Gave me a jolt when I registered the text in this Olympus ad. I wasn’t offended, but do think it gives one rather a shock. Especially if you know somebody who hasn’t returned.

Seems a little surprising. Doesn’t look like a recent ad anyway, given that it appears to be a film camera as opposed to a digital one…

its a 30yr old ad, re-worked.

if you’d read it, it’d make sense

i guess the agency would say provocative? = crassly exploitive?

the original ad is i think from the 1976(?) NW(?) face of Everest expedition and features Chris Bonnington who like most big range mountaineers will have lost a lot of friends over the years

in bad taste

You have to remember things were different years ago. That would have been shocking but also probably slightly motivating. People might have seen it as a challenge. Now, half the country complain about seeing a couple of bums on tv in adverts so this is going to be seen as bad taste.

I have both an old school Olympus OM SLR and the nuskool Olympus Mju waterproof. A great advert for the cameras, IMO. Yes, it’s a touch shocking, but it points out both the danger of big mountains and the toughness of Olympus cameras. Good work.

I used to like the Hasselblad adverts from the 70’s. Always seemed to be in yachting magazines. I wonder why…

avdave2 – Member
I used to like the Hasselblad adverts from the 70’s. Always seemed to be in yachting magazines. I wonder why…

Because only those who could afford a yacht could afford a Hass’!

I own both and only wish the second was as good as the first, its clever but …..

I own both and only wish the second was as good as the first, its clever but …..

There is a great self portrait of Doug Scott on the Ogre that he took on the crawl out with both his legs broken. It’s a truly great and inspiring shot and no the ad is not in bad taste. High mountaineers are a breed apart, as a sometime British mountaineer they impress me.

I think it is also somewhat ironic – the furthest most buyers are going to take this camera is to Jemima’s Wine Bar. (Do wine bars still exist?)

Because only those who could afford a yacht could afford a Hass’!

Dude, your irony setting is very low!

Don’t think its anything worth getting worked up about, though seeing as several idiots decided to complain that the following advert is racist, I’m sure lots of people will be ‘offended’.

http://www.milkmatters.co.uk/#/tv_ads/ (click Cravendale Purity Room…the magazine version had a black and white cow with an arrow to a seive, then a white cow underneath. Apparently losing its black patches made references to racism and social cleansing. At least the advertising agency had the sense to see that it wasn’t…

Thanks convert, saved me from having to post again. 🙂

Nowt wrong with that advert…nothing shocking or bad taste about it. It simply states the the facts. Unless you have a very weak constitution then there is nothing upsetting about that advert.

I’ve now set it as my desktop wallpaper as it is a really good advert. Thought provoking and the image itself is very clever.

I’m sorry, but can someone please explain what’s meant to be wrong with this ad?
I see a new reference to an old advert, and a very simple one at that……Nothing to shout about.

Am I right in guessing then that the strapline on the right hand side is new- that those lines weren’t part of the original text, especially since the font’s different?

I’m sorry, but can someone please explain what’s meant to be wrong with this ad?
I see a new reference to an old advert, and a very simple one at that……Nothing to shout about.

I thought it would have been obvious to anyone which bit of it could be controversial to some people irrespective of your own personal feelings.

The original advert, I believe was the single page picture of Chris Bonnington with the strapline of him asking Olympus before they asked him. The second page is new and is used to advertise the new camera – highlighting it’s strengths and suggesting that it could be used to climb Everest and if you came across any stunning scenery/imagery, the camera would be able to capture it in fine detail.

That is the advert of today. I think the actual link though is for another advertising campaign done by Newspapers Marketing Agency – probably out to highlight the fact that 30-odd years ago, adverts were there to make you think, and today, they also make you think.

3 adverts in 1…

Gave me a jolt when I registered the text in this Olympus ad. I wasn’t offended, but do think it gives one rather a shock. Especially if you know somebody who hasn’t returned.

I don’t think it’s that offensive. I mean part of the excitement of doing that kind of silly mountaineering is the risk, it’s just suggesting that that kind of not too afraid of dying people might use the camera.

Joe

I think its a very good advert.

I thought it would have been obvious to anyone which bit of it could be controversial to some people irrespective of your own personal feelings.

Nope. Sorry. I see an old advert, with a famous mountaineer in it with a camera, and reference that he chose Olympus because they were the best.
The new bit says “We couldn’t better this ad, so we used it again, and our cameras are still the best” to me. Good ad, but I otherwise wouldn’t take more than a glance at it since I chose Canon camers.

I’ve lookd hard, 3 times now.

That’s it
Nothing more
It’s not obvious, it’s not even tenuous, it’s non-existant as far as I can see.

Again, please explain WHY IT SHOULD BE CONTROVERSIAL please.

EDIT – Ahh. I’ve just noticed the 2nd page on my 4th look.
Seems a bit odd, but I’m not shocked. Slightly puzzled at you lot and it’s a bit clumsily worded, but that’s it. It’s at least factual – People do die on mountinas…..

Fair enough. I wondered (and several subsequent posters have confirmed) that the sentence beginning ‘when someone finds your frozen lifeless corpse..’ might be seen as offensive by some people.

EDIT – ahh, just seen your edit. I was getting a bit worried there. I’m not offended by it, I found it quite a striing concept, especially in an arena where bodies are generally not recovered, but I can also see an element of carcrash photography in it.

EDIT – Ahh. I’ve just noticed the 2nd page on my 4th look.

I think you should now perform the online equivalent of crawling out of a ravine and back to your tent with two broken legs, and then issue a grovelling apology for thios remarkable oversight. 😉

the original ad is i think from the 1976(?) NW(?) face of Everest expedition and features Chris Bonnington who like most big range mountaineers will have lost a lot of friends over the years

in bad taste

Don’t know how anyone could think that.

Fair enough. I wondered (and several subsequent posters have confirmed) that the sentence beginning ‘when someone finds your frozen lifeless corpse..’ might be seen as offensive by some people.

Especially if you know somebody who hasn’t returned.

As someone in that exact situation I can say, for me, it isn’t “offensive” as such, but it is in a little bad taste and trivialising something that has a profound effect on the family of such people. My reaction was to raise an eyebrow, think of the person involved, remember they were doing what they enjoyed and then roll my eyes at the advert “cheapening” the situation. But I recognise I’m in a distinct minority and there’s more to life than worrying about peoples adverts. I’ll not lose sleep over it, it might make me have a bad day and spend some time mulling over memories, as many things in life can do.

Dorset_Knob – Member

the original ad is i think from the 1976(?) NW(?) face of Everest expedition and features Chris Bonnington who like most big range mountaineers will have lost a lot of friends over the years

in bad taste

Don’t know how anyone could think that.

well i did think it – guess i’d better MTFU then and accept that death is commercially exploitable – well that is the world we live in

at least didn’t fail the comprehension part – resit KS2 sats for most of above posters

just realised might get hate mail from grave diggers, flower arrangers , funeral directors etc apologies

I hope for the NMA’s sake that their target audience understands their ad better than you lot 🙂

pretty sure the agency understand their target audience and that enough of the target audience understand enough of the ad’ to buy enough of the product.
as to the non target audience i guess we just accept that an advert is an advert and if death,loss and grief can sell then we just shuffle off quietly and accept that human decency isn’t really that important