Advertising Watch Archives - Reading The Pictures

Notes Photo February 5, 2017

Donald Meets Mad Ave in the First Trump Super Bowl

More and more, corporations are coming to understand how much prosperity is tied to the health and humanism of our society.

Notes Photo September 15, 2014

Sports Advertising: Meet You at Your Cubical

I've always been keen on that rare bit of news or documentary imagery that happened to be shot in the office.

Notes Photo June 30, 2014

Corporate Gay Pride. (Let's Just Say, Not What I Expected in SF Yesterday.)

What I imagined, on my way into San Francisco yesterday (that famous, or infamous hotbed of liberalism) to attend Gay Pride, was an overwhelmingly progressive, indy and gonzo event.

Notes Photo June 5, 2014

The Tell in that Rosy, "Make it all Better" Assad Campaign Video

There is a quick element in the clip that doesn't seem to square with the overwhelming vision of peace, love and undoing.

Notes Photo April 6, 2014

Obama, Ortiz and White House Photo Access: When You Can't Handle Your Own Pitching

But, where's the real substance here, with the White House so exercised that selfies are facing a ban? It has to do with two things, visual filibustering and this Presidency's obsession with popular and commercial culture.

Notes Photo March 14, 2014

Photo Op-date: Obama at the GAP

If the White House has been nothing but masterful, consistent and highly disciplined in its photo ops, Monsivais’s shot down the checkout counter pulls back the curtain on the stage set.

Notes Photo March 7, 2014

On the Barbie/SI Swimsuit Cover: The Advertorial Girl

So let me ask you: is it a promo for an American sport magazine's yearly franchise editorial feature or is it an advertisement for an iconic American children’s doll?

Notes Photo February 17, 2014

Sochi is Boring

Not that the Olympics aren't a hallowed institution, by the way, but so were college athletics before the Sports-Industrial Complex ate them.

Notes Photo February 3, 2014

2014 Super Bowl Ads: Wisdom of the Puppies?

Could all these puppy ads speak to a desire in the culture for a kinder and and more genial atmosphere?

Notes Photo January 29, 2014

About Those "Pro-Gay" German Olympic Uniforms

If people are debating whether the new rainbow uniforms are based on the gay flag or not, that's not really the question.

Notes Photo December 8, 2013

Holiday Inc: From Louis Vuitton's Red Square to Amex's Obama-Powered Small Business Saturday

Maybe Amex's use of the Obama newswire image is fair game because the company birthed a quasi-official shopping holiday that stealthily interweaves its interests with the patriotic credo to go shopping?

Notes Photo October 31, 2013

Amnesty International's Hyper-Local and "Hyper-Visual" Public Service Denouncements

If the goal was not just to drive traffic to AI and increase the organization's brand but to also cause people to "imagine it there,"does it create that result, or does it yield a more resistant reaction?

Brand on Fire (Or: You're Not the Boss of Me!)

Notes Photo September 20, 2013

Brand on Fire (Or: You're Not the Boss of Me!)

Consider why Brand chose to riff on the link between the Nazi's and "an irrelevant menswear supplier." And absorb his admonition to trust in yourself and those around you to try and get your feel back.

Notes Photo September 9, 2013

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (Without Your AmEx Card)

The galloping anxiety right now surrounding war, dangerous brown people in the Middle East, electronic surveillance, privacy and security agency breaches offers the perfect storm for those Orwellians on Madison Avenue to scare you into, what else, much stronger brand identification.

Notes Photo August 17, 2013

Next Time You Hit a Wall, Hit it Back

What's so notable about the image, obviously, is how much the poster both foreshadows and mirrors the mayhem in the streets.

Notes Photo June 19, 2013

Protest, Suicide, Guns & Terrorism: All The Fashion

The corporate state, by way of its Mad Men and women, has the perfect answer for populist discontent or unprofitable social ills that start bucking for attention: appropriate and glamorize.

Notes Photo April 2, 2013

Dare I Say the Homeless Have Made for Some Fabulous Bits and Pieces These Past Few Days?

The homeless figure is unwittingly enlisted into a composition, an emotionally laden object conscripted to collide with a 50 foot model, or a bonnet in a passing parade.

Notes Photo February 4, 2013

A Deeper Look at the Chrysler "Military Homecoming" Super Bowl Ad: Like We Can Really Be Whole Again

Are we more whole again? Or, are we the marks for a special-edition product campaign that plays on the vulnerability of returning troops and on the heartstrings of American media consumers?