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Monday, May 27, 2013

Traveling among ads, seeing deeply


Text and photos by Jacqueline Lambiase

How much does an ad’s context matter? A gallery owner commissioned this mural in a small Texas town square to attract attention to his business, but the community erupted in protest, and this ad was ultimately censored. My theory is that slow attention doomed this advertisement—there were no competing visual images to help it hide in plain sight. (And it was also doomed by its producer not reckoning with its potential audience of small-town residents in a conservative part of the country.)
A friend's photo from Pilot Point, Texas, near my own home prompted my own international street photography project spanning from 2003-2011. All other photos are mine.
What happens when the context is crowded and cluttered? Rather than dooming potentially controversial advertising, clutter hides it from our most focused attention, diffusing any controversy or question or misunderstanding.

From New York's Times Square, 2004.
And when clutter meets movement (since viewers move through landscapes of advertising, constantly processing and ignoring visual stimulation), then attention structures don’t object, but simply receive the message underground, perhaps quite literally and subconsciously.

Intertextuality, when an ad symbol relies on other prior symbols for meaning, is a quite sophisticated way to appeal to moving consumers. In the London underground, Piglet moves from a children’s movie protagonist to penis, but this movement goes unnoticed in the underground world of too many ads.



From London underground, 2003.

In Brussels, an ad campaign for Gini seems fragmented across the landscape of train platforms, but packs a powerful message for a soft drink produced in France and Belgium and owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. A Texas-based parent company produces progressive and provocative adverts for Belgium, one of 13 nations with marriage equality (the company is based in a state which bans same-sex marriage).



From Brussels, Belgium, train station, 2011.


 Real life, and advertising in Belgium, 2011. Two dads, traveling with children.
In Rome, ads both above and underground near the Vatican provide a countercultural perspective on women and female bodies. St. Peter’s stands, and so do the ads. And the world rides right on by.

From Rome underground and just outside the Vatican, 2011.

This summer, I'm in London, and I'll share more adverts from my street photography soon.








Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Links for advocacy workshop

It was good to speak to Jack Davis' graduate students at UNT.  Here are some of the links we talked about.  If you are interested in the nonprofit conference, check out the final link on this short list.

Social media news releases
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7678.aspx

Texas Commission for the Arts: Toolkit
http://www.arts.state.tx.us/toolkit/

Mingei International Museum
http://www.mingei.org/

I think the Kimbell Art Museum has two FB "like" pages, in case people need to find it, but don't know how to spell it.  However, the FB link from the main Kimbell website goes to the misspelled FB page, which is  unfortunate, because it has a real FB page with lots of good info ....

Kimbell Art Museum
https://www.kimbellart.org/index.aspx

Link for DFW Nonprofit Communicators Conference, May 20, 2011, at TCU, just $30.
https://lifelong.is.tcu.edu/wconnect/CourseStatus.awp?&course=11NPCC

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Measuring social media

Twitter links and debriefing from online conversation

We've talked a bit about measuring the effectiveness of social media. To help that conversation which is still in our future, here are two links from The Dallas Morning News about Twitter and other social medea use during the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Local corporation American Airlines had a tough time with one rumor, and a professional who handles social media for the company, Stephanie Martinez, will be visiting our class in early March during Schieffer's Social Media Week.

http://bit.ly/9cQtkH

http://bit.ly/9fhtJk

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Brands: What about the airlines?

You've hopefully chosen your brands and keywords for your iGoogle page, for alerts and news. If you chose airlines, transportation, Southwest Airlines, or American Airlines, here's a sampling of things you would find that are invaluable, with their real URLs so that you can see the source right away:

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/amr-unveils-flightplan-2020.html

http://simpliflying.com/2009/68-love-marks-from-southwest-airlines-paula-berg-that-can-help-british-airways-prevent-a-future-strike-by-unite/

http://twarketing.com/2010/01/14/1-million-twitter-follower-milestone-for-southwest-airlines/

http://www.blogsouthwest.com

Monday, January 11, 2010

The importance of internships ...

... from another article from AdAge, about taking a chance on a lesser known "brand" to get the best experience.

http://adage.com/gennext/post?article_id=141387

The link to our internship database here at TCU:

www.schiefferschool.tcu.edu/154.htm

Welcome to the spring semester ...

... and here's an article to read about monitoring and measuring online buzz about your brand, from Advertising Age:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=141399

Monday, September 21, 2009

Projective techniques assignment

Choose a brand that you love (i.e. Toyota, Apple, Starbucks, Harley Davidson) and create a collage about it for class. Bring magazines photos, your own photos, sketches, words, and other paper media to class on Wednesday, to assemble your collage on a small piece of poster board (be sure to bring a glue stick or something similar). Be ready to talk to the class about your brand, your love of that brand, and your collage.