Now, I wanted to write about this before, but somehow never got around to. There is new iPhone and there is the slightly older Prada phone. (BTW they look very similar so much so that I wondered how Prada could pull that off. Maybe Steve gets his Jeans and black turtlenecks from Prada now?) Anyhow.
The Prada Phone – with as good as no features at all – advertised with this freak show campaign. Sorry, I don´t understand. These models look like sleep deprived shopping addicts. Joy-less, unhappy, isolated, no smile, without friends, as if lost in their affluence and it`s almost as if their silent stares screamed “Look, this is what Prada did to me.” Is there anything appealing in these ads? I think there is an almost eerie freaky feel to it. (Check out the ring tones etc.. even more strange. “I am calling you”) Strange marketing campaign. What happend to smiles?
The Marketing Industry is big, and overwhelming with many facets. I would say this marketing advert is the true reflection of big chunks of our modern society, especially big cities. Just consider Hamburg, over 500 000 Single households. Living alone, working hard, earning less and less, burning out, thats what you end up looking like… So, in order to speak to burned out, depressive stressed out people, thats the advertising you get :)
…Who wants a phone from a good happy looking guy (when talking of that chunk of society that looks just like the ad), it would sound like, look at this dumb ass, why does he have more than me! Or, look at this annoying dude, he wants to force me for a buy!
Moin, Chris! ;-)
Do you reember those disgusting “Benetton”-ads that came up in the mid-90′s? Of an oil-contaminated duck, or a guy with “HIV-positiv” tattooed on his forearm?
Benetton was sued over this campaign (which was exactly what they had expected to happen), and had to withdraw some of the ads a few months later. Even the money they lost on that case was considered to be just an investment, because it served its function: Publicity.
Anybody who had seen these appalling images was sure to keep them in mind. The legal case was broadcasted in the media, and discussions about the limits of what could be shown in advertisement were on for months. And everytime, the Benetton-label was attached to that.
What could have been a more successful campaign to them?
Not that I ever gave a sh** for fashion or specific labels (oh, except for “Lockheed”, of course ;-), but if I did, then I would boycott them for the rest of all times. Not that it’d mean anything, of course.
But thinking of this specific product: Have you ever seen any “good” advertisement for a cellphone, ever??
Fashion is a thing for morons who have no style of their own, and economy needs it in order to recycle money. In order to keep on catching the consumers’ attention, you obviously have to come up with flashy images like that, meanwhile.
If you look at some 1950′s TV-spots for washing-powder, you’ll see some black-and-white clips with a happy housewife and an idyllic little family in a small house with a garden and a car. Naive, but the ideal of the post-war society.
We sure came a long way since.