Will Parents Say, What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Ok perhaps I’m a protective parent, with 5 kids, however, you’d be hard pressed to make that label stick on me. That’s why I don’t think I’m overreacting when I say “What were they thinking?” when this print ad was produced for the Citi American Airlines Advantage card. What gives me this reaction is the combination of the picture they used, and the potential thousands of similar images they could have used. Take a look below. It appeared in the February 1, 2009 issue of the American Airlines in-flight magazine American Way.
Isn’t that kid on what looks to be a ledge? My reaction was dumb parent, dumber ad. As you can see I wrote that on the ad. OK OK let’s just say it’s all photoshop right? Why use it when there must be others with the same captivating beauty of nature? Perhaps it is the shock value they were going for, and I’m the dumb one that is too protective.
As a little million to one shot, I was sitting in 26F on flight 557, an MD-80 from MSP to ORD when I wrote my missive in the magazine. It’s my physical way of sharing social media. If you find it, let me know.
Meanwhile what do you think -dumb ad or overly protective dad that’s afraid of heights?
Tags: advertising, design, parents, stock image
This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 10:50 pm and is filed under advertising, marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 10th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Twitter Comment
@AlbertMaruggi – I agree, dumb flight mag ad. [link to post] . Love the lo-tech social media message you sent.
– Posted using Chat Catcher
February 10th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Not only is it dumb in that “protective parent” sense — who’d hoist their kid up on a ledge like that? — but here’s another wrinkle:
The tagline is “Shorten the time between imagining it and experiencing it.” Does “it” = “throwing your kid off a cliff”?! That was my first thought.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Whoah. Seriously, that’s pretty scary. I think I would have written in the mag, too! Knowing me, I probably would have found avenues to complain, as well. I wonder if Citi Advantage, American Way or American Airlines are monitoring the conversation about their product(s)?
Also, you might be interested to know that people are doing grass roots activism in a very similar manner to your low-tech message. Friends and associates have told me about printing both art and thought provoking messages and inserting them into books in the library, thematically linked to the content.
I like it because it doesn’t deface, say, a library book but it reaches out to a reader in an inventive way. Chances are the messages are only being seen once, but still, it’s neat.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Ok ok…somebody has to play devil’s advocate here.
1st of all – i’m not a huge fan of the ad, it doesn’t particularly grab me in one way or another – but I guess it’s tough to have a reaction in this context (small photo of partial ad).
And maybe it’s b/c I’m not a parent yet…but I really don’t have any sort of “OMG he’s going to shove his kid off a ledge” reaction at all…It looks like mom & kid are on a hike in an amazingly beautiful place (Banf?), and they’re stopping to enjoy the view.
…she’s even holding onto him while he takes in the view. So…umm…I’m not feeling scared here.
Dumb ad – sure.
Dumb parent – nah. Good parent who takes there kid somewhere amazing.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Ok I like the Devil’s Advocate role, it suits you. Perhaps it is my fear of heights and the fact that I was at about 34,000 when I was reading it?
thanks for the comment Craig
February 11th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Mariana, thanks for the comments. My luck, I’ll get sued for defacing an ad :>) All the best.