contextualized here:
lmb_lre_PassStRtCredCplDncHseBWVidCNP15s_fall_AV510_1498_040.swf
and recently discussed here:
nastynets post
contextualized here:
lmb_lre_PassStRtCredCplDncHseBWVidCNP15s_fall_AV510_1498_040.swf
and recently discussed here:
nastynets post
are you trying to site examples here as like the orignal artifacts – ie before they become recursive (people imitating the dance done by the silhouttes)? Is that what you mean by pre-abstraction?
these gifs are real LMB ads that existed before our current favorites (such as “50 states / 50 babies” or “50 states Long Dog / Moose”). I am referring to abstraction in the literal sense — these prehistoric ads directly employ the underlying content (debt consolidation), whereas later ads began to abstract the underlying subject matter in favor of aesthetic / kinetic gimmicks.
and the jury’s still out on the “people imitating the dance done by the silouhettes” theory. I’m gonna do some more detective work on that one…though I really hope this is the case
I’m glad you explained the use of “abstraction”–yeah, at some point the decision was made to go with fanciful, absurd images that had nothing to do with mortgages. Pre-dada? Preabsurdification? I suppose the dancing relates to “celebrating getting a lower mortgage” and the wienermoose relates to… taking up a long stretched banner space but others are purely confectionary (to use a term of design guru Edward Tufte’s). Pre-confectionary? But in Tufte the confection is still used to tell a cognizable story. Surely there’s a term for a trend in advertising where a completely unrelated wacky thing is used to sell a product. Just thinking aloud here.
I forgot that I linked to this a while ago, but here is some insight from the designer:
Ms. Uhll said the company has included maps of the United States in its ads for years, ever since executives read a brochure about online advertising that said people responded to the chance to specify their home states. Most LowerMyBills ads include this feature, though it seems to have little effect on the loan application that people are asked to fill out.
Ms. Uhll said she first used the silhouettes in January 2005, in an ad featuring a woman blowing colorful bubbles that represented the 50 states. Four months later, another LowerMyBills ad with three prancing, high-kicking sheep under the headline ”Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows!” also performed well.
So Ms. Uhll combined the two concepts, animating her silhouetted, pony-tailed woman with a swaying modern dance. Ms. Uhll said she is a dancer and took a variety of dancing classes for more than a decade. She is also a fan of the pet sequences in ”America’s Funniest Home Videos,” which relates to the animal ads.
”I usually put into my creative work what I love and what makes me happy and gets my attention,” she said.
(via this nytimes article: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60610F83A540C7B8DDDA80894DF404482 )
Here we are being all analytical about the company’s motives and this nice woman just enjoys dancing!