Advertising Today: édition en langue anglaise - Softcover

Berger, Warren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714843873 ISBN 13: 9780714843872

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2004

Synopsis

Far more than a means of moving merchandise, advertising has become increasingly recognized not only as an art form in itself, but also as a defining element of popular culture. Advertising Today provides a thematic overview of the evolution of advertising around the world over the past 30 years, charting influences from the political and social upheavals of the 1960s to the revolution of the internet in the 1990s.

Each chapter includes an intimate interview with a key figure in advertising - including Oliviero Toscani of the controversial Benetton campaigns, American-Express spokesperson Jerry Seinfeld, and John Hegarty of Bartle Boyle Hegarty, the creator of the world-famous Levis ads.

In analysing specific advertisements, the book simultaneously acts as a history of global pop culture and a record of the social, cultural and geo-political temperature changes that affect our image-saturated environment. Included are over 500 advertisements originally seen in a wide range of media: print, television, billboards, the internet and even very recent, so-called 'guerrilla' advertising, in which practically anything (pieces of fruit, sand dunes on a beach, pavements) can act as a surface for promoting a product.

About this title

Review:

Warren Berger's epic manifesto, Advertising Today, combines a defence of one of the most abused modern creative forms with a celebration of all that has been memorable in its last illustrious 40 years. The title seems appropriate for what is often seen as a transitory, disposable medium, but the magnificent bounty of classic images reproduced here reminds us just how enduring its best examples can be. Among the key players interviewed is Jerry Seinfeld, whose claim that he would have worked in advertising if he'd not made it in comedy, harks back to the ad boom of the 1960s, initiated by precisely such wisecracking, wry copywriters. Berger's own pithy copy expounds the amorphous philosophies of the advertising fraternity, where the unexpected has become the staple fare. But is it art? It depends who you listen to. According to director Tarsem Singh, art is a four letter word, whereas Oliviero Toscanini, head of infamous ad-prop company Benetton, laments the movement from art to salesmanship, resulting in, he thinks, "ugly and boring" work.

The best chapters focus on the advent of Oddvertising, public service information, guerrilla advertising, the selling of milk across the globe (the quintessential everyday, non-sexy product), and the inevitable case study of Nike, whose tag, "Just Do It", dreamt up in just 15 minutes, touched a universal carpe diem nerve more keenly than a mountain of self-help manuals. Berger constantly references the interrelation between cinema and advertising, a symbiotic partnership that now sees the golden son leading the silver screen in technology and innovation, and he writes particularly well on recent developments, such as Internet advertising, the potential of interactive television (also explored by Michael Lewis in The Future Just Happened , and campaigns to jump-start the most valuable and elusive marketing quality, word of mouth (something Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly analyses in The Tipping Point. You may consider, like one publisher quoted in the book, that the creative people have taken over the asylum, but this captivating gallery of iconic images reminds us that at its best (about 5 per cent of all ads, Berger judges), advertising can be vastly entertaining, inspirational, and pricelessly durable, as well as shifting milk.--David Vincent

Review:

'Browsing through this facinating book will certainly evoke memories as products and their slogans are revealed.' (County Times, Welshpool)

'With more gorgeous images than you can shake a stick at, it's a great addition to that new coffee table you bought after seeing the Ikea ad on TV, and now it's out in paperback, it won't break the legs of the table either.' (Ideasfactory)

'Berger's book contains stunning full-page colour reproductions of advertisements accompanied  by captions that explain each ad's impact on society...He also offers insightful interviews with a handful of the industry's major players...The result is a book that's a lot like advertising: big, bold, entertaining and full of itself.' (Azure)

'Advertising Today provides something new: a chronological survey of the industry that also charts the seismic changes in our social landscape over the past 50 years.' (Azure)

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0714843873
• ISBN 13: 9780714843872
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512