this was posted by "anonymous" here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2009/08/magician-21st-philippine-advertising.html

The magician was imagining a full house because as a performer... that was what he wanted to see. *Every* performer longs to live in the limelight, to be acknowledged and cheered on by a crowd. The sad reality for him was, the 'standing ovation' was nothing more than an illusion, a thing he conjured up in his own mind OR it could have been a memory of his former glory days. Hence, with a flicker of the light, the hurrahs are replaced with yawns, from a less than ecstatic audience.

In this way, it is creatively intellectual, (as opposed to "just being creative for creativity's sake"), for its irony, for he, who gives illusions to please others, creates an illusion for himself, to keep his spirit alive. You may see this in Psychology books filed under the subject: "Coping Mechanism." You see, performers die a little inside every time they realize that nobody gives a crap about their "art". However, he also knows that the show must go on, and that he must prop up that smile because that is what 'professionals' do. How can you not get that?

no, i did not get that at all that the magician was imagining a full house. how did you even get all that from the tv ad? where is it in the ad that all that you said is shown or said? you must be writer of the ad to know all that.

that says to me that aside from the weakness in the copy-writing of this ad, there is a bigger weakness in the directorial treatment of the ad.

the director failed to execute that idea from a visual and movement standpoint. the directorial treatment failed in establishing the visuals being shown come from different perspectives. in the ad, it was just a flash of light that was supposed to signal the change in perspective. that is a very weak visual treatment.

the copy also did not help. it hardly had copy in the first place but the the change in perspective visual was shown just before the copy said "witness this death defying act". the story is about a magician making a woman disappear, it will confuse the audience- what is supposed to disappear, the woman or the audience.

because of the very bad directorial treatment, i don't think anyone will get there is a change in perspective but will rather stick to the story in the ad.

one of the thing i remember about effective ads is this - "what you see is what you get". in this ad that is what i got because that is what i saw and it was in fact what was given visually and copy-wise.

more on this later. it is a WAWAM!

The Magician - 21st Philippine Advertising Congress TVC

did i miss something in this tvc? a hidden message i did not get? a footage that did not show in my computer?

i swear at the start of the ad, the whole theater was full of people watching the magic show. it is wall-to-wall people. then, as the camera panned to show the stage again, a flash of light, the theater was half empty of people. in fact the density of the audience gyrated from half empty to just one third full from shot to shot.

was there a meaning to that slight of hand of the audience (pun intended). i watched the commercial a few times trying to understand what it meant. i thought maybe the magic was not was happening to the volunteer but the audience, that the magician was making the audience disappear. but if that was the message, i don't get it. it does not make sense. and there were not enough visual and copy clues that that was what the ad meant. i gave up on that ideas.

this ad really has great production values. the colors are great, the characters are excellent, the set design and art design were very well done. even the slanted english spoken was a good touch to the ad. it was very pinoy and it works very well.

but with all the terrific production values, the ending was so cheaply done. it was obvious a dummy, a badly made one was what fell from the enclosure. it certainly did not leave you hanging if what fell was the woman or a dummy. i don't know if it was the way the clothes were put on the dummy or the way it fell to the ground that made it so obvious as a dummy. or maybe both.

this tv ad left a lot of questions in my mind. and the question was not the one that was asked at the end of the commercial.. they are - why did the ad start with a full audience then all of a sudden much less than full and why did they not make an effort to make that falling dummy look better.

its a WAWAM!

2009 21st Philippine Ad Congress Teaser Ad

direct pick up from the youtube posting:

A HISTORIC COLLABORATION

Fitting with the theme of this years Philippine Ad Congress (PAC), Perspectives, the PAC has called upon four of the industrys top directors to come together for a historic collaboration. Each director takes on the perspective of a single character on the night of a mysterious magic act. Henry Frejas, director of Nescafes Home/Batanes, Nestle Creams The Offering, and McDonalds Simbang Gabi, tells the story as seen through the eyes of the Magician; Sid Maderazo, director of the C2 Green Tea TVCs, the Coke Beat Game commercial and the Roadrunner short film Power, takes another view of the events on stage through the Assistants eyes; Carlo Directo, director of the Sky Cable TVCs, the McDonalds Burger, Burger TVCs, and the SMART Buddy Double-decker commercial, tells the tale from below through the Stagehands perspective; and AF Benaza, director of Nescafes Jewel, the Selecta Gold Series Platinum, and the Viva Mineralized Water Boy commercial, tells the tale as seen from the audience through the eyes the Volunteers Date.

pErsPecTIve : the 21st (2009) Philipine Advertising Congress logo

we know what the word "perspectives" mean and the logo is very good in capturing what it means. however, it looks like the word "readability" was totally forgotten.

it is quite common - creatives fall in love with a creative concept but forgets an ad or in this case an image needs to be readable first. fail on readability for a logo or "understandability" for an ad and most likely everything else fails.

you need to strain your eyes and your brain to get to what the logo is all about. you get afreaid that logo designer forgot a letter or your eyes are failing you as you missed reading a letter. the tendency of the viewer is to first ask the question - are all the letters in there? is it spelled correctly?

the logo earns high marks on concept and on the cognitive part but it does not deliver very well on the creative part. for a logo for the whole ad industry and an ad congress which primarily celebrates creativity, this logo fails. it's a thinking creativity, not a creative creativity.

we find it too stiff, boxed in even while creativity and yes the ad congress itself is all about honoring those who have come up with ads that are thinking out of the box, free of constraints. this one put everything inside boxes, the exact opposite of what creativity means. creativity that is boxed in, 4 boxes to be exact, is not at all creative. did a client design this ad or an account servicing person?

did we take that literally? yes, we did. and so did the logo. ever heard of "boxed-in creativity"? we would rather not as that makes it un-creative.

the above comes frrom my perspective.

go to the ad congress website: http://www.adcon.com.ph/v2/