Or, How America’s Next Top Model is a Springboard to Intellectual Discussion.

Queen of National Hot Dog Week: 1955
Geene Courtney for Zion Meat Products Co.
Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

As I watched Tyra’s girls balk at the thought of wearing a Meatkini, an interesting word came up: Advertorial.

I don’t know that I’ve taken a lot of time to consider advertorials. The word annoys me but, conceptually, I haven’t given it much thought.

For those of you not hip-deep in back issues of Vogue, an advertorial is a blend of fashion editorial (a photoshoot involving a mix of fashion from different sources to create a series of pictures along a single theme or aesthetic) and advertisement. Think “infotainment”. Essentially, advertorials are slick, multi-page ads designed to look like editorial photoshoots but featuring clothes and aesthetics supplied, approved, and paid for by one company. So what’s the point? Well, aside from simply using up more space in front of a consumer’s eyes, an advertorial allows a company to establish a continuity of theme - to more thoroughly project a specific mood or lifestyle to entice a potential buyer (rather than using an ad that offers just one garment or image).

I can’t decide how I feel about them. Are they bad because they subvert creative fashion for advertising? Or are they kind of nice because - you know - the more photoshoots the better and why shouldn’t companies with the means give me more fashion for my magazine dollar? Do advertorials undermine fashion-as-art? Perhaps they simply use art to sell fashion.

Can you quantify something as ‘bad’ just because it is a corporate tool?

We have a tendency to believe art that makes money lacks integrity (certainly artists do) - but money is really the only difference between really creative advertising and art. It smacks of pettiness to penalize artists who allow themselves the luxury of not starving. Would Van Gogh have been less talented if he’d painted his sunflowers for a Lee Valley catalogue?

Annie Leibovitz is a fantastic example of art-turned-advertising. This is a rock and roll photographer and portrait artist who was all covered in credibility. Lately, whether for companies or celebrities, she seems something of a corporate shill.

Though I am hesitant to say that the pictures Leibovitz shot for Disney are not art because she got paid a fortune, the photos exist for the purpose of selling tickets to the Magic Kingdom, and Disney is the right hand of Satan.

I would be more likely to say they are not art because they’re really dull and derivative. Those Disney ads are seriously about one very expensive step away from taking pictures of babies in flower pots - Annie Leibovitz Geddes. Yikes.

Annie Leibovitz poses in front of her work.
Recent ads, commissioned by Disney, feature celebrities as fairy tale characters.
Featured: Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella.

A better example might be her photos for the HBO series, The Sopranos. She produced some fantastic pictures.
So if the image is good, maybe the motive shouldn’t matter.

Annie Leibovitz photo (one of six)
of the cast of HBO’s Sopranos
for the April 2007 issue of Vanity Fair

I know that technically we’re out of advertorial territory - but it all comes back to the same old question doesn’t it:
Is commissioned art still Art?

coco b.

ps: I actually have enormous respect for Leibovitz’s photographs.
Heaven forfend she should ever read this - I do apologize for overly simplistic (albeit effective) generalizations! And all because of one picture of David Beckham on a pony…

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