Advertisements and Art

Many of us would not consider advertisements art and yet they fit many of the definitions discussed about art. One definition of art that we discussed in class was that art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that impacts emotions. Advertisements are designed in order to create an emotional attachment in a person to a product. One example is the ranch dressing commercials which are intended to link happy families to ranch dressing. They are products that are designed to impact emotions that lead you to buy them. Another definition of art might be that they are products of human creativity. Many advertisements are very creative and are of course created by humans. People watch super bowl ads so they can see the innovative and interesting ads that will be shown. They use all sorts of different effects and sometimes humorous stories that are creatively presented in 30 to 60second blocks when they are presented on TV. People also seek different mediums for advertising that can be quite creative. One creative ad is for Kill Bill. It is a poster of a woman with a sword but the blood coming off it goes beyond the boundary of the poster and covers the wall of the building it is on and part of the street. Another definition of art is that it gives us a way to be creative and express ourselves and certainly the people who create these ads are doing so. I suppose one could argue that advertising is not art because its intention is sales and not simply to impact people’s emotions even though that is part of it, but this would mean that art is only art if it is intended to be so. That would mean that film, for example, would not be art if its intention was to make money through tickets. Certainly it impacts people’s emotions but the ultimate goal is money as it is in ads. Both of these mediums are intended to appeal to a target audience.

Should art appeal to a mass audience or can it be art if very few people or no one is particularly impacted by it emotionally? Does something have to be deemed creative to be art?

Is advertising a form of art or is advertising taking advantage of the qualities of art?

I added a couple of creative ads that are interesting and show the creativity involved in advertising.