Science in Advertising
bioephemera | January 31, 2010
Another clever use of the periodic table in design: Washington State's Wines of Substance, who won Seattle Magazine's "Coolest Wine Label" Award in 2008.
According to Substance, "wine is as much an art as it is a science. What better way to express this basis than a Periodic Table of Wine with each varietal reflected as an element or substance?" Their interactive "periodic table" website is hardly scientific, but it does look pretty awesome:
In addition to looking all sciencetastic, Substance sponsors selected nonprofits - in January, 25% of all purchases go to Helpline Women's Shelter.…
bioephemera | December 17, 2009
A question I used to get fairly frequently is "what medical advance has saved the most lives?" Guesses usually include antibiotics, vaccines, and septic surgical method, but it's probably. . . clean water. Not a medical advance, you say? Maybe not, at least the way most people think of medicine - but sadly there are still many parts of the world that can't take clean water for granted.
Via John at Tracing Resistance Blog.
bioephemera | December 6, 2009
"Vegetables are all your body needs" ad campaign, via Laughing Squid (hat-tip to Andrew Sullivan)
bioephemera | December 2, 2009Product placement is old news, but just in case you're wondering how saturated films really are with implicit advertising, brandchannel.com's brandcameo-films index tells you which brands were featured where:
It's hard to make audiences feel okay, and even good, about innocent people being gored, beheaded and axed to death--but Friday the 13th knows the trick is to populate the film with beautiful, shallow characters who feel self-entitled to a life of partying, comfort and money. Enter Jason Voorhees, the maladjusted and disfigured karma-maker. Though none of the characters seem to have…
bioephemera | October 18, 2009
Via Inventorspot: Hello Kitty goes anatomical, and we discover she even has bows on her guts. Yikes!
But seriously - the second, faux-ivory Hello Kitty looks a little familiar. According to Inventorspot,
you can choose from regular style or an interesting antiqued version with a finish resembling aged ivory. This style is meant to look like a netsuke; a polished and sculpted toggle worn by Japanese citizens and samurai on their kimono sashes from the 17th century on - robes have no pockets, y'see.
A netsuke? Sure. But to me, ivory + anatomy = anatomical teaching models like these. (see also…
bioephemera | October 17, 2009
From Inhabitat: Artist Brandon Jon Blommaert's recycled trash robots (yes, they're real sculptures) lay waste to Photoshopped landscapes. Check out his flickr page for more - and a "making of" series of photos showing how he built these steampunky robot overlords, who are destined for a Canadian recycling center. Their message is clear: RECYCLE, HUMANITY, OR BE EXTERMINATED!
Thanks to reader Todd F. for the heads-up!
bioephemera | October 6, 2009
Scoville Foods has created periodic-table inspired packaging for its line of hot sauces - complete with a "Scoville unit" rating system. Check out this tasty pseudoscience:
Now, we are very pleased to introduce our hottest sauces: OTC and OTC Squared. That means it's Off-the-Charts on the Scoville Scale. To our OTC, we add ONE MILLION SCOVILLE UNIT EXTRACT and WOW, you can taste it. And feel it. For like 15 minutes. For OTC Squared, we really upped the ante. Chock full of ONE & TWO MILLION SCOVILLE UNIT AFRICAN OLEORESIN PEPPER EXTRACT.
Okay, I don't know how squaring one million of…
bioephemera | August 25, 2009
Lovely minimalist poster design from Jordan Michael Gray's flickrstream.
via NOTCOT.
bioephemera | August 15, 2009
Photographer: Rudy Huhold
Agency: Artplan
Apparently package delivery service Sedex Express is quite similar to. . . your brain on drugs. Hmmmm.
Via fubiz
bioephemera | August 14, 2009
It commemorates Hans Christian Ãrsted, who discovered the relationship between electricity and magenetism. Re-enact Ãrsted's experiment here.
But what about that other Hans Christian, Hans Christian Andersen? Here's what the Guardian had to say: "while there's nothing wrong with fairy stories, they haven't contributed much to the development of electric motors."
Ouch! :)
bioephemera | August 12, 2009
Japanese artist Kawano Takeshi's 2007 rendition of global warming is simple, a little funny, and a lot sad.
For another version of the same theme - using a real child's toy - check out Ours (the Bear), a video by French artist Simon Dronet. I'll try to embed it, but the link's wonky, so you might have to click through to see it.
OursUploaded by laperitel.
Via Fubiz
bioephemera | July 20, 2009
Reader Mike sent me the link to this Coke commercial a while ago. I love the exasperated brain pulling himself around - he's like a mob boss driven crazy by his stupid henchmen. Their other ads aren't quite as funny, because they make you overthink the situation (if the eyeball can't drink Coke because it has no mouth, how is it talking?)
bioephemera | July 6, 2009If anything can put you off bacon, this awesome vintage French ad will!
While the ad appears bizarre to us today, it makes sense in a different social context - one in which animals exist primarily to serve human needs, and all's right with the world when they're fulfilling that function.
I find it especially interesting to consider the parallel between this ad - a happy pig slicing itself up for consumption - and the tradition of human anatomical models holding their own innards open for examination. Bizarre and disturbing, yes - but mainly because we're looking at them with modern eyes.…
bioephemera | June 24, 2009
The "gastronomical cocktail" called "sex on a drip" is just one reason to hop a plane to Singapore and visit The Clinic, a theme restaurant that's probably not for the squeamish.
Their website boasts, "Clinic's unique alfresco is easily identified by its hospital whites, colourful pills, syringes, drips, test-tubes, and paraphernalia in all manner of the clinical, all in tribute to the tongue in cheek pop art of Damien Hirst." I don't know about Hirst - rotting, half-preserved sharks don't make me hungry - but their website is definitely fun in a trippy, pharma-chic way, complete with…
bioephemera | June 16, 2009
A beautiful anatomical ad campaign for the Zurich orchestra, via fubiz via Notcot.
Of particular interest I think is this comment on the thread at fubiz, from kmaz: "Music, and overall classical music, plays on emotion, not on the nervous system. instead of putting the music emotion above all, it takes it down heavily and awkwardly, to tie it with simple physic reactions." Really? "Plays on emotion, not on the nervous system"? Pardon me, but to a neurobiologist, that dichotomy is nonsensical. Our emotions and our nervous systems are inextricably entwined. Further, the complex physics and…
bioephemera | May 29, 2009
Thank goodness Science has finally given us protection against. . . Kooties!
Kootie Killer promises to "kill 99.9% of germs & Kooties without water!" This claim is clearly rigorously lab-tested and evidence-based, but although I wouldn't dream of questioning its veracity, it does invite the question. . . what the heck is a Kootie?
Personally, I always thought cooties (with a "c") were symbiotic, invisible organisms that spontaneously accrued on children, causing healthy developmental conflict with members of the opposite sex. Shows you what I know. Apparently, the Kootie is a yellow-…
bioephemera | May 5, 2009You've probably already heard that Merck and Elsevier are being called on the carpet for producing a medical "journal" - Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine - that appeared to be peer-reviewed, but was actually a marketing ploy to encourage doctors to prescribe Merck drugs. Ouch.
Elsevier told The Scientist,
"Elsevier acknowledges the concern that the journals in question didn't have the appropriate disclosures," the statement continued. "It is worth noting that project in question was produced 6 years ago and disclosure protocols have evolved since 2003. Elsevier's current…
bioephemera | April 27, 2009
This air purifier ad from Sharp is a little creepy, in a Spongebob Squarepants way. I love how you can see their fluorescent organelles! Unfortunately I don't see anything here that resembles a virus, but with swine flu all over the news, this serves as a good reminder to wash your hands.
Ad by Takho Lau for ad agency M&C Saatchi of Hong Kong. Found via Next Nature
bioephemera | April 22, 2009
The Independent Film Festival Boston kicked off today, and this was their ad campaign. Nice use of anatomical imagery!
bioephemera | April 16, 2009You've never heard "in real time" screamed with so much passion. Not just one, but two big-haired metal-band bio-rock videos after the fold. . .
(sources: here and here)