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Comment by ThePadawan | Hacker News Reader

I am pretty stubborn. And I stubbornly believe that advertising is a bane of society and has been for far too long.

But then I recently was pointed towards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf8mZVmof2g by twitter. It's a 2 minute ad I don't regret watching, and it has changed my opinion a bit.

If a company wants to spend $x million on paying artists, I find that a worthy thing to do.

Somehow, if I imagine how Coca-Cola would have spent the same money to make a generic "<sports personality> praises product in an extremely generic manner" ad, 95% of the money would have gone to the celebrity.

I don't know why to me, that makes a difference. Maybe I am just baffled by actually enjoying an ad.

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The relation between advertising and art is a bit similar to that between war and technology.

>If a company wants to spend $x million on paying artists, I find that a worthy thing to do.

If the US army wants to spend a few million on "search and rescue" drones that might also seem like a worthy goal. But just like military money is ultimately spent to kill people (ahem, "project force"), advertising money is ultimately used to manipulate people. One could even argue that if the "technology" to do this is genuinely beautiful art, that exactly makes it worse.

I realize I'm exaggerating a bit with this comparison, I don't mean to hammer on you while you gave a helpful counterexample :)

The world is not black and white. One good example of X does not make X good, whether X is ads, sugar, pain, or whatever. But you can look at X as a whole and decide whether it is a net good or not. And you can always make exceptions for particular types of X.

In France there was this TV series called "Culture Pub" (translates to "ad culture"). It used to showcase some of the better ads, talk about them etc. I remember it being a pretty cool watch.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_Pub

That video was great btw. Definitely a high quality ad. But like others said, one good example doesn't a good industry make. (Or like I said in a recent previous post: The ad industry can burn)

And frankly, that last-second transition to a product placement was pretty off-putting. It would have given me a weird taste in my mouth if you hadn't told me it was an ad from the get go. But this might be a cultural thing, too.

If you want examples of great ads, I really like Jay Foreman's goofy sponsorship sketches on YouTube. Here's a video to get you started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na9iO_HEe14 (audible ad starts at 5m33s)

(By the way, Map Men is a fantastic series, quick plug to his channel…)

I wonder how you'd like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwHPhDx2oGI

Very different style, every bit as much art.

I'm 100% the wrong person to ask about that since I have a personal intense dislike of soccer and fast cars.

If I saw this out of context (not comparing it to the CalorieMate ad), I'd shrug it off as very vanilla, flavorless, and forgettable. But then it is at least 10 years old, so I can't say what I would have felt in 2011.

After viewing it while remembering the CalorieMate ad, it made me cherish that one even more. Maybe this is just personal preference, but I feel a lot more connection between the music and the action, and a lot more connection between the characters in the anime than the POV protagonist in the Nike spot.

It gives me lots of "4-out-of-10 Hollywood adaptation of a 9-out-of-10 Japanese movie that completely misses the point" vibes.

In a very different style, I wonder what both of you think of this Superbowl ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYsFUFgOEmM

I loved this ad when I was younger: https://youtu.be/6d8nWbo9e6k

Wenger at Arsenal, Dinho at Barça... Man I feel old.

imagine how much you might have enjoyed those artists noncomercial animation shorts if your attention had been directed to them.

Not sure why you're making that a dichotomy - I enjoy both greatly!

Actually my half baked comment led me to search out the credited director's and animator's work. The director mostly makes Music videos and commercials anyway! The animator made some interesting anti-discrimination works for MOJ in the past.

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