Vogel Airlines is a short video series of advertisements of a fictitious airline. These are supposed to evoke the former glamour flying had in the past. While also contrasting it realities beyond the touristic bubble. These shorts are presented as advertisements the viewer would have see on TV or on their phone before. The shorts were released with different lengths, edits and language. Below are the descriptions of these shorts:
Vogel Airlines
The video uses imagery to invoke thoughts of a “relaxing” or “Perfect” vacation. These are then superseded with shots of an aircraft and the company logo with a narration.
The length is 33 Seconds.
The short was distributed in specific areas on the West Coast, Midwest and Northeast.
Vogel Airlines “Extended”
This video is much shorter, emulating a long running TV commercial which are cut to be made shorter after its initial release. The cut was also taking in consideration the time given to a user before they can skip an ad. When the user is about to click the skip button, the video changes revealing the reality behind the picture-perfect representation of the Ad. Contrasting imagery that breaks the user’s expectations allowing the opportunity for them to watch until the end.
The length is 24 Seconds.
The short was distributed in specific areas on the West Coast, Midwest and Northeast.
Vogel Airlines (Spanish)
This video reuses the footage from the first video but without the voice over. This time is replaced by a woman speaking Spanish with a Castilian accent. The end graphic was also replaced to match the language.
The length is 32 Seconds.
The short was distributed in specific areas on the West Coast, Midwest, Northeast and Puerto Rico.
Inspirations
This animation was initially part of a larger project and would have acted as a transition point. As the idea kept developing it took a life of its own and became the Vogel Airlines project. The idea of making a fake ad is not new to me. What has abstained me from making one in the past is the balance I’d want to have between a serious ad and a critical one. A serious one is just an Ad, but a critical one would use the same tactics an Ad would use but applying it as a subversion against itself.
An aspect I wanted to emulate in this animation was my experience watching TV in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico being a U.S. Territory; media coming from the mainland is rather ubiquitous, from Movies, TV Shows, Music, Ads and Slang. Slowly but surely arrives to the island either as the raw creation (like in music) or is translated to Spanish but still keeps its Nationally albeit edited to fit with logistical and market restrictions (due to being an unincorporated territory). For advertising (circa early 2000’s); broadcasted ads had this unique feel to them. Of being noticeably dubbed while also having this old look to them. It would be common to see an Ad from the 90s still being broadcasted even though a newer version of the same Ad was already distributed in the mainland. This gave a feeling of stagnation yet at the same time comfort. This might be due to the multiple economical issues Puerto Rico has faced since the 90’s to this day. A noticeable shift in Advertising in the late 2000’s was the usage of Ads that have been produced for the Spanish-speaking population in the mainland, and came with cultural cues that are not fully present in the Island.
Part of the inspiration also came from the nature of economies based around tourism. In Puerto Rico tourism is one of the major if not biggest industries on the island. Due to this there is a noticeable shift in attention from leaders towards maintaining and beautifying areas that tourist are more likely to gather. Leaving less popular areas under maintained and visually unpleasant. This can be seen more apparent in the condition of roads, roads that are signed and marked as routes for tourist are well maintained that routes taken more often by locals. This can be seen as an obvious decision from leaders but it creates this “backlot look” to the surroundings beyond tourist designated areas. As a host hiding a messy room behind a door, leaders have done the same with how they concentrate their efforts on keeping up an appearance even if it’s a detriment to the local population that has no casual reason to visit those areas.
Advertising the Ads
Due to the experience these shorts were trying to create. These shorts were distributed as Ads across the US. More information about the process and results will be posted on a later date.