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Knowing (And Not Knowing) What Balls Are by Matthew Dallman  Concerning a television ad that was recently broadcast in the UK and can be seen on the internet, a few observations. The ad, called "Balls" (Google "balls bravia"), pitches a new television. The idea is easy enough: 250,000 colorful balls were sent bouncing down hilly streets in San Francisco, and the footage captures colorful unfoldings. Millions of balls for millions of colors on the television — the whole thing is so simple and elegant you wonder why all ads can't be this cool and non-insulting. I think more people than not would probably say that there is something of art in this commercial. Rightly so, I believe. It can be problematic, though in a usefully enlightening way, to draw parallels between genuine art and the world of advertising. Those against a parallel likely agree that genuine art doesn't try to get you to buy anything, doesn't pretend it is something that it is not, and isn't framed and pitched in language resulting from studies of demographics and focus groups. What art does do is sharpen perception, stimulate clarity, and evoke vast, archetypal symbols that defy simple language. Genuine art renews our humanity with new thoughts about your life, perhaps even remembrances of things forgot, or stirs cracks from aesthetic revelation. So, between art and advertising, there are divergences. Yet to ignore the parallels misses a learning moment. Artists sell their stuff in the marketplace. They sign contracts with financial strings attached. Artists give weight to the nature, wants, and needs of their audience, at least at some point. They measure their estimation of how their art will be compared against other artists' works. Inevitably, in general terms, some of the same marketing strategies used by independent artists are used by advertising agencies. Ad agencies calibrate a "brand identity" for their client's saleable goods; artists develop their unique voice so as to be recognizable in the public sphere of whatever scale. Thus few are surprised to learn that many artists work in the advertising field. Poets and playwrights work as writers and creative directors. Painters and cyber-artists work as graphic designers. Camille Paglia recently wrote that ad people are "folk artists, anonymous as the artisans of medieval cathedrals." Andy Warhol worked in advertising before going on to become an icon himself. Of course any professional, office environment has its downsides, its office politics. Yet in the best agencies, notably, collaboration is assumed and fundamental, amongst enough people, even the entire agency, in order to get something out the door. By the time an ad is printed or a commercial or radio spot is locked-in, any proprietary sense of who thought of what, when, and why is easily veiled or even totally lost. It is the product of something bigger than any one person, bigger than any one person's imagination. The tweaking of words and colors means the difference between an ad that flies and an ad that never leaves the ground (often in highly minute and nuanced ways). By the end of a project that has to meet a deadline, any solution from any source, even the part-time receptionist, is taken quite seriously if it is inspired. Want to read more? Subscribe to POLYSEMY. Click here to preview more articles. ©2006 POLYSEMY. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. |