Hello, welcome to America. Before you may enter the country, you must eat this bucket full of clever jingles, catchy slogans, and singing cartoon pitchmen. But we swear you’ll feel better afterwards! We promise! Now go buy! Buy! Buy!
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If you think you can get away from advertising in this day and age, then you’d better sew your eyes shut and plug your ears with molten lead. Not even a man living in a mountain shack in Montana can escape it. Because there has to be something he consumes or owns with a logo, icon, or slogan stuck on it.
The forces of advertising have become so strong that we now have a week designated to praise it. Advertising Week celebrates its first anniversary from September 26-30. As the website describes, AW is: “an annual gathering of the industry’s best and brightest. In its first year (2004), the event attracted more than 40,000 participants from over 30 countries. By all accounts, it… will be an outstanding opportunity to learn and share best practices, hobnob with clients, get inspired, remember why you’re in the business and generally have a great time.”
As part of the festivities, people are able to vote online for their all-time favorite icon and slogan for 2005. The top five winners in both categories are then removed from next year’s contest and put into an Advertising Hall of Fame of sorts.
2004’s Icon Winners were:
1. M & M Characters, 2. AFLAC Duck, 3. Mr. Peanut, 4. Pillsbury Doughboy, and 5. Tony the Tiger
2004’s Slogan Winners were:
1. Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. (M&M’s)
2. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. (Almond Joy/Mounds)
3. Where’s the beef? (Wendy’s)
4. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. (United Negro College Fund)
5. Can you hear me now? (Verizon)
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As I viewed the Advertising Week website, I realized just how indoctrinated I have become over the years. In some ways, it’s personally repulsive to know that I’d get 100% on a test matching any slogan with its icon from the 80’s and 90’s, or vice versa. Being an artist, I could probably even draw most of them from memory too. If pop culture advertising were a virus, it would make anthrax look like a cure for cancer.
On the flip side though, try to separate advertising icons and slogans from the products that they endorse. If you are able to, then you might be able to appreciate the sheer creative genius which has been illustrated in our American advertising explosion over the past forty years.
In terms of art forms, advertising is where many writers and artists have gone to flourish. Why bother writing a novel when you could write ads that net you an six figure salary? Why bother trying to be a sculptor or painter, when creating the new Coke can becomes the highlight of your portfolio? It makes perfect sense to me, even if I haven’t been able to capitalize on this theory myself.
Additionally, the icons and slogans of ads all have an aesthetic value that has persevered over generations. While we may not know the person who created the Jolly Green Giant, or wrote the Cingular slogan, the creators themselves know— and amongst creative people, such infamy is golden. To know your creation is everywhere, yet you will never suffer the backlashes of fame for it— priceless.
So, my conclusion is that while I do my best to not let advertising influence me when purchasing products, I still can appreciate the creative people that live behind these legendary icons and slogans. That is what, in my opinion, makes Advertising Week necessary.
P.S. I voted for the Kool Aid Man and “Time To Make The Donuts”.