Advertising in Barbados: white-space vs. clutter
An ad agency from Barbados recently won an international packaging award! Look at the product below - why did it attract the attention of the jury?
Well I imagine it’s modern, clean and yet there is this back-to-Eden-(therefore nature)-feel (with the primitive tiki design) an element which has a latent appeal to most people. Above all it’s simple.
Designer Mara Watson Ward of Roger Clarke Associates wanted to break out of the traditional rum packaging mode and to design a rum that looks “sexy” she says. The result a “clean and contemporary design” for Mahiki Rum, blended and distilled at Foursquare Rum Distillery for Mahiki Rum Co. in the UK. The package design won a silver at the 2009 Pentawards, Brussels Design Forum.
No other island in the Caribbean won an award and only 2 countries in the region (Mexico and Argentina) received awards. The top award - Diamond/Best of the Show - went to designers of a Kleenex box.
One Pentaward jury member had this to say about the top design, “A professional designer appreciates something that is attractive, surprising, new, simple and devoid of useless information. The Kleenex “slice of summer” boast all of this at once. This packaging shows great maturity, because the consumer is not bombarded with information that he neither really needs nor wants.”
Remember the bag blowing in the wind in the movie “American Beauty”? So simple, so beautiful, so peaceful. Didn’t need any words, any explanation. Purely emotive.
No other island in the Caribbean won an award and only 2 countries in the region (Mexico and Argentina) received awards. The top award - Diamond/Best of the Show - went to designers of a Kleenex box.
One Pentaward jury member had this to say about the top design, “A professional designer appreciates something that is attractive, surprising, new, simple and devoid of useless information. The Kleenex “slice of summer” boast all of this at once. This packaging shows great maturity, because the consumer is not bombarded with information that he neither really needs nor wants.”Remember the bag blowing in the wind in the movie “American Beauty”? So simple, so beautiful, so peaceful. Didn’t need any words, any explanation. Purely emotive.
We know advertisers/graphic designers here would love to produce this type of work. But their clients want ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ in their ads. Most Bajan ads say “ this is everything we have; come and buy.” They think consumers are so simple or unsophisticated that they have to spell out everything. For instance, the Sunshine Products ad which says “jumpstart your metabolism” . The graphic is 2 jumper cables in a bowl of cereal.
Advertising is visual stimulation and communication that appeal to our emotions and get us to act. Are Bajan ads reflective of the type of stimuli that appeal to our cultural expectations?
Overseas advertising is continuously evolving. Today the industry has moved on and away from the extensive-copy-and-images format to close-ups for a more ‘intimate’ view of a single aspect of their product. That, to me, is when the ad becomes art. And when the product is art shouldn’t this be carried over to the ad?
Advertising is visual stimulation and communication that appeal to our emotions and get us to act. Are Bajan ads reflective of the type of stimuli that appeal to our cultural expectations?
Overseas advertising is continuously evolving. Today the industry has moved on and away from the extensive-copy-and-images format to close-ups for a more ‘intimate’ view of a single aspect of their product. That, to me, is when the ad becomes art. And when the product is art shouldn’t this be carried over to the ad?
We haven't yet entered the realms of the "clever" ad, as in the Excedrine ad and 3 shopping bags below:
In today's hectic world when people "scan" the media, wouldn't you think that brevity might be better than clutter. Here’re the simple, artful and dramatic ads that jumped off the pages of local magazines I was scanning recently.
