FARAH
The Art and Copy documentary talks about the advertising history in America. The documentary duration is one hour and a half. The documentary interviews all the experts in the advertising field. It is such an honour to watch the documentary about the advertising field as it has opened my mind and I received a lot of new knowledge in the advertising field. Advertising does not only consists of a publisher and sponsor but also the billboard. The advertising field is interesting and it makes me want to know and experience more of this field as it is one of the forms of communication in our daily life. Advertisements these days have a huge difference compared to those in the old days. Back then, advertisement was based on the theme of female abuse and double standardizing the female and male gender. Even so, these days; females are used as a portrayal of enticement to lure in customers with sexy poses and luring stares. For example, the perfume company uses women model to promote their product and even worse, they use a sexual theme in the advertisement. It is really bad and not a wonder why people hate the advertisement field. It is because of all this junk.
The scene in the video that impresses me is the scene where the man continues his grandfather’s legacy in the billboard field. It impresses me because nowadays, it is really hard to find a man who is willing to do this kind of job. People always thought that it is a job for those without enough certificates and achievements. He works every day to change the billboard advertisement. It is not just about changing the huge advertisement posters to serve the people with new information; but they also fight with their own fear which is the fear of height and their own safety when they are doing the job. I also feel that the duty to communicate with people via advertisements is a humble work.
This documentary enlightened me about the advertisement field and it is not only about advertising and selling products. This beautiful field also consists of people’s life and it acts as a medium of communication towards the community. Even though this field is interesting and fun to be in, I do not intend to pursue a career in this field because I am not a creative person and I think it is really hard to survive in this career. I am not a pessimist and I feel that I am not good enough to contribute or produce a good quality advertisement. Personally, I do not like the advertisements nowadays especially the advertisements for perfume products. It is really an 18 years old and above advertisement. The advertisement tarnishes the young and fresh minds so easily at a young age. The young are supposed to be exposed to good and pure advertisements that is suitable for their age. Do not accuse others when a young child says or does something rude as they are exposed to this culture. I hope that the future generation of advertisers will create a cleaner advertisement in the future. I also hope that my course mates and Foundation in Mass Communication students who would want to pursue in this path have the courage to create something new, fresh and at the same time avoid any discrimination in the advertisements that they produce.
What will society be like without advertising? My first thought of this question is that communication will become dull and boring. The communication would just be based verbally and it would be quite boring as advertisement is one of the topics that people will talk about. If advertisements did not exist, the idea to start a conversation would become really awkward for them when they have always used advertisement as a topic to start a conversation. Secondly, advertisements connect everyone in the world. We have almost 7 billion people in the world and it is really hard to connect to everyone based on verbal communication only. Verbal communication could not work with 7 billion people because each have their own language. If one does not know English well and just speak in his mother tongue while the other speaks in English, then their communication is like a chicken and a duck that wants to communicate with each other. Besides that, the non-existence of advertisements would make businesses have a hard time to promote and sell their products as there is no specific medium for that. If we use other media like television, radio and newspaper; our advertisements would be controlled because only if they have extra space in the medium, then they will insert our advertisement but if not, then their product would not be advertised at all. Lastly, advertisement is a form of entertainment especially for young children. Their attention is more to the billboards when we are driving down a highway. The billboard is like a diamond that shines as it really attracts attention. Advertisements kind of entertains us when we are bored with the road and our own gadgets. If these billboards do not exist, we would abandon our surroundings as we are all focusing on our own gadgets. Usually the child will be excited with an advertisement and this attracts their parents to look at it.