colorama

The Eastman Kodak Company has donated its archive of Colorama images — the huge panoramic photographs that were displayed as advertisements in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal for four decades beginning in 1950 — to the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, the museum announced on Friday. Coloramas, towering backlighted transparencies that were 18 feet high and 60 feet wide, were promoted by Kodak as “the world’s largest photographs.” More than 500 were publicly displayed, for runs of three weeks each.

They often contained idealized depictions of American daily life, usually showing a Kodak camera being used to photograph a family, activity or beautiful scene. The archive gift includes display images of all Coloramas, including those that were never displayed, along with research documents, negatives and other prints and files. An exhibition of 36 Coloramas, focusing on the 1960s, will be on view at the Eastman House from Saturday through Oct. 17.

From Kodak Gives ‘World’s Largest Photographs’ to Museum in today's New York Times

Viewing the Kodak Coloramas one might conclude that America is white, heterosexual, well-dressed, and travels a pristine world where there is no squalor or company other than our own white, heterosexual, well-dressed selves.

Rather than the diverse colorama that we really are.

Still: Stunning.

1,000 fps

The difference 1,000 frames per second makes. Footage shot for a Pedigree Dog Food Commercial -- recut by Director Bob Purman and crew just for kicks.

Sublime.

Featured in Creativity Online »

NSFF: not safe for facebook

The only food group your baby needs. You've got what it takes to make a healthy baby. And it doesn't cost a thing.

From an INFACT Canada (Infant Feeding Action Coalition) poster, "a national non-governmental organization that works to protect infant and young child health as well as maternal well-being through the promotion and support of breastfeeding and optimal infant feeding practices."

The above image was deleted by Facebook yesterday as obscene, and was posted to a photo page hosted by the Topfree Equal Rights Association (TERA) [1] out of Ontario which hopes to record all the images of women breastfeeding their children that Facebook has removed per their policy regarding obscene imagery. The images were removed from personal profiles where members choose to share photographs with their Facebook Friends.

A Facebook protest group has taken shape, and over the weekend they staged a virtual nurse-in in which twenty women nursed outside Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters, and over 11,000 folks on Facebook replaced their profile picture with an image of breastfeeding.

More about that here in Time Magazine's Facebook's War on Nipples »

Related: The New York Times write up on suburban housewife Edwina Froehlich, who pioneered a return to breastfeeding in America »

[1] TERA's stated mission is: "to help women who encounter difficulty going without tops in public places in Canada and the USA, and inform the public on this issue." I take it that means breastfeeding, or no.


Update: Many of the images on the TERA site are too much information for me, but I'm shy that way -- you may have noticed that I don't post many personal photos of myself or my family online. I don't object to images of breastfeeding: I object to intruding upon peoples' personal lives. I also get a little embarrassed when people vamp in front of bathroom mirrors, but that's just me (who is also guilty of vamping in front of bathroom mirrors).

The TERA photographs are of women I don't know in intimate and vulnerable moments. Some are artfully done and lovely to look at, some are not. But the point of the controversy is that that they were originally posted in a controlled context for known friends to share an important moment in a relationship that matters to them. Facebook's action against these images demonstrates that they assume a very different intent -- the intent to arouse or titillate, the way pornography intends. I believe that's the compelling point in this dispute, along with the right to share images in what many people consider to be (but truthfully is not) a personal, private space online.

I want to believe.

Video: Campaign film from 1972 in which Richard Nixon almost certainly violates copyright laws by playing "Happy Birthday" for Duke Ellington.

Richard Nixon: A man of courage, compassion and conviction. A man America needs, now more than ever.

The Museum of the Moving Image has posted a remarkable online library of historical American political campaign commercials. It's a fascinating history of political persuasion.

Also of interest: A breakout of the negative commercials of the current political season by political scientist John Greer of Vanderbilt University »

haven't we had enough?

Here's my thinking: What if we could TiVo the last six-plus years and play them back -- without comment -- for the American people, and let them connect the dots?

Ad exec Rich Silverstein commenting in the Huffington Post about his GOP Poster Project, Haven't we had enough?, which will premiere in Minneapolis during the Republican convention.

Surfeit available in three flavors: Names, Slogans and Events.

banned in the U.K.

Or pulled, rather, by the company that made it »

And, I'm guessing, probably never even played in the U.S. of A.

(Forgive me: I've been away. Just now catching up on the WTFs.)

planned obsolescence

The '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 '60 '61 Volkswagen.

Volkswagen, 1961. Simple, elegant layout; simple, devastating sales pitch. The Volkswagen is never obsoleted, unlike those new American models that appear in the spotlights at the auto show. The light, humorous copy puts the ad's explosive message across easily: Detroit is a fraud.

Stumbled across this classic Ad today from DDB, alongside commentary from Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool, and was reminded of the storm yet to come »

also of interest

The work of Yuko Shimizu »

re: plums

Trend watchers suggest several reasons so many marketers seem to be going plum loco. One recurring thought is that the success of technology brands like Apple and BlackBerry is giving fruit a good name.

Stuart Elliot in Plum, the Color, is Having Its Star Turn in this morning's New York Times.

No one said advertising was an exact science.

Of Note: Here at detritus we've long anticipated important matters like these »

you are what you eat

Illus: Yes Pecan! from Slate's Trailhead

He has more of the arugula vote.

Microtargeting expert (and former Clinton chief strategist) Mark Penn, author of Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, commenting on Obama’s slice of the voter base in this morning’s New York Times' piece: What’s For Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know.

Fun piece -- or unnerving, depending on your perspective -- on how microtargeting, a technique used to great effectiveness by direct marketers, is being used to shape our candidates’ political campaigning. The piece also observes:

Dr Pepper is a Republican soda. Pepsi-Cola and Sprite are Democratic. So are most clear liquors, like gin and vodka, along with white wine and Evian water. Republicans skew toward brown liquors like bourbon or scotch, red wine and Fiji water.

When it comes to fried chicken [Matthew Dowd] said, Democrats prefer Popeyes and Republicans Chick-fil-A.

“Anything organic or more Whole Foods-y skews more Democratic,” Mr. Dowd said.

No word on Mountain Dew. Based on my own informal research I’m guessing the Dew base skews Libertarian.

Other correlates from the piece include:

Obama
Bear Naked granola
The Cheesecake Factory
Arugula
Starbuck’s
Panera Bread
grass-fed beef
Izze sparkling juice
Kettle Chips
Lara Bar
Olive Oil
“intensely dislike vanilla wafers”

Clinton
Odwalla Super Protein drink
Boca Burger
Go Lean breakfast cereal
Newman’s Own pretzels
Luna Bar
Red Lobster
Krispy Kreme
“an affinity for fruit-filled cookies” like Fig Newtons
white wine
butter

McCain
SoBe energy drink
corn-fed beef
Fiber One breakfast cereal
Sun Chips
Power One bars
Chips Ahoy
Fuddruckers
Hardee’s
bourbon
Stuffed Crust Pizza

be the joystick

Video: First time for live inter-cinema gaming in the UK

Not sure how I managed to miss this when it happened back in November? October?

Carlton Screen Advertising sourced and developed motion-sensor technology that tracks an audience's combined movements via a wireless video camera set up at the front of the theatre.

(...)

Each audience acted as "human joysticks", their hand motions controlling a virtual Volvo projected onto the screen. The game was played simultaneously in 12 UK cinemas, each aiming to collect the most points and win the game.

The folks behind the game, Brand Experience Lab, have announced "an exclusive partnership with National CineMedia and once we complete our initial test installation, we'll begin rolling AudienceGames out to the top 20 markets on about 750 screens."

Of course, they managed to make this announcement on a page with no date stamp, so I'm unable to give you a date. Let's assume all this goodness hasn't already come and gone and failed miserably in the marketplace.

creepy research re subliminal branding

A joint study from Duke University and the University of Waterloo suggests subliminal messages work for established brands like Apple and Disney.

One study gave 341 students a "visual acuity test," where they were asked to track a multicolored box on a screen while keeping a tally of numbers that appeared in the center, reports CNET.

Unbeknownst to them, the students were sometimes exposed to either an Apple logo or an IBM logo for 30 milliseconds before the box appeared.

After the test students were asked to list all the uses for a brick they could think of. Those who saw the Apple logo were more prone to give creative responses than those who saw the IBM logo.

Researchers also tried a test with logos from The Disney Channel and E!, a celebrity channel. Those that saw the Disney logo behaved more honestly than those who saw the E! Channel logos.

From Subliminal Branding Can Alter Behavior, Study Finds in MarketingVox

swarmin'

In a study conducted by researchers at the Stern School of Business at New York University, an examination of 108 albums that hit record shops in early 2007 determined that those that had been the subjects of 40 blog posts before their release date had sales of triple the average.

Cited in this morning's New York Times.

oh behave

Video: Yes We Can

They once called John Kennedy the first television president, and I think it's fair to predict that Obama could turn out to be the first internet president.

John Dukakis, Sr VP-branded entertainment at Boston ad agency Hill Holliday, and the son of past-presidential contender Michael Dukakis, as cited in today's AdAge piece Creatives Have a Crush on Obama.

The piece, which speaks to the facetime that Obama's receiving online and the creatives who have made gratis contributions to Obama's efforts to take the White House, also cites Shepard Fairey, who's created several pro-bono print pieces for the campaign, and leaks the fact that he'll soon be revealing another that he developed in cooperation with the Obama campaign. (Still pro-bono, though.) Says Fairey:

His politics fall perfectly in line with what I do as an artist. In advertising and marketing, things are simplified to accentuate the positive and utilize soundbites that are really powerful; it's about economical communications, and [Barack Obama] is really good at that.

That type of approach to politics -- when it seems like he really has conviction, too -- is really easy to distill down to marketable images. It felt really easy for me to make a poster for him.

Most disturbing quote of the piece? Barack Obama "behaves like a well-defined brand".

in celebration of sex & chocolate(aka Valentine's Day)

Video: Cadbury's Flake Girl from 1969

See, now: this wasn't part of my childhood.

We just don't show our children things like this in America.

I'm not saying I object. I'm just sayin'.

Stumbled across this important cultural icon -- Britain's "Flake Girl" from 1969 -- in an AdAge piece on how Cadbury has signed the singer Joss Stone to do the new one.

And I do mean do.

anatomy of the mac guy

View Large

Mindset Media uncovers the obvious about Mac & PC users with recent research as recounted in today's AdAge »

Research from internet ad network Mindset Media confirms the ad's personification of Mac users as superior and self-satisfied. Its recent Mac user "mind-set profile" -- a psychographic ranking system that scores respondents on 20 different elements of personality -- found them to be more assured of their superiority, less modest and more open than the general population.

Mindset did not work with Apple, Microsoft or any other PC company for its survey of 7,500 Nielsen online consumers. The questions were structured so Mindset could discover information about groups they were interested in -- in this case, Mac and PC users.

Far fewer cohesive personality traits emerged among PC owners, likely because of the breadth of PC ownership. Given that 95% or so of all computer users own a PC, those users essentially are the general population. The one area where PC users did stand out as statistically different was in creativity -- low creativity, that is. Mindset Media found they tend to be realists who are emotionally steady and work well with what they're given.

Beth Snyder Bulik's Mac Owners Are Just Like, Well, the Mac Guy
Study: Apple Computer Users Less Modest but More Open Than General (Read: PC) Population

Also worth noting: Mac owners are "bright green" "very satisfied" "music mavens".

Full disclosure: I swing both ways (platforms, silly).


[Photo credit: Mindset Media]

mash it up for commerce

One more example of how European advertising is infinitely cooler than what we do in the U.S.

Sony's asking folks to record tracks for their new jingly-score-like thingy -- soon they'll be letting folks mix up that indigenous content[1] with other tracks from other folks.

Fun.

Here's the link »

[1] Ran across this somewhere online -- think it was Squandrous -- the proposal that "user generated content" be recoined as "indigenous content". I'm trying it out.

misnomer

OLSEN: Actually, I remember it not being daisies, but Lazy Susans, you know—the yellow with the...

CONELRAD: But everyone called it the Daisy ad.

OLSEN: Yea. I always wondered about that later because I remembered distinctly what kind of flower it was (laughs).

Birgitte Olsen, the four year old girl in the LBJ Daisy Political Ad, a "masterpiece of manipulation," that aired in 1964. All grown up and interviewed by Conelrad in Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad.



Video: The Daisy Ad

oh dear.

Kids don't just ask for food from McDonald's. They actually believe that the chicken nugget they think is from McDonald's tastes better than an identical, unbranded nugget.

(...)
We found that kids with more TVs in their homes and those who eat at McDonald's more frequently were even more likely to prefer the food in the McDonald's wrapper.

Thomas Robinson, director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, commenting in today's AdAge (McNuggets Are Good, but Branded McNuggets Are Even Better) on a study conducted in concert with Stanford University School of Medicine involving 63 Northern California children that showed that:

Kids aged 3 to 5, when presented with identical foods -- one in a McDonald's wrapper and the other without -- overwhelmingly rated the branded one as tasting better.

coda

From page A3 of today's New York Times (read: beaucoup bucks to run this puppy): A Saks Fifth Avenue ad for a "Printed Led-Zeppelin zip-front hoodie, $145"

so. wrong.