Creamsource: The Most Tone Deaf Ad Ever Made?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
I'm trying to be careful here, I don't want this to get political at all.
From all reports, the new Creamsource Vortex 8 is a home run lighting instrument.
This ad, the production values, the technical part of producing it was really well done.


But am I the only one that finds the subject of the ad to be astoundingly tone deaf considering what's happening in real life?
Real people, in real life are being beaten, shot, attacked and killed, who in the hell thought this was appropriate subject
matter for a cheeky advert?

If it was the 1960s, this would be akin to a beer commercial with a 19 year old American soldier in Vietnam getting sniped and dying in a pool of blood, then
the camera would stop and the actor playing the VC sniper would high five the soldier he just "killed" in the commercial. It's just in such
incredibly bad taste and if I was in the market for a high end light, and was considering the Vortex 8, this ad alone would 100% put me off even considering buying this light.

The comments I've seen for the ad just remark about the production values with comments like "Cool", "Amazing", which I also find sad and disturbing.
I'm not not a SJW or passionate cultural activist but I'm just amazed that nobody else, so far, seems to find the subject matter of this commercial to be disturbing.
 
I would agree on tone deaf but sadly, the world is so far away from what I think anymore it seems par for the course these days. It is things like this that make one realize that yelling at youth to get off the lawn is fairly close and I guess an unavoidable consequence of existence...

All they had to do was show a second in the early stage to let the viewer know it was a production and not a narrative. But that would take away the benefit of using current events right?
 
It's not just this ad. Many ads have had dysfunctional messages for many years. Though not as violent an image, it is common now to see ads with families and individuals behaving out of societies norms for a laugh. Everyone wants to be edgy. That is a trend and a word I dislike.
 
sebben said:
Couldn't agree more. Really put me off the product even though it seems like a good light.
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Did it put you off of comic book movies too? Because thats what that ad copied. Almost every comic book movie has a SWAT type scene. A multi billion dollar industry funded by the public which pushed that same stuff and no one had a problem , but that ad, Oh my I'm traumatized
 
cpreston said:
I'm pretty sure they put this together before any of the current events in the US were current.
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What does it have to do with the US? Similar scenes are playing out around the world. Paris was burning just a couple of months ago. Hong Kong has been protesting for a year. Delhi was rioting and burning in February. Serbia had violent riots.

Point being, this has nothing to do with the US or any specific country's politics, and there is pretty much no time in 2020 when they were planning or putting this together that someplace wasn't burning somewhere. To use such imagery is certainly a questionable call; alienating a large section of your potential customer base is always a risky strategy, especially when it's hitting closer to home for many of us. As far as the imagery itself, as mico said, it's a staple of pretty much every big comic book movie, and not too long ago people were praising the sickening, demented, and fundamentally repugnant "Joker" movie, which was basically a portrayal of today's headlines in some larger cities. The imagery itself is not what I find questionable, it's using something that hits people hard in order to make a buck off it that makes it leave such a nasty aftertaste.

I agree with Bassman2003; even if they had it all ready to go, much/most of the negative feelings could have been eliminated by just showing that it was a film production, instead of people protesting, fighting, and burning. It's such a simple "fix" that you have to assume they refused to make that fix deliberately, so as to capitalize on current events and driving controversy around their ad and their product.
 
mico said:
Did it put you off of comic book movies too? Because thats what that ad copied. Almost every comic book movie has a SWAT type scene. A multi billion dollar industry funded by the public which pushed that same stuff and no one had a problem , but that ad, Oh my I'm traumatized
Click to expand...

Glorifying violence against people to market a product is in pretty bad taste. Obviously I'm not the only one that feels that way.

If you like to watch films containing lots of violence as your past time activity that's your choice to make. Just accept that it isn't everyones cup of tea to do the same.

This advert also shows how desensitised we have become as societies to see violence as normal. No wonder the world is so polarised.
 
JPNola said:
"who in the hell thought this was appropriate subject
matter for a cheeky advert? "

The same people who chose the pornographic-sounding brand name "Creamsource".
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This is the benefit of us discussing this stuff here, I never even thought about the name, I assumed it referenced the "creamy, soft qualities of the light" that their products put out, not penises, but seen in the context of the tastelessness
of this ad, that makes sense now. It's funny, I am pretty cynical, skeptical and acerbic but I never even though that, you did, thanks for cluing me in JP. Now I like their company even less, a bit too sophmoric for my taste.
 
I don’t know. As a piece of social commentary the message is (at worst) benign. It ends with a pretty unambiguous declaration of “we’re all in this together”.

I don’t see it as a big issue that they’d tap into the zeitgeist to say that.

If it didn’t end as it does, I’d agree with the tone deaf call. But it does make a point, and I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one to make.
 
Grug said:
I don’t know. As a piece of social commentary the message is (at worst) benign. It ends with a pretty unambiguous declaration of “we’re all in this together”.

I don’t see it as a big issue that they’d tap into the zeitgeist to say that.

If it didn’t end as it does, I’d agree with the tone deaf call. But it does make a point, and I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one to make.
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Since it's open to interpretation, what point do you think it makes Grug? The point it makes to me is that the way it's edited, in the sequence it's edited in seems sensationalistic and exploitative,
but do you mean the point is that the little girl and the guy who was burned are actually friendly when the cameras aren't rolling?
 
Let’s also keep in mind that this was not intended to run on TV to a national or global general audience that would see it while watching their favorite program on TV. This is for a product in a niche field for an audience/customer base that does exactly what they were doing with it.
 
What I am seeing in the ad is a company doing a self referential skit to both comment on how their product could be used while also showing a high production value. I'm sure the team was trying to reference the type of post apocalyptic and exploitation movies that their country is know for rather than any actual civil unrest in society. In as much as they are commenting on social issues, they appear to be showing how the arts can bring together old white colonizers and young aboriginal girls. But I tend to like post apocalyptic movies and Australian movies in general, so it works for me.
 
puredrifting said:
I'm trying to be careful here, I don't want this to get political at all.
From all reports, the new Creamsource Vortex 8 is a home run lighting instrument.
This ad, the production values, the technical part of producing it was really well done.


But am I the only one that finds the subject of the ad to be astoundingly tone deaf considering what's happening in real life?
Real people, in real life are being beaten, shot, attacked and killed, who in the hell thought this was appropriate subject
matter for a cheeky advert?

If it was the 1960s, this would be akin to a beer commercial with a 19 year old American soldier in Vietnam getting sniped and dying in a pool of blood, then
the camera would stop and the actor playing the VC sniper would high five the soldier he just "killed" in the commercial. It's just in such
incredibly bad taste and if I was in the market for a high end light, and was considering the Vortex 8, this ad alone would 100% put me off even considering buying this light.

The comments I've seen for the ad just remark about the production values with comments like "Cool", "Amazing", which I also find sad and disturbing.
I'm not not a SJW or passionate cultural activist but I'm just amazed that nobody else, so far, seems to find the subject matter of this commercial to be disturbing.
Click to expand...

It's lazy, it's cynical, it's not very good, but I'm not sure it's political.

They probably saw the Phantom Flex launch film from a couple of years ago and thought, "cool, fire, let's do that" but didn't have the skill to pull it off or mindfulness to realise how tone-deaf they were being. They probably don't even watch the news.

https://www.camaleonrental.com/gb/phantom-camera-rental/phantom-flex-4k.html
 
cpreston said:
What I am seeing in the ad is a company doing a self referential skit to both comment on how their product could be used while also showing a high production value. I'm sure the team was trying to reference the type of post apocalyptic and exploitation movies that their country is know for rather than any actual civil unrest in society. In as much as they are commenting on social issues, they appear to be showing how the arts can bring together old white colonizers and young aboriginal girls. But I tend to like post apocalyptic movies and Australian movies in general, so it works for me.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting take, thank you for that.
 
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