Smirnoff Advertising And How It May Have

Been Influenced By The Surrealist Art Movement Essay, Research Paper

Smirnoff advertising and how it may have been influenced by the Surrealist art movement

Introduction

My study will to look at the ways in which Smirnoff Vodka has been advertised. I will investigate the advertising agencies that have been involved with producing the advertising campaigns and the processes, techniques, influences and other elements that have contributed to the creation of the adverts in various media forms. The investigation will focus on the current .Pure Smirnoff. campaign which utilises the illusion of an alternative image of the world when viewed .through the bottle.. Some of the recent television adverts are very fast moving and compelling to watch. They project a very fast moving international, jet setting style of life. They have a certain quality of a surreal .James Bond. style film, with excitement and the fascination of trying to observe the .through the bottle transitions. that happen in an instant and then transition again before the understanding of the previous transition can be assimilated.

I have decided to look at Smirnoff as the basis of my project as I have found the advertising extremely fascinating and feel it is very dynamic and entertaining. I believe Smirnoff.s adverts have been influenced by the Surrealist movement and in particular by the artists Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. This will be discussed later in my study, where I shall give my views and opinions.

Meaning and Use of Advertising

Advertising in its simplest sense means drawing attention to or notifying somebody of something.

It is possible to advertise by word of mouth without incurring any great expense. But if you want to inform a large number of people about something then you need to advertise in the more familiar sense of the word, by public announcement. By putting a notice in a local newspaper, on a poster, displaying it on a notice or bill board or putting an advertisement on the television, you are likely to attract the attention of more people to the information you wish to communicate. This has been Smirnoffs line of attack. The current .Pure Smirnoff. campaign has used cinema commercials and over forty prints and poster executions. This .Pure Smirnoff. campaign has been running for over four years around the world and can be classed as a truly international multimedia campaign.

It should be noted, however, that by the very nature of the ultimate aim of such advertising campaigns to increase profit through increase sales, these motives produce areas of criticism. Not only is the desire for the product portrayed but also the lifestyle that surrounds the advertising campaign is also desired.

One of the major criticism of advertising is that it makes us too materialistic, by persuading us, for instance that we can achieve desirable goals in life through possessing things in a cycle of continuous consumption. But modern advertising shows that the audiences/consumers are not materialistic enough. If we were, then the presentation of the objects being sold would be enough in itself. Consumer advertising presents its goods along with other personal and social aspirations, for example the captions used along side the early Smirnoff ads and more recently the through the bottle concept which gives people a chance to see what the product will do for them. Of course the advert is giving the consumer false ideologies, so as to encourage them to purchase the goods on offer.

Cultural and advertisement critic Raymond Williams argues that we have a cultural pattern in which the objects are not enough but must be validated in fantasy by association with social and personal meanings which in a different cultural pattern would be more directly available.

He also believes that if we were to sensibly materialistic then beer would be enough for us without the additional promise that by drinking it we show ourselves to be more courageous, young at heart or attractive to the opposite sex. Similarly Smirnoff on its own should be enough without the added expectation of being able to change your appearance or personality as well as seeing the things around you differently.

I feel that due to the ever increasing amount of products on the market the audiences need something more than just the product for them to be interested in what is being advertised. By using shock tactics or making the product sound better than it really is, will sell more of the product. Also due to the increasing competition for manufactures they need to make their product sound and look better than their rivals, if they want to stand a chance of getting anywhere.

Surrealism

The word Surrealism derived from the writer Guillaume Appollinaire in Paris 1917. He used it to describe two instances of original artistic production. The first being the ballet .Parade. by Dean Cocteaus. The ballet contained curtains and costumes designed and created by Pablo Picasso. In the programme notes, Apollinaire wrote that .The artistic truth responding from the evening’s combination of elements was a truth beyond realism – a kind of sur – realism..

The second was Apollinaires own play called Les Mamelles de Tir.sias (The Breast of Tir.sias), it was subtitled a .Surrealist Drama.. These artistic productions could be described as surrealist