The Irish Times is running an intriguing advertising campaign at the moment, based on a number of statements about where people's heads are at, including: We know what you do at night, We know you are dreaming of escape, and We know this is not how you imagined your life, or words to that effect - we haven't managed to memorise them.
The campaign appeared to us to be a bit Big Brotherish at first, but the images are arresting.
In one, the 'how you imagined your life' ad, a young, dark-haired woman seems to be washing dishes in a restaurant. She stands in profile to the camera, at the left hand edge of the picture. Her hair masks her face. She could be Asian, is she an immigrant? In addition, a man stands with his back to us in the right hand side of the photo. Who is he? Is he unhappy too, or is he causing the girl's unhappiness?
In the second, the 'what you get up to at night' ad, the photo is of what seems to be a suburban street in the evening. The street lights are the focus of the image. It is taken from a strange angle (and you are looking up at it on billboard, which adds to the confusion). It appears as if the viewer is standing at an upstairs window in a suburban home. Is it the view from Queenie's bedroom? If so, how does the Irish Times know what she gets up to?
The third, or 'escape' one has only flashed past us on a bus once, so we could be wrong, but from what we can remember, it is an interior and there may be a young man sitting on a sofa, couch-potato-like.
From our initial 'WHAT?!' reaction, we are becoming more intrigued with these images. One of Queenie's colleagues mentioned them to her at work today, so they are obviously having an impact on thirtysomethings.
What is the Irish Times trying to say? Are they picking up on a mood? Are we all in the same boat? Are they saying that they are very knowledgeable about all the different types of Irish experience there are? Are they trying to kick start a mood? Are they trying to brand dissatisfaction? Are they all-seeing, all-knowing?
For us, the images themselves are beautiful and reminded Queenie in particular very much of the work that Hopper did in 1950s USA. They have that same sense of loneliness and isolation that prowled around his takes on the modern urban landscape.
We would be interested in finding out what the brief was, in terms of target demographic, and what the campaign is trying to do. If anyone knows. Based on her interest in the campaign, we assume that Queenie is in some way included in the target audience. (Percy is in a different demographic that is targeted chiefly by broadsword salesmen and helpless maidens)
This leads on to the question of what the Irish Times are trying to do generally. If they are trying to brand themselves as understanding (and by extension reflecting) the aspirations of a particular demographic, which includes Queenie, how does that sit with their traditional image of representing both/ all sides of an article? How does that sit with them shelling out cash for the views and opinions of people like Mark Steyn, for example? (Queenie hates Mark Steyn - Percy)
Queenie: It's not that I have a problem with reading OpEds from those with diametrically opposing views, in his case a neo-con view of the world. It's just that international affairs to a great extent are now run by neo-cons, so we get their views on the News pages already. Therefore, I don't need it rammed home to me by their cheerleaders in the OpEd pages.
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