Ads in Print

I described these ads here, and it's good to see them in print!

Work for Jones County Tourism

When I started working on a simple display banner project for Jones County Tourism (JCT), I didn’t know I’d be a catalyst for a makeover.

Bob was looking for a banner that retracts for easy storage. I remembered one used for New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music, which was/is a traveling Museum on Mainstreet program through the Smithsonian. Long story short: retractable banners are neat.

We decided on a size, and the collecting of photos began. While deciding on an arrangement, I had several pieces of JCT literature and items that had the JCT logo on them. There were several versions of the logo. No. No. No. One logo used consistently. Not several used randomly, scattershot; it does nothing but dilute the identity.

This one is going in the local Jones County Vacation Guide.

 

They have a brochure labeled “PASSPORT.” I didn’t do it, and had I been responsible, I should’ve been flogged. The theme was a good, but the execution … meh. Can I do better? We’ll see. They still have several hundred, and as money is tight, they’d rather use ‘em than junk ‘em. (Ah, budgets.) Eventually, I think I’ll have a crack at it.

 The one on the left is for Our Iowa magazine, hopefully the one

on the right goes in The Iowan.

 

Going off the passport idea, I thought about a passport stamp and putting it on variety of photos in a series of simple ads. Some ads would ultimately evolve from a current design with multiple pics.

 

Quick note on the banners ... They've not quite done yet. Sometimes during a project, you realize you can either get it done, or get it done right. Time isn't too much of a factor in this, and as spring is slowly making its way here -- seriously, it was trying to snow just a few days ago -- the decision was made to wait and stage a few shots after things warm up.

Resorts at Sea - March 2013

Spent part of the week retrieving items from storage. It really made me want to drop a lit match and close the door behind me. But I grabbed some (I hope) relevant books and articles for this project. Among one of the boxes I found an ad I printed off microfilm many moons ago ...

 

It's from the March 16, 1912 edition of The New York Times, and it's a little creepy seeing the return trips listed. I should go back and see how late these ads were being run, especially when multiple special editions were being printed with disaster updates.

 

In addition to the items in storage, I visited a university library and slightly ransacked their stacks, obtaining some interesting articles. More pointed research to come ...



Edwardian ship in a Deco world ...

To help visually support my Resorts at Sea project, I'm sorting and scanning what seems to be a bajillion steamship company ads. Although the main focus will be American companies and their ships, this one sticks out.

Yes, that Olympic, sister to Titanic. She was still afloat in 1933, the year of this ad. I think this was a year or two before she was withdrawn from service and scrapped. She remained a popular ship/historic relic as her interiors were virtually identical to that of Titanic.

It's interesting to see such stylization to make her modern. Her stacks were not that oblong. And the scale of the ship to the crowd is completely out of whack. On the other hand, I do like the amount of detail in the passengers in the foreground compared to those in the background, well the entire background, actually. Very minimal.

Evolutions in Advertising: Steamship Edition

Related links: 
| The Big Ship | Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise? |

I've been amassing a collection of ocean liner ads over the years, and it has branched into other areas of transportation, communication, plus other products. It's interesting to see the changes in styles, the shift from illustrations to photos as graphic elements, the length of copy, the prose used. All in the name to sell us things we don't need, to create that want.

However, some products were necessities. (Or did they become necessities? Hmm ...) For almost 500 years, the only way to cross the oceans was by ship. The ship was a necessity. (Granted, it became a question of which company, which ship was faster, or had the better accommodations, the Queen Mary or the Normandie?) Then airplanes came into the picture, and finally jet travel by the late 1950s. That which was once a necessity now had been demoted to a choice.

The want to travel by ship had to be recreated. Shipping lines began to emphasize the amenities of ship travel, thus predating Carnival's concept of the ship being the destination. The main difference being, cruises today have the same departure and end point. You embark in Miami, tour the Caribbean, and disembark in Miami. Transatlantic travel was embark in New York, disembark in Southampton, or vice versa.

Cunard operatives coined the iconic phrase "Getting there is half the fun!" in the early 1950s. This morphed into "Vacation Islands" by the 1960s. The later ads showed people having fun, engaging in activities, or simply relaxing. While their smaller vessels were more suitable to cruising, the Queens were not, though they valiantly tried. Ironically, their 80,000+ GRT -- huge then -- would today be categorized as "mid-size."

"City at sea" and "France-Afloat." Sounds like a destination to me. I love the artwork in this ad. This is one of a series from the late 1950s. The glamour of the continent (or promise of) really comes across. The Italian Line used amazing illustrations in the mid-1960s, while many others were using photographs. (Mercedes-Benz had a campaign around the same time with some stunning black and white drawings.)

One of the arguments Carnival used in its battle with Royal Caribbean for Princess Cruises was that cruise lines compete directly with land-based resorts, and as a result, are not a separate industry. Carnival won the anti-trust wars and won Princess.

 

In 1958, Moore-McCormack introduced the Brasil and Argentina. This ad references "resort" and "country-club," two decidedly land-based notions. A list of amenities, such as a theater and restaurants add to the resort concept. MooreMac was not the first company to utilize the term "resort" and/or other synonyms in its advertising. American President Lines touted the President Cleveland and President Wilson as "your American hotel abroad" in the late 1940s. Delta Line called each of its trio a "Resort at Sea."

These companies had set route, or a milk-run, and cargo was the primary concern. American President traversed the Pacific: San Francisco to the Orient. Delta and MooreMac to South America. But each company had their flagships; the ones that carried a fair amount of passengers. But like the Atlantic, passengers for these routes soon took to the air.

This is a mere glossing over of the topic. (I admit, that' a generous assessment.) So much more can be done. I've hundreds, if not thousands of ads cataloged, and perhaps even more needing such attention.

During my last semester in college, in Media Criticism, I really wanted to use this subject for my final paper, but I wrote an earlier piece regarding the personification of ocean liners and couldn't reuse the topic, so 40 years of AT&T advertising was analyzed instead. I need to revisit this, and perhaps tie it in with another project.

It's good that I've saved my textbooks!

Related links: 
| The Big Ship | Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise? |