Hello … how are you?
Did you miss me?
No of course you didn’t … you didn’t even realise I’d gone did you … pah, I don’t know why I bother.
Anyway moving swiftly on, I want to talk about a new campaign from Olympus cameras.
Now before I start, I have to say there’s a lot about the campaign I like …
Even though it’s been said and done before [Kodak for example] I like how they are trying to move photography away from ‘snapshots of momentary interest’ or ‘photographic chops’ to something more about capturing an individual’s feelings and emotions.
What [I think] they’re saying is that photography shouldn’t be about filling an album, it should be about filling your heart, mind and soul with images of emotional importance – a journal of significance so to speak – which is why they’re using headlines like “It’s not a photograph, it’s a memory that hurts every time you see it – Don’t Be A Tourist”.
As I said, it’s nothing too new – but the idea behind it is good and really captures [excuse the pun] what a meaningful photograph can make you feel and think when you see it again – be it after a week or decades.
Of course it is quite similar to that wonderful scene in Mad Men, but I’m willing to overlook that because I think they are onto something because without doubt, digital technology [and mobile phone cameras] has resulted in too many people approaching photography like tourists – simply snapping away without giving [or letting] any emotional connection to the subject they’re capturing.
However there’s a couple of things I hate about this campaign and the is this …
Apart from the fact Kevin Spacey comes across as a bit of a prat [Camera chow, picture wow???] … the ad doesn’t capture any of the emotions that I think the core idea is really about … however the thing I really, really, really hate is the campaign line [which isn’t “Don’t Be A Tourist”, that is a new descriptor in advertising copywriting, known as the headline endline … cough cough] which is this …
NOT AN SLR
NOT A COMPACT
IT’S A PEN
Excuse me? A pen? A fucking pen?
Now I know what they’re trying to say – it’s the ’emotional significance journal’ I mentioned earlier – however I think they’ve completely fucked up the idea using that line because apart from it being utterly and completely wanky [and not directly related to the idea given pens also write fucking cheques, sick notes and death threats], the first thing I thought of when I saw it – and saw it in association with a camera brand – was PENtax, yep one of their key competitors.
OK … OK … I appreciate I am sounding like a literal, rational client here, but surely they could have come up with a better word to represent the overall idea as an endline than ‘pen’, because as it stands my first reaction is to say ‘it’s not a pen, it’s a fucking camera you arty-farty, delusional ad wankers’.
Nice idea, bad expression.