Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I Saw It, so I Said It: Ads and Observations


So, after finally managing to navigate the oblivion of the blogosphere and carve out a blog, I thought I’d next write down something about my user logo. I’m not sure what it appears to be. In some sections I’m called TStans and my picture is a vast cluster of stars. In other versions, I’ve seen my user name presented as Tristan, and the image consists of part of the SmartCentre logo. SmartCentre is a plaza development plan that joins together a number of large corporations including the likes of Walmart and Canadian Tire, among many others. The logo itself consists of three emperor penguins, presumably a family, as they wave either hello or goodbye and aptly clasp their luggage. These creatures, while being endangered, mind you, are bound to struggle with increasing Antarctic temperatures. It just seems… off… ethically speaking, allowing this image to champion the identity of a company set to continue increasing climate temperatures in no uncertain terms. So, I made it my logo when I started an account here. But not the whole SmartCentre logo, just the very middle, so it said (artCe). It was art! See?
And besides this one example of environmentally awkward advertising, I remembered the bees. And how honey bees are declining in oddly fast numbers in the Northern Hemisphere. This Guelph Ontarion article succinctly covers the facts, one of the most important being that bees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food that we are used to eating. The whole issue, which came to my attention three summers ago, seems to link oddly well to the image associated with Honey Nut Cheerios, the cereal! Reaching, I know, but, as “Cheerio” is a statement meant to colloquially denote a goodbye, couldn't the phrase “Honey Nut Cheerios” be reiterated to mean, “Goodbye nuts, honey, and bees”?! Also, nuts are one of the food items that we rely on bees to pollinate for us.
Well, these two examples might be decidedly meager, especially the second one, but I know that more examples exist out there. Hopefully by pointing out these two, I will increase my own resolve to find more. If anyone knows of any bizarrely ironic advertising with an environmental double-entendre, share it with someone, and I do hope I get to see it.

2 comments:

  1. when you are as awed as i was, a new word can, and ought to be, assembled.

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