Wednesday 7 November 2012

OUGD401 - Lecture notes: Creative Advertising

The Plot
Traces how large scale colour printing developed in the 19th century.

The beginning by Wight
Advertising, The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Clothes On! (R4, 2009)
Robin Wight (WCRS) 118 118 and The future's bright, the future's orange.

William Hesketh Lever
Story of the birth of creative advertising...
The Lever brothers were the founders - James Darcy and William Hesketh Lever 1885

Lever - First British Tycoon
Lady Lever gallery was established
There was also a soap factory

Lever born in 1851 - Great exhibition in London
At the exhibition George Cruikshank's etching was there
Colour print on large scale was invented

Pre-packaging (Lewis 2008)
Lever - first pre-packaged tablet of soap and this added value to the soap

Advertising Boom
News and advertising interdependent

Printing Boom
1890s technology enabled contemporary paintings to be reproduced

Lever Borthers were the first multinational company in the 1930s

Contemporary art
At the time adverts were seen as contemporary
Visually had women or children with white linen or delicate materials on

Exhibition Tate Liverpool November 2011 - 29th January 2012
1858 there was high infant mortality rate
Children signified blessings, purity, innocence and life

A lot of adverts were text based
Adverts were a form of entertainment

Middle class people used to buy the soap and he used to package it with contemporary art which encouraged them to keep the wrappers to have in their home when they couldn't afford artwork.

Axe Campaign
BBH - agency- Have one of Unilever accounts
Online game and real time novel
People can join in online
Involving the audience more

First creative agencies
Real Mad Men
Ad agencies - Salesmen
Worked on commission
Agencies offered creative services

Product placement
Lever used product placement as part of the narrative of the image

Innovative events
Lever Bros Switzerland F.H. Lavancy - Clarke
Opening of new offices

1890s soap got Royal endorsement - democratisation
'Used all over the civilised world'

Using images of both the mother and child ensures a lifetime of brand loyalty

Lever spent 2 million on advertising soap for the first 2 decades

Art direction
Lever sponsored slavery in Africa
One of main ingredients of the soap was palm oil which is very bad for the environment
Lever was the first worldwide Executive Creative Director (ECD) and was constantly researching craft of advertising.

First ambient
Innovative spaces, doors left open at stations as this was a great place for advertising.

Salvation with sunlight
Sunlight soap would make life easier
Sunlight soap became a salvation

Targeting audiences - directed at women

In the 20th century Lever used different international agencies to sell his soap
He therefore got royal, national and imperial imagery
Trading on the image of Britannia

The imperial mission (Lewis) was to civilise

Lever convinced people they needed a product not wanted it. He did this by using white linen clothing and a victorian image to get the message across about the probems of hygiene in the Victorian era.

The Lynx Effect
High feeling strategy on personal hygiene

Psychology of advertising
Discrepancy theory - between self and idea of self

Soap
Soap has a link to soap opera and continuous drama

Unilever still sponsor art to this day

Critics of Admass
Boom in consumption
Highly criticised in interwar years




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