Regőczi Tamás
Advertising a camera with the Loch Ness monster
The advertisement, which I found on the internet, I chose to be the
subject of this essay is promoting a new digital camera made by Sony. In the
foreground of the image, there is a creature swimming in water, which does not
show the slightest resemblance to any known animal in the world. Only its head,
long neck and a part of its body is visible, since the rest of it is
underwater, and therefore; its actual size is unknown – it is up to the
viewer’s estimation. The background is filled with the rippling surface of the
water, which seems to belong to a lake or sea. Judging by the greyish lighting,
the sky is covered by clouds.
In order to fully understand the creators’ intent with
this ad, one must be familiar with another very famous image, which is
remarkably similar to the ad in question. The image can be found beneath the
essay. It was taken by Dr. Kenneth Wilson at Loch Ness in 1934, and according to
him, it was a genuine image of the monster of Loch Ness, whose existence is
unconfirmed; it mainly appears in legends and anecdotes. This image became the
most iconic depiction of the monster, since it was believed to be the one of
the few real pictorial pieces of evidence of the monster. In 1999, it was
revealed that it was only a hoax: the shape of the monster was created from a
toy submarine and some wood. As opposed to the blurry and poor quality of the
original image, the ad gives a clear, perfectly detailed depiction of the
monster, it is impossible to misinterpret it as something else. This feature of
the ad implies that using this camera, the buyer is able to shoot pictures with
perfect quality every time, which might even allow him to capture evidence of
something as mysterious as the monster of Loch Ness.
The caption at the bottom of the ad is as follows: “Capture
the truth with 24.6 megapixel α900”. This caption is in a paradoxical
relationship with the reality, since the original image has proven to be fake,
but the caption still claims that the new image, as well as the old one,
contains the truth, only in a better, more reliable quality. This gives an
ironical edge to the ad, since it refers to a fake image as “the truth”.
Moreover, the ad might imply that if the original image had been taken by the
camera promoted by the ad, it would have been 100 per cent sure whether it was
genuine or fake.
This camera lets the user capture memories of his life
in form of photographs, but the camera is also a device for revealing the
hidden truth for the world and proving it with something perceivable and
palpable other than just words, similarly to a professional photo reporter. The
target audience of the ad are middle aged men and women who are not satisfied
with the “acceptable” quality provided by the compact cameras and are willing
and able to pay a relatively huge amount of money for a DSLR, such as the one
in the ad. The younger generations are completely satisfied with taking
pictures with their smartphones, and older generations do not usually use any
sort of digital technology.
In conclusion, this ad was designed for people who are
familiar with the original image, which in fact, means a large group of people,
since the image became known worldwide. This ad uses a well-known but poor
quality picture as a reference, recreate it in excellent quality, and juxtapose
it with the advertised camera. This feature of the ad provides the camera
connotations with good quality images, reliability and trustworthiness.
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