Striking: Fancy a vacation? Of course. Always. Then this ad will definitely appeal to you. Doesn't it?
StrikingLust for a vacation? Of course. Always. Then this ad will definitely appeal to you. Doesn't it? Understandably, because this image awakens long-repressed experiences associated with mass tourism, brings back memories of hot sand, a m
And that's exactly the image this ad conveys - the direct route from domestic uniformity to the Portuguese vacation order. We leave our vertical, square apartments to relax for a week or two under square, horizontally positioned umbrellas, each umbrella and the shade it provides marking a clear territorial boundary. Whether this is "inherently cordial," as Copy promises, I dare to doubt. And I further doubt that we'll love the beaches of the Algarve as much as these nice kids do. But I'm sure that on such a beach, after the first hour of communal sunbathing, I'd give everything I had to get back to my office.
And this is the crux of the matter - I'm not part of the target group for this child-friendly ad. It is clearly aimed at small families with medium incomes who are forced to travel south during the high season. But unfortunately, this ad was not placed in Swiss Familie or Wir Eltern, but in the German Wirtschaftswoche, a publication whose readers are in the mood for anything but uniformity in their free time. Chandra Kurt
Column
Do you remember?
By Michael Barney
There are a few images that are irrevocably imprinted. As soon as you see them again, the memories are already there. A story about Roman Polanski in reporter magazine. The photo of his wedding with Sharon Tate: she in a mini with beautiful long legs, he in an unflattering frock coat. How I envied him at that time for that woman! Suddenly I remembered. Or smells. All those school days come back when you enter gyms. The smell of Nivea suntan oil makes a bathhouse appear in my mind's eye. And that of Clerasil the first kiss. How great new books smell when you remove the foil and open the first pages. Do we still know today how ink smells? The fixogum from the days when layouts were still snipped and glued? And no computer yet made the customer judge the printed ad in the draft. Scribbles were still spread out on the confi table. And since the body copies were still serpentine, they were read out loud, nicely with emphasis. But today? In the age of e-mail, ink is no longer needed. No one reads anything or dances movies anymore. Over and out. Instead, people want everything to be faster and more perfect. And with that, the imagination grows cold, at least in part. Where are the images in our heads? The ones you had when radio reporters reported on football matches? When love letters were still written by hand? Even if people laugh at me now: I still do it! Everything I'm saying here, a bit wistfully, is not meant to make you sad, but to encourage you: After all, advertising also has something to do with images in the mind. Let's cultivate this fine old virtue before we squat down at the computer again. Or run to the printer.
Language Observer
From left to right
The basic shapes of the world are symmetrical. Sphere and circle, rectangle and square, cross and star. Even the real appearances of these geometric shapes - the sun, the tree, the house, the window, the flower, the face - seem clear and simple. Symmetrical shapes evoke feelings of harmony, tranquility and security.
The moon, on the other hand, holds a secret - already because of its shape. An arrow threatens us (weapon) or irritates us (hint), makes us restless or curious. The equals sign = also leaves us in balance, while the signs < oder > We can't rest until we don't know which is bigger or smaller.
Man is a symmetrically predisposed being. Our body is outwardly symmetrical, and so is our sense of time: behind us the past, in front of us the future, in the middle ourselves. Yet we are continually forced into asymmetry: A door opens only to the inside or to the outside, to the left or to the right, in a car we sit on the left but steer the car on the right side of the road, etc. Man has lost his center, and that makes him nervous.
This nervousness is not primarily a result of civilization, but is already inherent in our blueprint: The heart beats on the left, we mostly work with the right hand, and almost every gesture, every movement has a direction: from left to right or vice versa.
Writing is already disconcerting for geometric reasons. Even symmetrical letters (A, H, V ...), if they are not stamped straight, are created in an asymmetrical way: Somewhere we have to put the pen.
The fact that we usually do this on the left and draw the line on the right is related to our general right-handedness. If we were to use the pen on the right, we would not be able to draw the line, we would have to push it. This is still possible with a pencil or ballpoint pen. The goose quill, however, under which the writing of the Occident originated (and which triggered a writing surge, since its reservoir in the keel made it possible to string several letters together without settling), would scratch the paper and produce splashes.
The direction of writing and reading became so important over the centuries that it has become determinative for our perception of the world. We call an incline from the bottom left to the top right an ascent, while the same incline from the top left to the bottom right is considered a descent - with a matter of course that would make a Hebrew shake his head. The Hebrews read from right to left and have timepieces whose hands turn "against the clock".
From left to right. That is as natural as day and night.
trhekegmu se nnew ,riw bO ?nedrüw nesel tpuahrebü ,eräw
Beat Gloor, www.textcontrol.ch
