While participating in Steve Spandex’s highly successful conversation on album cover bondage, I thought about the times I have seen bondage used in mainstream advertising. Since music evokes an emotional response, images on album covers can represent the underlying social or political themes in the music, or cause a potential customer to stop in shock while flipping through bins at the record shop.
In most product advertising there is only one message, convince you to part with your money. Nothing in an ad is there by accident. Whether its print, TV, radio or internet, every word, sound and image is discussed, studied and obsessed over until the message is condensed down to its simplest form, you need to buy this. Corporations that sell soft drinks, laundry soap or insurance often spend a billion dollars a year to convince you to buy.
Of course for advertising to be effective, prospective customers must look at it, and the best way is to make them want to look at it. From Brooke Shields saying nothing comes between her and her jeans to the Most Interesting Man in the World and his beer, advertisers have tried to get eyes on their ads by giving viewers reasons to watch from erotic to entertaining. Let’s explore the use of bondage in advertising.
A currently running TV ad for insurance has a mascot pitching a super hero who can rescue the damsel and save her $600 on insurance to a comic book publisher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oICmeELo2WUThis print ad for the 1967 Dodge Coronet warns buyers not to get “tied down” with high prices.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ae/45/09/ae4509effb9a02dbe5ceff53c2cee5eb.jpgA fragrance ad from Italy spoofs Bond, Mission: Impossible and MacGyver when spy Antonio Banderas rescues the damsel and steals the secret formula with the aid of the lady’s stocking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyttFmUPWpcA magazine ad shows how distracting this company’s video games are.
http://i.imgur.com/haMTIVd.jpgVictorian women could get a man using this company’s silk
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/4c/a6/b4/4ca6b44653d7b7397e897e3a720a3114.jpgThis woman’s magazine knew how to appeal to a larger audience for their October 1933 cover.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/38/77/bd/3877bd8e2c24518c09a8e7f76971ac40.jpgThe AFLAC duck saves a damsel in distress but misses out on his kiss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR4e7h-49TkA guy learns the meaning of “drink responsibly” in this German beer ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Rz0yji_skHave any more? Please post them and share your comments. Thank you.
