Comments on: ray gun magazine, the ARG& advertising at large http://www.versionindustries.com/blog/2009/05/09/ray-gun-magazine-the-arg-advertising-at-large/ things we felt like sharing Fri, 28 May 2010 01:40:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Z. http://www.versionindustries.com/blog/2009/05/09/ray-gun-magazine-the-arg-advertising-at-large/comment-page-1/#comment-373 Z. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:30:08 +0000 http://www.versionindustries.com/blog/?p=213#comment-373 I think your point about conventional, big-business advertisers promoting unreasonable product expectations is especially good (even if it's sort of a sideline to your main points), and it reminds of the importance of commensurate scale; that is, a given product and its promotion should accurately reflect the scale of its relationship to its audience/consumer. So if Raygun was unreadable to most people, it didn't matter because, as Carson says above, it wasn't supposed to be read by most people. The design served as a kind of shibboleth for the readership, a changing visual system, a high-sign by which publication and reader acknowledged each other. I think that this sort of relationship still exists (between record labels and listeners, for example) but it needs to be understood that, with the singular exception of Apple, it seems to function best on a less-than-widespread scale. Nice work, (v). I think your point about conventional, big-business advertisers promoting unreasonable product expectations is especially good (even if it’s sort of a sideline to your main points), and it reminds of the importance of commensurate scale; that is, a given product and its promotion should accurately reflect the scale of its relationship to its audience/consumer. So if Raygun was unreadable to most people, it didn’t matter because, as Carson says above, it wasn’t supposed to be read by most people. The design served as a kind of shibboleth for the readership, a changing visual system, a high-sign by which publication and reader acknowledged each other. I think that this sort of relationship still exists (between record labels and listeners, for example) but it needs to be understood that, with the singular exception of Apple, it seems to function best on a less-than-widespread scale.
Nice work, (v).

]]> By: julesj http://www.versionindustries.com/blog/2009/05/09/ray-gun-magazine-the-arg-advertising-at-large/comment-page-1/#comment-199 julesj Tue, 12 May 2009 22:44:49 +0000 http://www.versionindustries.com/blog/?p=213#comment-199 'Bullshit, that's how i feel', nice interview. While i don't feel that negative about the big business way of advertising (i must admit i really enjoy commercials like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc), i see what you mean. i guess the main problem is that a lot of companies don't have a clue what to do to promote their product. ad agencies and such just give them the idea that if they spend a lot of money on 'bullshit', it'll be okay. and that's when those agencies are the ones to blame. it's like all those websites that have cost thousands of dollars, just to work in IE6 only. not because the company wanted it to, but because the company doesn't know anything about websites and the web-agency told them it would be okay if they'd just spent a lot of money on it. easy money ‘Bullshit, that’s how i feel’, nice interview.

While i don’t feel that negative about the big business way of advertising (i must admit i really enjoy commercials like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc), i see what you mean.
i guess the main problem is that a lot of companies don’t have a clue what to do to promote their product. ad agencies and such just give them the idea that if they spend a lot of money on ‘bullshit’, it’ll be okay. and that’s when those agencies are the ones to blame.
it’s like all those websites that have cost thousands of dollars, just to work in IE6 only. not because the company wanted it to, but because the company doesn’t know anything about websites and the web-agency told them it would be okay if they’d just spent a lot of money on it. easy money

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