Other Advertising Stuff ... or... The Fringe World of Mainstream Advertising

Tuesday

Dancing Breaks Out

Someone walks into your store, and stands before your window facing the street.

Dancing breaks out. Well, first the jumping jacks. Then some signage and some pointing, laying down, standing up, then the dancing. Roughly in that order.

A crowd gathers. Laughing, clapping, and photography spring up from nowhere on a nothing evening.

Your security force throws out the dancer(s). Everything goes back to normal.

That was a close one.

___

There is a fine line between the chaos and choreography of everyday life, and Art. Art can either look contrived and pressed, or it can spring forth from simple imagery and clever timing. Advertising too. Good advertising takes advantage of the surprise element in any message, or rather, in the medium used for the message. The TV commercial that catches your attention is usually the one that bucked the trend, stepped outside of the strictures of the standard TV commercial specs. The promotional product that gets you the most return on your investment has done the same thing.

This group, Improv Everywhere, is sort of a guerrila performance art troupe staging events on the streets in front of whatever lucky passersby, well, pass by.

Some art is for art's sake. Advertising is purpose driven, of course. These guys have added an advertising sensibility to an ironic purposelessness, and come up with Art.

There's something to be said for just making a scene.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home