they were going with it, reason, the ad made my skin crawl, no pun intended, really.
Surely 'skin crawl factor' should be part of a campaign checklist? Please do not tell me about "emotional take outs"
And there are more...I don't know about you but I find it creepy when someone reaches out for the left side of my neck - urrrggh! just thinking about it gives me the hibbie jibbies! Anyway, I digress...I watched another ad for a roll on, apparently, it makes your underarms 'beautiful' - ookaaayy. The girl lies there on a beach, she's wearing a spaghetti strap top, her arm supporting the back of her head, so her underarms are bared for all to see. She asks the guy "what part of my body do you like? Is it here [legs],here [booty] or here [hhmm, forgot]", The guy them traces his index finger along ----yeegggg! ---her underam, slowwwwwwwly!
Come on! surely there's a "comfortability measure" for such things!
Last one, hair repair ads! they do that grey follicle thing all the time. I hate microscopic views of damaged hair follicles [aaaaaargh!] - grey, shreddy [coz it's damaged ok] and just well, grey - double eeeeww!
Scene-sins with nation-destroying repurcusions
No-one likes filth so an example that you can probably relate with having seen is the news, yep, SABC, 7pm news, dinner time for you dear reader. Particularly when reporting a story about the poor state of how the poor are living...case in point - the open air toilet saga, the camera man actually shoves his camera in there to show the entire nation someone's modified, petrified lunch - "petrified" - hehehe....anyway, [retch & barf].
Or the green, smelly drain/bath/laundry/piss/barf/etc water + rubbish -[one moment please - retch, retch barf] flowing between homes in Diepsloot we see when the story is yet again about the poor.
You know, on the last 2 examples, as much as journalists are reporting truth & extent of degradation, must it go that far? actually showing scenes like that? I think they shouldn't. We need to portray our people in a more dignified way, the situation has already taken away their dignity, do we have to add to the negative?
During the Egyptian revolution early 2011, a camera-man from CNN walked around capturing the 'dire' situation of no food and supplies of the Egyptian people. The scene was a queue of people waiting to get their ration of bread or water etc, amongst the queueing, were a few elderly people. The interviewing journalist, approached them to ask what they think of the situation they were in " please, go away, we don't want you to see us like this!" after which, a scuffle broke out about the journalists being there, recording negative scenes of the Egyptians. That old lady's comment came from a place we seem to have forgotten - pride and dignity.
In the same breath, journalists were told the same thing by a Japanese man after the horrendous triple disaster they went through, "Please, do not show us this way, we don't want you showing Japanese people like this".
Last word:
Brand managers: beware the disturbing scenes in your beautiful, clean ad execution, you might not have been aware of such a phenomenon but that's why I'm here *big grin*
Journalists: sensationalism may get you the sales now but you do that at selling the soul of a nation
You see the SABC one I totally agree with. Like yesterday I was watching something and they showed something with flies, while I was eating...I was done with my meal finished there and then whether I liked it or not. I'm getting sick just thinking about it right now. Burps and farts! Can't stand them while i'm eating...Or rats running around. *Covers her mouth before barfing*
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