A Tribute to the Abstract and Aesthetic

What's good about a crappy economy is that advertising takes on a neat evolution. At first you see more direct response stuff -- the result of marketers returning en masse to tactics they know to be sharp and sure, if a little blunt.

Then, as outlook slowly begins to improve, you start seeing well-thought-out pieces that speak to people's now-habitual compulsion to think harder about purchases than they used to. We hark back to discretion, and old tropes about a languid, less obnoxious form of luxury.

That's when you see lovely things like the spots below, which emit a kind of damaged, slightly warped innocence:

"Le Sens Propre" (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Blacklist's Cisma for Adobe's "Shortcut to Brilliant" Creative Suite 4 campaign):




"We Need a Change" (for H&M's Matthew Williamson line):




The Schweppes Coquette, featuring Nicole Kidman (I don't like this much, but it helps illustrate the point, sooooo...):




Welcome respite from the primary colours and hard typefaces that accompany the Constructivist style -- another communications approach that blossoms under ad mens' nimble fingers when the market gets dire.