More authentic than the original
It’s worth noting that art used to be taught at academies; today, advertising plays an increasingly important role in this area. But beware: Customers will punish anyone who treats van Gogh and company with too little respect.
Column In the past, art was taught at academies; today, advertising is playing an increasingly important role. But beware: anyone who treats van Gogh and co. with too much disrespect will be punished by customers. only the uneducated ignore the fact that advertising is educated and therefore also useful for further education: but in their own way. There is no opera hit, no tenor icon who, apart from promoting the finest pasta, does not also promote the euphony of classical music. There is hardly a literary figure, from Struwwelpeter to the Maid of Orleans, who is not at least saved from oblivion by advertising. And wine continues to be served with Degas' Déjeuner sur l'herbe, in the Glatt Center, while Anker's peasant girl sleeps so blissfully only thanks to Badresidon. Freely adapted from Goethe: "Advertising and art / they seem to flee from each other / and have found each other before you know it; / the aversion has also disappeared from me. / And both seem to attract me equally."
Advertising also comes
However, they can only be educated through their own constant efforts - and not by simply stealing ideas. Per aspera ad astra, in other words. Of course, she quotes first and foremost. But, as a 500-page Zurich dissertation proves, she does so less through flat illustration than through clever transformation. And it does so so convincingly that one trend researcher even elevated advertising to the "leading science of the eighties" because it is the "basic diction of the new age". The chain of further education is correspondingly impressive: from the original, which itself quotes predecessors, to commentator, to academic compiler, to columnist and (hopefully) to the Werbewoche readership.
But how does advertising approach and transform its originals? How with
The artist has also reinvented, reinvented and developed the advertising potential of Leonardo, Botticelli and Magritte. The resourceful doctoral student has identified three royal roads to quoting art for advertising: the reverent, the illustrative, the ironic. To each target audience its own: reverence for the (art) believers, mere illustration for the uninitiated, irony for the knowledgeable.
However, dealing with cultural heritage in a way that promotes sales requires a certain sensitivity. So no moralizing or sarcasm, because that is the job of caricaturists, not advertisers. And certainly no sacrileges like the slip-up by the Basel tourist office, which presented Hans Holbein's "Corpse of Christ" with the claim "a corpse from our cellar". Remember:
Codes from high culture cannot be translated directly into the commercial world with impunity.
Only with due reverence
advertising succeeds in advancing its work of pop-cultural education. Especially when - like television - it spares us the abstract, but spoils us with plenty of lasting value and amuses the more depraved among us with well-dosed ironization of the art saints. The educational canon with which advertisers confront us may be incomplete, but it is easily retrievable for corresponding quiz questions.
With this in mind: when was van Gogh really in a good mood? In the face of a cool foaming Heineken beer. When does the Gioconda show her true smile? After drinking Ferrarelle mineral water, sparkling of course. And where do the disciples of Leonardo's Last Supper survive? In Oberammergau and - as disciples - in Otto Kern jeans. So it's only fair and educational when Kissling's "Tell" from the creative competition reads: "Here, advertisers, your art must be shown; the goal is worthy and the honor is great."
Advertising art for alcoholic beverages: an ancient pillar of the business.
Advertising also comes
However, they can only be educated through their own constant efforts - and not by simply stealing ideas. Per aspera ad astra, in other words. Of course, she quotes first and foremost. But, as a 500-page Zurich dissertation proves, she does so less through flat illustration than through clever transformation. And it does so so convincingly that one trend researcher even elevated advertising to the "leading science of the eighties" because it is the "basic diction of the new age". The chain of further education is correspondingly impressive: from the original, which itself quotes predecessors, to commentator, to academic compiler, to columnist and (hopefully) to the Werbewoche readership.
But how does advertising approach and transform its originals? How with
The artist has also reinvented, reinvented and developed the advertising potential of Leonardo, Botticelli and Magritte. The resourceful doctoral student has identified three royal roads to quoting art for advertising: the reverent, the illustrative, the ironic. To each target audience its own: reverence for the (art) believers, mere illustration for the uninitiated, irony for the knowledgeable.
However, dealing with cultural heritage in a way that promotes sales requires a certain sensitivity. So no moralizing or sarcasm, because that is the job of caricaturists, not advertisers. And certainly no sacrileges like the slip-up by the Basel tourist office, which presented Hans Holbein's "Corpse of Christ" with the claim "a corpse from our cellar". Remember:
Codes from high culture cannot be translated directly into the commercial world with impunity.
Only with due reverence
advertising succeeds in advancing its work of pop-cultural education. Especially when - like television - it spares us the abstract, but spoils us with plenty of lasting value and amuses the more depraved among us with well-dosed ironization of the art saints. The educational canon with which advertisers confront us may be incomplete, but it is easily retrievable for corresponding quiz questions.
With this in mind: when was van Gogh really in a good mood? In the face of a cool foaming Heineken beer. When does the Gioconda show her true smile? After drinking Ferrarelle mineral water, sparkling of course. And where do the disciples of Leonardo's Last Supper survive? In Oberammergau and - as disciples - in Otto Kern jeans. So it's only fair and educational when Kissling's "Tell" from the creative competition reads: "Here, advertisers, your art must be shown; the goal is worthy and the honor is great."
Advertising art for alcoholic beverages: an ancient pillar of the business.
Ulrich Saxer was professor of journalism at the University of Zurich and full professor of communication sociology in Lugano.
