Posts tagged “spartacus”

We Are The Product

There’s an advertising aesthetic I’ve long been fond of, showing a diverse range of customers tiled to demonstrate, often in a faux-anthropological fashion, that the product appeals to everyone, but that as different as people are, they have this one thing in common. The other message conveyed is that you, or “we” are the brand, collectively, evoking every cheesy movie scene where one by one the people in the crowd step forward and identify themselves as the oppressed protagonist, showing solidarity and often confounding the square villains who don’t understand true friendship (think “I am Spartacus!” from Spartacus, “I am Malcolm X!” from Malcolm X, “I am a drag queen!” from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar).
Some examples:
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Rolling Stones, No Security, 1998

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Tokyo subway, 2002

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Verizon ad, 2002

This notion, if not exactly the same visual treatment, is being evoked effectively in the I’m a PC ads and the associated website
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(Thanks to Tom Williams and Phoebe for their help with this post)

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