Advertizing Cliches
I've been meaning to post on this topic for awhile. I'm referring to those verbal or visual devices, used in commercials, that after being invented by some clever producer, are borrowed and repeated by other producers ad nauseum. Here are my top five most repeated, and most irritating cliches.
1. The multi person stutter - This is where the dialogue moves from one person to another in rapid succession, generally repeating (three-peating) one key phrase. It goes like this:
Person 1: Im in charge..(cut to person 2)
Person 2: in charge...(cut to person 3)
Person 3: in charge of my health.
2. The solitary island of color - everything in the world is black and white except for the advertiser's product.
3. The multi-lationship - this is where someone enumerates every relationship that they participate in. It goes something like this: "I'm a father, a son, a husband, a brother, an organ donor, a caddy,.. (blah blah, blah)."
4. The cinema-verite bobbing frame - where the camera simulates a first person viewpoint by bouncing all around the subject, usually another person dispensing some "tough love" about drugs or acne.
5. The rotating perspective - not seen much anymore. A neat camera trick where a scene in motion is stopped, the perspective of the scene is rotated 90 degrees or so, then the action continues.
Please add your own least favorite advertizing cliches (not to be confused with movie cliches, I will post on that in the near future).
1. The multi person stutter - This is where the dialogue moves from one person to another in rapid succession, generally repeating (three-peating) one key phrase. It goes like this:
Person 1: Im in charge..(cut to person 2)
Person 2: in charge...(cut to person 3)
Person 3: in charge of my health.
2. The solitary island of color - everything in the world is black and white except for the advertiser's product.
3. The multi-lationship - this is where someone enumerates every relationship that they participate in. It goes something like this: "I'm a father, a son, a husband, a brother, an organ donor, a caddy,.. (blah blah, blah)."
4. The cinema-verite bobbing frame - where the camera simulates a first person viewpoint by bouncing all around the subject, usually another person dispensing some "tough love" about drugs or acne.
5. The rotating perspective - not seen much anymore. A neat camera trick where a scene in motion is stopped, the perspective of the scene is rotated 90 degrees or so, then the action continues.
Please add your own least favorite advertizing cliches (not to be confused with movie cliches, I will post on that in the near future).
posted by Anonymous at 6:53 AM
4 Comments:
The dumb man - no more worldly than a child - having to be helped out by his smart, sassy wife, she alone having the wherewithal to purchase the right cleaning agent/financial service/sensible shoes.
Yes, but as the target market for those products is women, and women never get tired of seeing men portrayed as dumb children, I'm afraid that is one cliche that will never be abandoned.
Cleavage & Beer is certainly a cliche.
It isn't my least favorite, though.
"Which will you choose?" or similar. The advertiser either shows one product and a tagline suggesting that this is but one product in a multitude catering for everyone, or it shows three or four in the same advert.
This is perhaps more often seen in magazine adverts, but its patronising attitude irritates me: as if by advertising one thing consumers might not realise that the company produces other things too. Examples at the moment in Britain include Marks and Spencer in the first category ("What's Your M&S?", whatever that means) and, absurdly, granary bread in the second category (pictures of several very slightly different types of multigrain bread).
Post a Comment
<< Home