Ever take a close look at the audio magazine ads? Yesterday Stereophile came, and I was glad to see some nice preamps on review. While flipping through on my first high altitude pass, I started to notice how silly most of the print ads really are.
Speakers with no wires, rooms with no furniture, people with no faces but beautiful bodies. AV systems setup on a mountain cliff, little speaker balls splashing into water at night with a very bright full moon. Finally halfway through the mag, there is a picture of a PrimaLuna amp innards. OK, I can deal with that. Then right back to components floating by themselves in homogenous clouds of white, blue, gray/black. Systems are made of a pair of speakers, not connected to anything, no electronics seen anywhere, but the people are obviously enjoying themselves. Electronics float in space with no people, speakers or connection to reality, like they are time travel machines.
Are we really this gullible/stupid/impressionable? Or has our attention span narrowed so much from overexposure to these hype ads that it has formed a vicious cycle where advertisers must do it just to draw our attention? Is reading ads a form of entertainment in itself?
Howbout a picture of a 40 something regular guy in jeans and T shirt, pot belly and day old beard, coming home after work, sitting in his overstuffed chair in the living room cluttered with kids toys, audio components, piles of mail and a beer in his hand while he catches a few minutes of sound before the chores. Wouldn't that more accurately portray reality for most of us, and wouldn't that resonate better to sell the gear? Show his face, show the smile and the relaxation, show the inspiration, show the tear of joy, his best moment of the day before bathtime and bill paying. Show the gear on a sturdy wooden rack shelf with the wires hanging out all over the place and stacks of CDs piled high. Show him yelling over the music for his 4yo to not block the tweeter, or don't touch those tubes. How bout wife's blurry shadowy silouette from behind with hands on her hips with attitude looking into the listening room at the man sitting in his listening chair from behind. His one hand holds a beer, the other hand flips her the bird while the speakers tower above in the blurry distance in front of him, holding his attention to the exclusion of everything else.
What kind of an ad would resonate with you, selling what kind of product? Let's hear your best fantasy audio ad?
Rich