Advertisement Report

Advertisement Report

Advertising Photography is all about photographing objects, ready to be covered by advertising. The aim is to display the items in the most attractive way possible, in order to encourage people to buy them. Advertising photography is displayed all around us, sometimes done subtly like brochures or price lists, and other times it's more in your face, such as a billboard. Even products themselves feature advertising photography such as; tissue boxes, DVD cases, and bottles of wine. The photographers Nadav Kander, Erik Johansson, and Fernando Decillis, all work with Advertising in photography, working on many different campaigns. 

Nadav Kander is an advertising photographer from the United Kingdom. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and two years later moved with his family to South Africa. Kander first began his photography journey using a pentax camera in 1974, where he experimented with the landscape and subjects around him. Later in life Kander and his wife Nicole, then moved to the United Kingdom in 1986 where he continued his photography journey. He has won many awards such as; Silver Photographer of the Year at Lianzhou International Photo Festival, London Awards for Art and Performance in Photography, and The Royal Photographic Society's, "Terrace Donovan'' Award. Kander has also published many books, and had his photography exhibited in many galleries. 

Figure 1

Stella Artois commissioned Nadav Kander for their “Buy a Lady a Drink” campaign, where they decided they wanted to do something nice for women around the world, who spend over 200 million hours a day collecting water for their families. Stella Artois wanted to try and help give them back that time. They designed limited edition chalices based on items from India, Ethiopia, and Honduras, with the proceeds of each chalice providing a woman in that country with clean drinking water for 5 years. This campaign has given more than one million women access to clean drinking water, becoming Stella Artois’ ongoing charitable initiative. 

Swedish born photographer and visual artist Erik Johansson is based in Prague, Czech Republic. His work can be described as surreal, created by combining multiple photographs. In contrast to Traditional photography, Johansson does not capture moments, but ideas. He uses the camera as an aid to his artwork, most of it being created through his imagination. 

Figure 2

Johansson has been commissioned for many Advertisements around the world, like this photograph from the campaign for the launch of the new Volvo S60 in South Korea. A few other campaign advertisements Johansson has worked with include; a Campaign for the Swiss company Clienia in 2018, Campaign for the 2016 Toyota Prius, and a Print ad for the National Geographic Channel program, Brain Games. He has also created and published several photographic books; Imagine, published in 2016, and Places Beyond, published in 2019. Johansson uses post production editing to create his pieces, with the goal to make his art look as realistic as possible. However despite his work consisting of a lot of post-production work, he always tries to capture as much as possible in the camera, his motto being “No one can tell you that it doesn't look realistic if you actually captured it for real.” (Johansson, 2020), something many photographers live by. 

Fernando Decillis is an Atlanta based photographer who specializes in Advertising and Documentary photography. Decillis was born in Uruguay, however in an effort to escape the military dictatorship, his family moved to the United States when he was 10 years old. Decillis fell in love with photography when he went to visit Hawaii with just a borrowed camera, which then lead to him signing up for a photography class. 

Figure 3

Decillis has worked on many campaigns for brands like; Huggies, Coca-Cola, Reebok, and many more. His work has been featured in many publications such as; AdWeek, Smithsonian Magazine, CNN, and Bloomberg Businessweek. In 2015 Fernando Decillis was honoured by the International Photography Awards, titled Advertising Photographer of the Year and won a communication Arts Award of Excellence. 

Advertisement photography is subjectively one of the most difficult forms of photography in a sense of success. Photography is used within advertising to leverage the personal experiences and histories of each customer in order to form bonds that will intensify brand and product identity. For example, Toyota unsuccessfully tried to employ an ethereal feeling to a photographic print ad for their redesigned Avalon. Instead of creating an inviting atmosphere that would engage the consumer, however, the new Toyota Avalon appears to be encapsulated in smoke. 

Figure 4

Advertising images are generally filtered through each person's individual experiences, inherently creating the advertising personalization, which is broken down into different categories (needs/wants, regional, demographic, niche interest, hyper intent, and biogenetic). Ultimately these strategies increase the likelihood of conversations to sales through the emotional bonds that often serve as a reliable pillar for any successful campaign (Boynton, 2020). 

Advancements in technology have expanded an advertisers toolbox, enabling many different options for advertising such as; Augmented Reality, surrealism within advertisements, cinematography, and more. This also allows more room for things to go wrong, like the Toyota advertisement print above for example. Some advertisements like the Stella Artois ad by Nadav Kander are obvious, the glass and logo are recognizable from a distance. Other ads like the Huggies print by Fernando Decillis are more subtle, only identifiable by the logo in the bottom left hand corner. There are many different options when it comes to creating advertisements (style, subtlety, creativity, technology, etc.), influencing people to try something different every time. 

Biography

Figure 1; Stella Artois, ‘Buy a Lady a Drink’, Nadav Kander

Figure 2; Toyota, Volvo S60 in South Korea, Erik Johansson

Figure 3; Huggies, Little Swimmers, Fernando Decillis

Figure 4; Toyota, Avalon, na.

Boynton, P. (2020). How to Use Photography in Advertising to Engage and Inspire Your Audience. [online] Instapage.com. Available at: https://instapage.com/blog/advertising-photography [Accessed 21 Jan. 2020].

Decillis, F. (2020). Commissioned. [online] Fernandodecillis.com. Available at: https://www.fernandodecillis.com/COMMISSIONED/11 [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

Johansson, E. (2010). ABOUT — ERIK JOHANSSON. [online] ERIK JOHANSSON. Available at: https://www.erikjo.com/about [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

LensCulture, F. (2020). Fernando Decillis | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/fernando-decillis [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

NA, N. (2018). Nadav Kander | artnet. [online] Artnet.com. Available at: http://www.artnet.com/artists/nadav-kander/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

Photo, N. (2018). Erik Johansson Photographer | All About Photo. [online] All-about-photo.com. Available at: https://www.all-about-photo.com/photographers/photographer/404/erik-johansson [Accessed 21 Jan. 2020].

Thom, D. (2018). Stella Artois "Buy a Lady a Drink" — Thom & Danielle. [online] Thom & Danielle. Available at: http://www.thomanddanielle.com/stella-artois-buy-a-lady-a-drink [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].