Vertu may be for extraordinary people but this ad of theirs at Berlin Tegel airport was definitely sub-ordinary. Actually rather poor.
The composition is amateurish. The layout looks like it had been assembled last-minute with elements spread mechanically, evenly and rigidly across the field. The tagline is uninspiring, and is just slapped bang in the middle across the images. There is no focus. No clear hierarchy of reading. No messaging journey. No real design!
The visual elements look like they have been sourced from a stock library without considering how they might work together as a cohesive whole. The people looked awkward, plastic and very not extraordinary given the plethora of similar images on any stock library on the planet.Newsflash: In advertising, perfectly photoshopped people are ordinary!
The photo composition was also poor - note how yellow the woman's skin tone is relative to the man's. Note also how overexposed the shot of the woman is; most of her facial features have been obliterated.
This could be another design by committee? I can imagine the conversation going something like this:
Let's have a woman - women like fashionable things. Oh we probably should include a man too because some of our customers are men. Make them fashionable. We are a fashion brand so everyone must look flawless and perfect.
We also need a fashionable dynamic background, something that says classy movers and shakers. Otherwise it will look too boring.
And we need a big product shot and a logo. Wait, and a big tagline. Big. Bigger!
Now let's hit the stock libraries to find some young skinny white (ok the woman is actually yellow) fashionable people in awkward fashionista-esque poses. Because fashion!
Then we photoshop our product into their hands. So we can show them um ... using ... our product.
Now spread the people and product shot equally across the field. Because we have paid for all this space and must use it all up. Oh and make the product bigger. Bigger.
There. Done!
(Did you spot the second product shot, hidden in plain sight?)
