Niederer - Spoof Ad Final

conventional ad

unconventional ad - to be placed above bottles of liquor in liquor stores

This piece is entitled ‘WiNO: Have your way with your boozing,’ created by Carissa Niederer as a spoof ad pulling design styling and inspiration from MiO’s print ad campaigns.  The materials used for production were Adobe Photoshop in conjunction with Adobe Illustrator to create the print designs; the designs were finalized on 30 April 2012.

Both mediums are prints, one being a magazine and the other being a thin cardstock that would be placed over bottles of alcohol in liquor stores.  The specific subject is a spoof advertisement of MiO’s print ad campaigns, utilizing their primary styling for an effective spoof.  The primary compositional element that causes the piece to stand out is the switching out of a water glass for a vodka bottle: it catches the audience’s attention because the iconic view of a large alcohol bottle being replaced with a simple glass of water is naturally attention-catching; typically we do not see unlabeled bottles of alcohol in advertising.  Additionally, the general simple aesthetic applies itself to being highly effective.

This spoof advertisement applies to me because I’ve seen it in action personally: I’ve been to numerous parties and pre-gaming events in which this product sits right next to the shot glasses, and is used to help smooth the shot-taking process: people add the “water enhancer” to their shots to make it taste better.  I’ve always found this to be very amusing, as the advertising campaigns declare this as a “water” enhancer, yet I’ve never seen it used as such: so I applied this into my advertising campaign.  I think it fits along well with other spoof advertisements I’ve seen: it has a play on words and follows along with the brand’s aesthetic for a believable spoof.

The designers for MiO’s original advertisements used a very minimalist aesthetic to get their point across, and I followed their lead with my work.  The minimalist aesthetic is useful in delivering messages effectively, and it works both in the original ad as well as in the spoof.

Events and ideas that shape my approach center around the way that spoof ads have the tendency to mimic the styling of the original advertisement.  I utilized MiO’s general aesthetic, picking up their colors and fonts in order to carry along the exact same feel and therefore make for a successful spoof.

My purpose is to bring to light the “alternative” use of the MiO liquid water enhancer—I personally have never witnessed the stuff being used as a water enhancer, but instead as an alcohol enhancer, and I wanted to bring this to attention with these spoof ads about alcohol use.

The final project is quite successful; I feel that it gets the message across promptly, which is the goal of any successful advertisement. The major strengths center around the iconography I created for the spoof: the vodka bottle works very well as a distinctive but clean departure from the water glass that catches the audience’s attention.  A weakness is the body text—I found it challenging to come up with an equivalent to the body text  on the original MiO advertisements.