What 2000 ads say about consumer culture
Looking back to some of the most iconic ads of the 2000s, as the latest collectible version of Taschen in the All-American Ads series, reveals the first indications of the direction in which consumer culture was directed.
It was a time when TV of prestige and the reality The show was dominated, celebrities pledged everything, from Moët to milk, and the rapid developments in personal technology, photography and the world web were on the verge of reshaping life as we know it today.
What 2000 ads say about consumer culture
Inside its pages – divided into funds for alcohol, tobacco, cars, travel, entertainment and more – there are sections dedicated to fashion and aroma. Here, the 2000s really emerges as a decade when the phrase « sex sells » has reached new provocative heights in an increasing economy.
Few understood this better than American designer Tom Ford. Specifically, the All-American Ads highlights the 2007 fragrance campaign, in which the perfume bottles were bold, with a tongue on the cheek, over glossy, bare bodies to maintain a « modesty » appearance.
Earlier, during his term in Yves Saint Laurent, Ford was responsible for the notorious Opium advertising.
Photographed by Steven Meisel released in 2000 -The picture showed a naked Sophie Dahl on ecstatic rest. It caused hundreds of complaints and was eventually banned by the United Kingdom’s advertising standards authority, but the dispute meant that it remains one of the most iconic fragrance ads in history.
The book also records the rise of celebrities, which, along with the beauty series of celebrities, is today one of the hottest goods.
While Elizabeth Taylor undoubtedly pioneered this trend with Passion’s fragrance in 1987, it was the enormous commercial success of the White Diamonds series, released in 1991, which made the perfume trend of fragrances.
« Everybody jumped on the ship, » Jim Heimann, an author of the All-American Ads of the 2000s, tells Wallpaper*. « David Beckham, Michael Jordan … and Paris Hilton, who seemed to be everywhere and sell her products. Fravorted fragrance support is so indicative of advertising tendencies of the 2000s. «
Marc Jacobs’ fragrance advertising for Bang! In 2010, by Juergen Teller, he focused on the designer himself (Photo: Marc Jacobs and Taschen)
The All-American Ads of the 2000s includes Taylor’s Gardenia fragrance in 2003, along with Jennifer Lopez’s 2002 advertisement for Glow. And, in fact, it highlights the 2004 Donald Trump cologne, Donald Trump The Fragrance, where the current US president is depicted next to a glamorous ink.
At other times, designers such as Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs star in their fragrance ads. In the 2010 campaign for Jacobs’ bang, photographed by Juergen Teller, Jacobs appears naked, except for a giant bottle of fragrance that strategically covers his crotch, in an undisputed nod in Ford’s visual language.
« One of my reference points for this kind of sexuality in the 2000s advertising is men’s underwear, » says Heimann. « You see almost nothing between the 1950s and 1970s. Then, in the 1980s, Calvin Klein changes everything: you have a man, seven floors high in the center of New York, who only wears his underwear. »
Along with the ambitious messages that one has to smell, dress and eat as a celebrity, a striking issue in the US ads of the 2000s is the recurring lure of « individualism ».
How can the average consumer become more than « average and stand out from the crowd » through the products he uses? The 2000s helped lay the foundations for today’s digital age, where the iPhone is ubiquitous as a symbol of prestige and as a tool for the dissemination of « individualism ».
Influencers of social media and the impact of viral, tiktok tendency, especially in the beauty sector, are now competing – or even overshadowing – « traditional » forms of advertising. (It is worth noting that in the Chapter All American ADS of the 2000s for technology, there are some impressive examples of Apple’s early ads, carrying the slogan of the time: « Think differently »).
From this point in time, there is a noticeable sense of a new era that is rising – and an era that is coming to an end. « Everything is online now, so the printed version is slowly disappearing, » Heimann says, for the reason this will probably be Taschen’s latest book that presents American ads every decade.
« I don’t think it will disappear completely, because you are looking at the kiosks, the ones left, and there are hundreds of magazines there. So there is still room for traditional ads on these pages. But on the internet, everything is so peripheral. It’s there for a moment – and then, it disappears. «
*The book All-American Ads of the 2000s, published by Taschen and is now released.
*With elements by wallpaper.com Home Photo: The All-American Ads of the 2000s by Taschen includes the controversial advertising of the Yves Saint Laurent Opium perfume, photographed by Steven Meisel during Tom Ford’s term in French fashion house in 2000 (Photo: Yves Saint Laurent and Taschen).
