Tag: television (TV) advertising

A commercial advertisement on television (usually abbreviated to TV commercial, ad, spot, ad-film, and known in UK as advert, or TV Advert) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials). Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the dawn of television.

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Does AT&T “rip off” artist Christo?

AT&T campaign and "The Gates" by Christo

Months ago I began noticing AT&T’s recent campaign, “Rethink Possible.” I was immediately struck by its similarity to the work of environmental artists Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude. In the tv spot, people are seen draping various American monuments with massive sheets of orange fabric. It bears an undeniable similarity to pieces by the artists, specifically their 2005 installation “The Gates” in New York’s Central Park. (In the image seen above, compare the top image from AT&T’s spot with “The Gates” by Christo). The draped fabric was a metaphor for AT&T’s broad cellular phone “coverage” in the United States. (Click here to view the spot.)

Christo and his lawyer filed a complaint with AT&T, and the company has since added a disclaimer to the end of the commercial stating, “The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have no direct or indirect affiliation or involvement with AT&T.” (One could imagine the two parties arguing over the type size of the disclaimer; it is indeed rather prominent.)

Christo made a splash in the 1980s while I was a youngster living in Miami. Christo’s “Surrounded Islands”—an installation where the artist surrounded eleven islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with giant pieces of floating pink polypropylene—was best viewed by helicopter, and dazzled us for two weeks.

Special thanks to Huffington Post for its assistance with this story.

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“I put that $#!+ on everything!”

Frank's RedHot sauce“I put that [splat] on everything!” That’s the message in the latest tv and radio spots for Frank’s RedHot sauce—its delivery is as bold as the product. The juxtaposition of the typical, bespectacled old gran spewing a barely-concealed, vulgar turn of phrase is the thrust behind a recent campaign for the spicy condiment making the rounds on YouTube. Which, of course, is what UK company Reckitt Benckiser—the current marketer of Frank’s—is banking on.

Using bold language in media is certainly not a new concept, but just how many people are complaining? The Oxygen cable television network presents a series called “Dance Your Ass Off.” One of Oxygen’s execs, Jason Klarman, admits: “The title is a little bit controversial… in cable, almost anything that is successful is usually a little polarizing.”

So in an era of media saturation, branding experts have to be “bold” with hopes of creating a memorable message. But certainly boldness employed by a cable tv network aimed at young women is less risky than doing so with a mainstream supermarket product, likely to be purchased by a wide spectrum of consumers. However, hot sauce buyers seem to be smiling at the message and continue to place Frank’s among the top leading hot sauces in the world.