In recent years, it seems that dance has become a lot more prevalent in TV advertising. In a world of obnoxious ads that make me turn the channel, it’s a pretty savvy move from corporate America (at least for holding this consumer’s attention). The best of them are quite entertaining.
This GAP commercial may have been one of the first to embrace this trend with their famous khaki swing dance ad:
My favorite of the moment is from supermarket chain Bloom. They have several versions of a commercial in which happy employees dance around a customer with cart amongst the produce and cash registers:
I have to credit Selly from Dance Outlook for this find– Jaime from SYTYCD appears in a McDonald’s salad commercial in which the dancers represent different ingredients. I really don’t like McD’s (I’m vegetarian and after seeing Super Size Me I won’t eat anything from there), but I have to admit it is a really cool commercial with some beautiful dancing in it:
In general, Target has some really engaging, stylish ads. This one doesn’t have dance in the traditional sense, but a lot of interesting choreography:
Then there is the Hanes commercial featuring Momix, which I think did a really smart job of getting the message across about comfort and flexibility through the dancers’ movements:
I leave you with one of my favorites of all time, a DSW ad with some major shoe porn for my salseras and tangueras. A friend told me that it really got her believing that if she bought her shoes from DSW that she could dance like that:
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October 4, 2007 at 1:39 pm
danciti
Good list. I think the Joffrey Ballet campaign for United it a notable omission though.
http://jpointe.blogspot.com/2007/08/united-airlines-photo-shoot_13.html
October 4, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Maria
Thanks Danciti! This was intended to be a video-centric post, I should have made that clear. Did Joffrey also do video ads for United? If we are looking at photo-based ads, the Bill T Jones pics for Puma are great too.
October 4, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Anna Brady Nuse
Love it, love it, love it! I also thought the Nike ad from a few years ago with the hip hop basketballers was a great dance film.
Now my question is, when will the advertising sales that dancers help make possible come back to support dance? We’re always selling other people’s products: music videos, shoes, underwear, tv shows, movies. Why can’t we harness this sexy, beautiful, energetic, invigorating, life-affirming art form to help ourselves?
Thanks for compiling these videos, they’re a great illustration of the enormous potential of dance in media.
October 4, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Maria
Gosh, Anna, I wish I’d thought of that… good point! I feel like it’s a mixed bag. At least the commercials are providing some (hopefully) decent income for the dancers and companies featured in them. Particularly in the case of Momix, Bill T Jones and Joffrey, it generates significant publicity for the company and hopefully that translates into more revenue, community outreach, etc. The Berkeley video you put on your blog made me think that there were probably a lot fewer unemployed dancers in Hollywood during the golden era of movie musicals. And maybe, as some believe with SYTYCD, it will spark someone’s interest in learning to dance.
On the other hand, yeah, it would be great if these corporations put some money into developing the next generation of dancers and in supporting the creative process of some less commercially viable forms of dance.
October 7, 2007 at 11:02 am
Selly
“I’m vegetarian and after seeing Super Size Me I won’t eat anything from there”
That’s what did it for me. Notice my “spawn of satan” comment in the post I did about Jaimie in the McDonald’s commercial.
Love the videos. I must say, however much I love Momix, that Hanes commercial bugs me. I’m not sure why, but it does. Maybe because it’s been on for what feels like years.
Stay on your toes,
Selly
October 8, 2007 at 8:33 am
intlxpatr
I don’t like McDonald’s either, but I liked their dance-ad the best! It was jazzy!
October 8, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Maria
Selly, thanks again for alerting me to that McDonald’s video!! I am also a little tired of the Momix ad because it’s been on for a really long time. But I remember thinking how cool it was when I first saw it.
April 20, 2008 at 10:29 am
dance in advertising- what message does it send? « A Time to Dance
[...] to show a brand as something that will make you feel carefree and happy. The ads I compiled in a previous post on dance in advertising almost all give us this [...]