Green Social Advertisements - Yellow, Concise And Laconic

This series of social advertisements promoting the "green" lifestyle and the environmentally aware approach to your life has recently grabbed my attention as something new and persuasive. The yellow and black color scheme, the precise and laconic graphics sometimes reminding the newspapers' and websites' info-graphics and short but impressive slogans make this series a really great social advertising solution. After you've looked at these ads you can feel that you are really eager to protect your environment and to change your lifestyle to the "greener" one. These ads are as following:

The garbage's way to the waste bin goes through our mind!

Be more mindful! 

A small victory for you!

A big victory for the humanity!

Start defeating pollution! 

Your garbage can be the accidental reason of the other people's trouble!

Don't pollute the nature!

The Internet is against pollution!

And you? 

We have had to stop turning our woods into the waste site for a long time!

Don't pollute the nature!

To be a human!

It's not a duty! 

Be humans!

Don't worry!

Our children's children will clean up everything!

It's enough to pollute the world!

Teach good manners to your children!

You have littered your house - don't litter up the others' one!

Don't pollute the nature!

So, these precise, graphical black images on the yellow background are really eye-catching and slogans are well-thought. These ads make us think of the environmental problems and of our children's future. 

Really Strange Social Advertising

I've recently discovered some strange samples of the Russian social advertising. They are about disabled people and that we shouldn't pay attention on their disabilities. Generally, the message is like "OK, we are all different and that's great". Advertisers chose to emphasize this difference via comparing disabled people with some controversial artworks, like Malevich's "Black Square" etc. "Yes, you may not like it but it's still the art".  I think it's not very politically correct, at least. May be, a disabled person may be offended by such a comparison. Advertisers have stepped on the slippery ground, anyway. Let's have a look at what they've done.

Picture - Art

Look at deviations from the norm in the another way. 

Every disabled person can be great. 

 Fruit - Brand

(the text is the same as it is on the previous picture)

Tower - Legend 

The design is quite minimalistic and primitive drawings are in fashion now, but anyway, I think it's a rather bad sample of a social advertising campaign. Yes, "Black Square" is a great masterpiece, Apple Inc. is a great company which has changed our idea of electronic devices and Pisa Tower is the great landmark of this Italian town, but the idea of deficiency compared with "the norm" (a lifelike, realistic picture; a "whole" apple; a straight-standing tower) lies behind this "appreciation of greatness".  "Deviations from the norm" is a bad idea for a slogan, anyway. Who is defining this norm? Especially if we are speaking about people? I believe that many handicapped people really suffer from being "special" and from the constant emphasis on the idea that "they are not like normal people". This advertising campaign may only make things worse. 

But, may be, I'm not right and this idea for ads is really great. What do you think about it, by the way?

New things are long-forgotten old things: "vintage" ads for social networks

I think many of you have already seen advertisements for Twitter, YouTube and Facebook made in the style of the 1950s - when ads were quite different from what we see nowadays. They got immediate response because they have blended the completely new phenomenon - Internet with all its features and facilities - and the good old manner of advertising. So, there are some of these ads:

Your films will last forever on YouTube. The champion address on Internet!

Twitter. The sublime, mighty community with just 140 letters!

Skype. The fabulous voice system able to put your family together. 

Facebook. Striking, miraculous social team-up!

You say, it's impossible to represent the new feature of our postmodernist era - social networks and messengers - as they would be 50 years ago? As we see now, it has proved to be not so difficult. Just do the next things:

1. Choose the yellowish "old newspaper" background.

2. Stylize lettering - you can even play with logos in order to make ads more "reliably vintage".

3. Add drawn images (not photos!) of pin-up girls wearing the 1960s clothes. If you draw a computer - make it look like in the fantastic movies of the 1950s - not as it is now.

4. Accompany your ad with a little bit pathetic slogan and with a long story describing advantages of the product. 

Finally, you'll get a vintage ad. 

But, I think, it'll work not in all cases. You need to be really talented and to know a lot about old advertising. Creators of these ads have been able to do that. 

Sometimes I really think whether our grannies would be glad to have Internet access and all these social networks or not. But, anyway, if it existed in those days and was advertised in this way, they would be devout users of all these facilities. 

Quirky packaging for good purchases

What do you think of plastic or paper bags which go free with your purchases? Many of them are just made to be thrown away, so designers don't think a lot of their looks. But advertisers do know that the package which is decorated in the certain way can be the really powerful medium for advertising. If you design a humble plastic bag or a paper box in appealing way, it won't end its life in the waste bin but rather will be used more often and its originality will help you to achieve advertising aims. Moreover, this method can help to raise sales - so, more people will desire to buy something in your store if, instead of dull bags you give them quirky, original and fascinating packages.

There are some vivid and interesting examples of good packaging which I've liked most:

This is an interesting textile bag which promotes the medicine for weight loss. When the bag isn't tightened it depicts the wide waist, but when you tighten the lace you'll see the effect of taking this medicine. The concept is called "The Burn Bag". 

This bag is the visual demonstration of the buyer's virility, especially when you hold it in the certain position - in front of your body, below the waist line. 

This bag advertises the gym. Its hands have the function of a jumping rod - they're up when you grip them. I like the elegant black-and-white photos of athletes on the white background. 

This designer's solution seems to be a bit cruel. They have placed the photo of a man on the bag and have cut the hands in his head, so, when you carry this bag your hand is penetrating the man's head, and his facial expression says a lot of his feelings...

Another illusion of "holding" something - in this case, a gun. The designer's solution is again quite simple - just put the photo of a gun on the bag and cut the hands where the trigger should be. 

This bag clearly promotes Lipton tea. Advertisers haven't had to do much brainstorming - they've just made a tea bag oversized and have done it in plastic. 

This bag gives the whole illusion of driving a car - like you are sitting in it and someone sees you in the car's window. 

I like this solution for the bookstore's bag. Transparent bags bear images of people who hug something - and when you place your purchase in it you'll see what they hug. 

This bag gives people around you the illusion that you're carrying the big crate of beer, but in a strange way. When I see photos of people with such bags I start to worry how they'll manage to carry the crate safe and sound to home. But it's not the crate of all!

So, packages like these will never be thrown away immediately after purchases are unpacked. They are advertising masterpieces - and original accessories too! 

Ads for fitness clubs

What can make you leave your sofa and go doing fitness in a club or a gym? It's a rather tricky question... Of course, we, girls, are obsessed with our shape and weight and promises to help us losing weight and making us fitter and more attractive are enough to make us consider visiting a fitness club. But it's more difficult issue with guys... Yes, some of them do really worry of their shape and body and they will visit fitness clubs anyway. But a part of them has to be really forced doing sports because they don't see any problems with their bodies or weight, even if there ARE problems. So, many most original advertisements for fitness clubs are aimed on this category of sedentary young men who don't worry about their bellies and mid-riffs. Some of them are really shocking and you won't forget them! These are good samples of both commercial and social advertisements (whether we will apply for membership in a certain fitness club or won't, we will still think more of our shape and of the opportunity to improve it).

Yoga is a good way to be in the harmony with your soul through special exercises, but, aside of this spiritual stuff which occupies all ads for yoga centers we should remember that asanas will make us more flexible in the first place. This interesting concept - to place a girl's photo on the bending part of a cocktail tube - will remind us of it. Although there is no slogan here, we can put it out like this: "If you start visiting our yoga center you'll soon be as flexible as this girl on your cocktail tube". 

It's a very impressive example of the ad that will remind us of overweighting. A heavy man sitting on the bench is literally breaking the frame of the ad's poster. For those who want to gain weight through fitness this ad is also a very good reminder and stimulus to sign up with Fitness Company (as the fitness club is called). 

This ad shows you the effect of doing fitness in a certain gym. Overweight people come into the club through wide doors and leave it through much narrower ones. What can be better in showing effects of regular sports and dieting? 

Those who dream of "cubes on the stomach" and of strong protruding muscles will appreciate this transparent ad for a fitness club glued on the surface of the brick wall. 

Another interesting way to advertise a gym is to turn a bus' interior into it. So, any passenger, as we see from this, can feel himself as a powerlifter. 

The simple, but smart solution for advertising. Just place the photo of an obese man to the corner of the billboard and hang this billboard awry, as the man "overweights" it. 

Another smart&simple advertising solution. What you need are a huge billboard with an athlete and the skyscraper which is still being built. So, the association is rather straightforward and direct - build your body like this enormous building. 

Another play with overweighting - place the image of almost empty bus and place a plump girl in its corner, then hang a billboard awry. And you'll get an ideal advertising for a weight-losing program. 

All these ads are quite impressive. They can restore the wish to do sports in us by showing us ideal athletic bodies that can be our owns or obese and ugly bodies of people who ignore fitness. 

Anti-alcohol advertising campaign in the USSR

Alcoholism and drunkenness has always been one grave social problem among many others. Habit of drinking alcoholic beverages seems to be shared by most people of the European and American world. And quite often this habit becomes mortal, destroying a person's health, making her addictive and influencing on her social and family life. Governments and societies have long been struggling for the ideal of sobriety (with different degree of success). Different "dry laws" were introduced, only to make things worse, because as there weren't any alcoholic beverages legally sold "black market" of fake, "hand-made" and even poisonous booze immediately started to prosper, alongside with illegal import from abroad.

In the USSR, "dry law" was introduced by the General Secretary (then the President) Michael Gorbacheff as the means to encourage people work more instead of drinking vodka and to improve the nation's health and well-being (because alcoholism is also related with family and society problems, poorness and child abuse). The massive propaganda overwhelmed the country - the number of anti-alcohol publishings and social advertising campaigns were great, as well as some forcing measures, such as destroying of Crimean vineyards (some of the vine species grown in Crimea had been really unique and  would  never be restored) and involuntary sending people suffering from alcoholism to so-called Prevention Houses ("profilactories") where they were kept 24 hours a day without the right to leave it before the certain term. The net of so-called "vytrezvitely" ("Sobering Houses") was organized. And it still operates. So, a policeman had the right to arrest a drunken person on the street and to send her to the Sobering House for a night. It was thought that the perspective to spend a night under the arrest in a prison-like institution would be a good stimulus for someone not to drink to the degree it would be very noticeable (till they became unable to stand straight and to walk properly). And it made things worse that policemen often robbed an unlucky drunkard of his or her valuables. But sometimes this measure was beneficial, for in harsh and frosty Russian winters many people who'd drunk too much had the risk to fall asleep in the snow and never wake up (and this happened sometimes), and thus, policemen saved drunkards' lives in cold seasons.  Moreover, people with heavy drinking habits risked their working careers.

As it always happens with such measures, intentions had been good, but the reality turned to be more complicated, and, just like it had happened during American "dry law", people soon started to look for ways to illegally purchase alcohol. The old village craft of "samogon"-making (samogon - is the Russian native equivalent to whiskey and brandy) started to revive. People made homemade wine and beer, and often not for their own usage but for sale. Since nobody controlled the quality of these drinks, there was a danger to be poisoned or to get sick while drinking this alcohol. Real alcoholics turned their attention to alcohol-containing liquids, not intended for drinking by people, such as perfumes, eau-de-colognes, lotions, cleaning liquids etc. Some medicines (different herbal liquids) containing high percentage of alcohol were bought by alcoholics in drugstores. Of course, it made things worse and poisoning by this inappropriate "booze" was quite common (and sometimes lethal). And none of the strict governmental measure didn't solve the problem of drinking.

Of course, drinking and alcoholism are serious problems affecting social, working and private life of the person suffering from it and people around her. And, unlike drugs, alcoholic beverages are wide-spread and can be bought anywhere, they are relatively cheap (compared with heroine, for example). People become addictive to heavy doses of alcohol and develop a lot of diseases. Many divorces, child abuses and neglecting are indirectly caused by drinking habits of a parent or a marriage partner. Someone who's addictive to alcohol turns into an anti-social person who cannot do her work properly and spends all her money on drinks. Many severe crimes are committed under the alcohol influence - most notoriously, murders and assaults.  But, as we see, the complete ban on selling alcoholic beverages usually doesn't help. In Russia, this is aggravated by the fact that traditionally Russian people like to drink strong alcohol, for example, vodka or brandy, and they drink it in shots, so they can get drunk quite fast. The beer as the essential element of a party became popular among Russians only 20 years ago (before that it had been used as a hangover remedy or a refreshment beverage), and the wine was considered "the booze for women". So, the culture of drinking wine or beer during the meal is foreign for Russia, instead of it Russian people traditionally prefer to get drunk on rare occasions, but drinking then becomes really extreme.

I've chosen some well-known Russian posters which serve as a good illustration for Soviet anti-alcoholic campaign. They are good examples of Soviet poster graphics as well as of social advertising; at least, they warn against consequences of uncontrollable drinking quite well. Here they are:

Shame on you! 

He got drunk, was rude and broke a tiny tree -

He is shameful to look at people's faces now.

So, here we have the whole, well-painted (as usual with Soviet ads) story of a quite respectable man who's got drunk, misbehaved and damaged the public property (and caught by a policeman for his misdemeanor). Now he's overwhelmed with the feeling of shame. It seems that the main cause of his shame is not a fine but that he damaged the young tree which had been carefully planted  either by himself or by his neighbors or colleagues. The main message of this ad is that you should always think of consequences of your drunken behavior and it's better not to get drunk if you don't want to be destructive. 

Not a drop!

This ad warns against teenage drinking. A hand which, may be, is belonged to some kind of a superior guardian, prevents the schoolboy against tasting the alcohol. Many future alcoholics first get drunk in early age, so this ad contains a clear message: you'd better not even try! 

Let's hit!

It's an ad of the early Soviet era. Here the message is clearly visible: drinking habits of workers slow down industrial revolution. The red furious worker with the great hammer ("Cultural Revolution", as it's written on it) is destroying the huge bottle of alcohol. Factories and plants, electrical power stations are on the background, reminding us of the prosperous future - without such "vice of the past" as vodka-drinking. Below one can read a poem of the recognized Soviet poet Demian Bedniy whose verses were often quoted on different posters of Stalin era. 

In this tiny glass,

in the very this

The great plant

Can drown.

Let's expel drunkards from working masses!

This poster is also a vivid and emotional warning against drinking at the working place. The disgusting picture of the red-nosed drunkard pouring vodka to the glass and the vodka flooding a Soviet plant is very impressive. 

Dad, don't drink

Not only a career or a plant where the alcoholic works can be affected by his mortal habit, but also his family life, as we see from this poster. A dramatic choice of images grabs our attention. The hand with the raised vodka shot, belonging to the drunkard who is going to pour "just another one" inside and a desperate child with miserable expression trying to prevent his Dad from drinking. It's laconic but it's smart. 

For the health?

A quirky graphics is very impressive. Two glasses of wine standing side by side suddenly form a skull. It's a subtle picture, using methods of optical illusion and Surrealism painting. It quietly but rather cruelly reminds us of consequences of alcohol consuming. 

The rich internal content.

This is some king of hybrid between a social ad and a caricature. It mocks a man whose head is literally full of booze. Make notice that a man wears good clothes and bottles are quite expensive, such as cognacs and liqueurs. This ad also aims against people who like collecting rare beverages.

Alcohol

A loop of rope forming the letter O in the word "alcohol" is an impressive image. Black and white graphics only emphasizes the gravity and mortality of alcohol consumption problem. It also hints that the alcoholism not only kills the body - alcoholics tend to commit suicides, and, as far as Russia is concerned, the most popular way of alcohol suicides is hanging oneself. So, the main message of this ad: "The alcohol is mortal". 

Stop!

Last warning

Another metaphor in a good and impressive graphics - drinking is just another method for killing oneself. A drunkard is almost one foot in the abyss, but the hand of its guardian manages to save him on the very edge of it. Take notice to the small figures of the drunkard's desperate family.

And they still say that we are pigs...

This poster artist chose another tactics - instead of warning or frightening viewers he decided to mock drunkards and their inappropriate ("piggish") behavior. Two pretty pigs look down at a disgusting drunkard with his face in the dish, surrounded by half-eaten fish and his own vomit on the table - the unpleasant picture to look at. 

British ads for the USSR

It's surprising that these ads were created as early as at 1937. They promoted some products and services of the USSR for British tourists who would visit Moscow. These wonderful examples of advertising graphics and slogans are unique in some sense. So, USSR was the closed country secluded within the "iron curtain". There weren't a lot of tourists there, because it was very difficult to obtain a visa and to buy a ticket to Moscow. But in fact, before Stalin age, the new splendid country which was built according to Communist principles, was seen as a new Eldorado, as the place for social experimentation without any boundaries, as something which had nothing common with "rotting West"  where capitalism still ruled and everything seemed boring for young enthusiasts. So, some modernist architects, artists, writers and journalists came to visit "new Russia", the USSR, and many of them saw it as the place for their experiments and for free roaming of all, even the craziest ideas. Thus, Le Corbusier built several edifices and houses in Moscow according to his principles of severe minimalism, economy of space etc. The harsh and severe lines of Le Corbusier's buildings would be strange and awkward among, say, Gothic spires of Prague or Parisian architectural abundance. But in a new country with new beginnings, which had put the end to its past, such architecture seemed to be exactly what was needed. But these "roaring twenties" in the Soviet Russia is the subject of the separate post I'll write soon... Now, let's come back to 1937. This year is considered to be one of the darkest years in Russian history. If you ask a Russian about his or her associations with this year, they will probably think of Stalin's repressions, sufferings of many people who were sent to the labour camps and prisons upon fabricated accusations in being a spy of some foreign countries or in "damaging of the Socialist property" or in "being a foreign and ideologically alien element" (thus, people who were originated from former aristocracy, civil servants, officers or merchants, people having relatives living abroad, priests and other representatives of former "privileged classes" were in the group of risk; many of them, if they wanted to survive, had to conceal their former occupation and origins, not to say anything about their family and relatives). So, 1937 is "the terrible year", the year of terror. But if we have a look at these cheerful ads, we'll think that there is no country better than the USSR. Tasty food, refined entertainment, technical achievements, spacial streets of the rebuilt Moscow, good-looking girls - that were export items which were to attract wealthy British tourists. And they look appealing even today - if we look at these old-school ads.

Aeroflot still exists today, though it's a private company and there are a lot of its commercial rivals. But "Aeroflot" remains "classy". The graphics here is excellent. I like this combination of light blue, navy and mint green. 

Sturgeon is the Russian national fish, thus, the best "eatable" souvenir was to be the canned sturgeon. But you shouldn't forget about apples, pears and grapes - they were good too and a tourist would be pleased to eat such food. 

The USSR was a very huge country. So, it could offer a plenty of products, especially for foreign tourists. Crab meat was one of such products. You can use it for making a tasty salad with lemons, greenery and eggs - and the graphic image shows that. I like the fonts and designer solutions here, especially this picture of salad-making process painted into the letter "C".

Gastronom is the Russian version of the Western supermarket. In 1937 "Gastronom" was still a trademark, but then it became the common term for all stores of this type. The abundance shown on this picture had nothing to do with reality - as for 1970s-1980s, the product assortment was scarce and people had to queue for hours in order to buy something worth (often, when your turn came nothing was left). 

One of the Russian attractions is the Transsiberian Railway, which stretches out from Moscow to Vladivostok. The train trip along this railway route is a popular Russian excursion (the train trip will take a week). Therefore, the dining car is the special invention (and a very convenient too) for travelers. As we see, food on offer is very good: champagne, fruits, starters, and of course the famous tea in the special designed glass (with the iron holder; it's the collection subject). As for me, I've never eaten in dining cars while traveling by train (it seemed to be a quite expensive pleasure and sometimes assortment is rather scarce). But it should be convenient, especially if your journey lasts the whole week! 

TZUM (Central Moscow Universal Store) still exists today in the fabulous art deco building at the same address as mentioned in this ad, but now it looks just like another one Moscow shopping mall. However, it has retained its reputation as the best universal store in Moscow. When the USSR still existed, people from all over the country came to buy something special in the TZUM they couldn't find on sale in their places. Now you can buy here production of European fashion houses, and, of course, the big ZARA store is located in it. It is especially busy during seasonal sales, and only in this time it somehow looks like it used to be in the years when it was the main shopping mall of the Russian capital. 

Product advertising in the USSR

I really like cute, straightforward and thoroughly made Soviet ads. Though they are not really commercial, but they are very stylish, and they have been made before the Photoshop era. It means that all advertising illustrations were made be hand and by professional artists. Here are further examples of this nostalgic art:

The whole USSR writes by ink pen "Soyuz" named after L.B. Krasin

Very distinctive coloring reflects the sense of powerfulness and some serious approach to sales. And we also see a good example of fonts (I particularly like them in old ads). The giant ink pen with the brand name and the number appears on the background of the USSR map (only its European part, which is somehow strange). The map is blackened, perhaps by inks, which reflects the meaning of the slogan - that the whole USSR uses these pens for writing. This ad is certainly eye-catching.

Bitter liquors 

A very straightforward ad of alcoholic drinks. I think that such things as tobacco and alcohol should be advertised in this very way - just by showing bottles (or cigarette packs) and without some lifestyle shit, as we see in different ads (naked beauties, cowboys and so on). Here we see three good, solid, well-designed bottles of "bitter liquors" (which are vodka varieties). Even gin ("Dutch Gin" as it's called here) is represented. They are well-painted on the blue background with fine yellow wording (good fantasy font again!). 

Smoke flavored cigars

Yes, they made cigars in the USSR! (they made champagne and called it "Soviet Champagne", it's still popular in Russia). Here we see the attempt to make a lifestyle ad. Packs of cigars are laid against the optimistic and romantic tropical landscape made in ochre coloring. Tobacco leaves frame up products. Here we see good samples of product packaging as well as masterpieces of font design (three kinds of font are used here). Take notice of names of these brands: "Moscow", "Sever" (North), Soyuznye ("The Union's"). It's patriotic!

Drink "Guiness" for your health

I don't know whether they made dark beer in the USSR and called it Guiness as the name of the type (the same story as with "Soviet Champagne", which isn't champagne in the proper sense, just a sparkling wine) or they actually imported Guiness beer to the USSR. But the product name is written by Russian letters. As for the image, they are well-made as usual: two glasses of dark beer: full and empty and the fascinating framing are very eye-catching.