Creamsource: The Most Tone Deaf Ad Ever Made?

You can reach out to them. They look like a small approachable staff.

https://creamsource.com/about-us/

Definitely appreciate the intent of this thread, but if the company was trying to use subversive content to get attention, then we played right into their hands. Because a lot of us are still thinking '....but nice looking light". If an advertisement irks you, the best thing is to not share or comment, if you really dislike it. Does that make sense, or am I off on that?

Anyway, I encourage you to reach out to their team and start a dialogue. If they seem indifferent, let me know, and I will chime in and send them an email, as well.
 
James0b57 said:
...If an advertisement irks you, the best thing is to not share or comment, if you really dislike it. Does that make sense, or am I off on that?
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That's why I used the term, "tone deaf" in my headline for the thread. I don't think they intended for this spot to become a lightning rod for subjective taste in the racially and socially charged era that is currently happening all over the world.
That's the issue with it, when people use media in ways that show unintended meaning and consequences, they should be called out for it because they are a business trying to sell their gear to professionals. If this was a music video
or a short film on YouTube, it wouldn't have registered on my radar. But because it's an ad for a piece of gear, marketed to me and my colleagues, it becomes distasteful because it's marketing, not art.

I'm very much a person who is radically against censorship of almost any kind. It's that they want our business, yet put out this bonheaded demo film that shows
that they either:
A. don't think through their advertising and media strategy very well
B. Are just socially clueless
C. Did it intentionally to cause controversy and focus negative attention to their brand

I personally don't care if it's A, B or C because I have no plans on buying a $5,000.00 light from them so I probably wouldn't waste my time having a dialogue with them because it doesn't affect me.
But if I ever am looking to buy lighting and it's in a category of light they make, I wouldn't buy from them because this advertisement is either sensationalistic, exploitative or clueless or a combination of all three.
 
Given what's happened/happening around the world in Hong Kong, the US and other areas it's in pretty bad taste. Unfortunately, an ad's only raison d' etre is for you to pay attention to it, so good or bad taste or quality are often irrelevant to its makers...
 
The argument it is bad timing and not sensitive is just plain stupid: There are riots and bad stuff going on "all" the time in the world and it is broadcasted "all" the time if you watch "proper News". It is the same nonsense as whenever there is a school-shooting in the US and the argument is "now is not the time to talk about banning weapons, now is a time to mourn", get real, there are basically school shootings "all the time" in the US (stats are like one every 3 days on average, pre-corona, obviously not with loss of lives every time), i.e. if you need to wait it will just happen again and again... Point being, this video is just as "bad" today as 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, the world doesn't revolve around the US and what is "mostly current" there.

I won't fault them for the "poor timing" but just the "poor execution" (maybe I shouldn't use the word execution since the US just resumed federal ones...), fires and molotovs aren't the stuff I want to see when I want to see the qualities of a light. Basically the fire just "pollutes" the images. Also, I highly doubt they will broadcast this commercial so anyone watching it have chosen to do so, so no "what-about-the-children?" reaction applies here. Basically, what I took from the video is: they spend money and time on a project to show off their new light but it fails at soooo many levels that the only thing I take with me is that the "production value is pretty good, but very wasted". Maybe it is stuff like "shoot slow-motion without flickering" which is what they are trying to show...
 
James0b57 said:
That makes sense. I can see what you are saying.
Click to expand...

As a writer, I can think of dozens of different story scenarios where they could have easily still implemented the exact same factors utilizing slow motion fire and water spray and the "bad white man" who deserves to burn
and the smiling native people's girl that would have been more creative and appropriate. Generally in advertisement, you don't want to focus on real dopplegangers for real people dying in the real world to hawk your product.
 
Liam Hall said:
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
Click to expand...

I was waiting for someone to make the connection.

At AbelCine I helped launch the Phantom Flex 4K at NAB 2013, which is where we also debuted this short promo. That same year we also introducedthe first Creamsource lights to the US market. They were already in use in Australia but this was their big international debut. The lights were designed with high speed pgotography in mind and produced no flicker at any frame rate even when dimmed, something not true for almost all other similar lights at the time. At the time Creamsource was a two-man company and they were both with us at the show and with me at the Phantom Flex 4K launch, and I used a Creamsource light for live demos in the presentation as well as in our NAB booth.

I haven't talked to them n awhile, but they're very nice people. I honestly think this was a innocent misjudgement. I'm sure someone pitched them the idea and they paid a local filmmaker to produce the demo film. While bigger than before, Creamsource is still a tiny company and I'm sure it was a big deal for them to pay for such a film to be produced.

BTW, Creamsource is not meant to be any sort of juvenile double-entendre. The intent was for smooth "creamy" even light that was also directional (source). When we first took them on I discussed other meanings and what could inadvertently happen when potential clients did a Google search for their products. They were surprised as they figured any search would just show stuff about cows. Mind you, in my time at AbelCine I was also the Product Manager on items such as the T-Bag underwater camera surf housing and its smaller variant The Deuce (as in "Deuce Bag"). If teabagging and douchebag wasn't bad enough, there were the many products we turned away, such as the "personal vibrating massager" that was rebranded as a camera shaker and called The Jerk. In such a world I can tell you that Creamsource was rather innocent.
 
I ran across a Zoom type video with the guys from Creamsource discussing the promo and the light. I thought it was on NewsShooter, but I can’t seem to find it now. And for what it’s worth, this is the only major site that I go to that has made a “thing” out of the promo video. Everywhere else it’s either “cool video” or it’s not even mentioned.
 
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