Thanks to Paul Goodison for picking up on this BBC story on The Tyranny of Yoga.
Yoga helps us to get closer to enlightenment. I wonder if this insight from the St Luke's agency counts as an example?:
It is a reliable medium through which the advertiser can communicate with the Special K demographic.Makes you proud to work in marketing,eh? According to St Luke's agency, yoga has been used to sell...
I'm with Paul when he comments
Air Wick air freshener
Norwich Union Direct insurance
Benecol low-fat yoghurt
Cable & Wireless
Clear Blue pregnancy test
DFS and Homebase
John Smith extra smooth bitter
Special K cereal
Phostrogen weed and moss killer lawn feed
Those companies/agencies using the Yoga image aren't being authentic because they are selling something that isn't the truth. Eating a breakfast cereal is not going to make me supple or relaxed.
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Comments (1)
Aren't we being just a little unfair here? Yoga is a distinctive image for a demographic, that much is true, but we're not using Yoga to sell, not in the sense as forcing Neil Young and Elvis Costello fans to install Microsoft DRM before they can listen to pre-releases ... it's just an image that will attract the attention, like a booth-babe or a juicy hamburger. Nothing special.
Why single out yoga? What about using the Rolling Stones to sell Windows 2000 (although, to be fair, the lyrics next after the ad spot cutoff would have been, "You make a grown man cry", which one could say is very much truth in advertising ;)
What about babies? We use babies to sell ointments for yeast infections, but really, is that what we are doing, or are we only doing what advertising has done for thousands of years, attempt to send up a flare that only prospective buyers will notice -- and if I knew how to do that myself, who knows, maybe I'd be solvent too.
October 15, 2003 14:55 Permalink for comment