My wife and I first saw the image in question, on the right side of the splash page linked above, on a Sherwin-Williams truck while driving to California for a short vacation. It put both of us off. Seeing it again yesterday, while looking for paints, just made me mad again.
A) Covering the world in paint (bright red paint, even) is a bad, bad idea on so many levels. What possible point could there be to such an ad campaign? It bothers me to see such a concept, even if its an exaggeration, espoused as the central theme of any company.
B) On a metaphorical level it’s pretty bad too… thanks to the color they chose for their display, it looks like the Earth is being drenched in fresh blood. Nice touch.
In short, S-W has pretty much driven me away from ever buying their paints with this one image, which they seem to be plastering everywhere they can. Too bad, because we’ve got a lot of painting to be doing in our house in the near future. I’ll buy Martha Stewart paints before I buy this shit.
Shallow? Perhaps… but a stupid (and mildly offensive) ad campaign has this sort of effect on me.
Of course, the ad’s subversive. I mean, the ad gets a whole new meaning when you consider that “SWP” can also stand for “Socialist Workers’ Party”. Hee hee hee.
On the off-chance the OP is serious: SW has been using this logo(in various forms) for several decades, if not from the beginning. It’s not a new thing by any means.
Huh… well, I really hadn’t seen it before, so that’s something.
I’m not particularly serious, though. For one thing, I’m not all that busy… I’m working, but very very bored. Just wanted to rant about something stupid. Picked a good topic, no?
Kantalooppi… OH. MY. GAWD! I think you’ve uncovered the secret plot behind this subliminal advertising. Watch your door… they may be coming for you right now!
Particlewill, I can’t believe you’re dissing someone for seeing an ad for the first time.
World Eater, I may be the only one here who completely agrees with you. I think that the attitude that the image conveys (sure, in complete hyperbole) is fucking disgusting, and disgustingly everpresent.
Mind you, it makes sense that it’s 50 years old. It stinks of the kind of mindless, post-war commercial bombast you’d see in a Tim Burton suberb. In that sense, it’s just laughable that the company hasn’t updated their campaign (or the attitude they convey).
Cantalooppi, you may just have hit on the topic for the next great conspiracy theory. After all, we’re now certain that Proctor and Gamble are really Satanists, and Arm & Hammer is in cahoots with Occidental Petroleum to foster International Communism – this is the obvious next step?! :smack:
Coldie and lno: Probably the dictionary definition of “irony” could be that someone records a song about integrity, and then it’s sold to sell a product (with not even a reference to the point of the song)! :rolleyes:
