Fairy Tale Ad: Bakers Biscuits

I have a few fairy tale ads in my archives so thought I'd share...

Today's product is "Bakers Biscuits" but what I really want to know is where that enchanted wood is the children are skipping through..!

There's a ton of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters in this one. I grabbed a couple of screen caps as examples but there are many, many more.

Enjoy!

Baba Yaga's Beer

There's a new beer out which is:

"inspired by Eastern European folklore, by woodland, streams, cold dark nights and woodsmoke."

It's called "Babayaga" and is being made for the Winter season by Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. They even have a little poem that goes with it:I'm not a beer person (although I love a lot of the label designs people are coming up with these days) but I admit this one makes me curious.

And if you think this is interesting wait till you read about their 'Baby Tree' beer.
You can find out more about the beer (and the unusual, creative and fun brewing company) HERE.

The Mad Hatter Offers First Look At 'Alice' Artwork...

... in return for building an army - an army of Facebook supporters, that is.

I know there area few readers who love all things Alice so thought I'd alert you to the buzz.

Here's how it works: The Mad Hatter calls for accolades from Facebook followers and when the called-for number is reached, he reveals more artwork from the upcoming Disney/Burton film.

Quoth the (Mad) Hatter:

The Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter

Oh my, my, my... I have three treasures for my subjects, but what kind of leader would I be if I gave them to you all at once? Here's the first - a morsel to appease. I used to hat the White Queen, but there's not much for me to work with. Her head is so small. Interested in seeing even more? Then I need 7,5...00 Likes! Spread the word! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/disney_pictures/4089669981/sizes/l/)

The poster shown above is the first reveal and he wants 7, 500 'likes' before unveiling the next - (tally is just above 6, 800 at this posting).

You can join in the fun HERE.

Snow White Advertises Pizza (But Not Very Well)

Found this odd advertisement for Pizzetta pizza HERE.The text is: "Snow White and the Six Dwarfs - Think twice before you take the last slice."

Soooo... did the seventh dwarf run off with the pizza and abandon his duties or did the others eat him instead? You see the confusion. (You can click on the image for a larger view.. and for any clues...)

The other ads in the series are just as ambiguous. They can also be seen HERE (click on the back-arrow at the bottom of the image).

Hansel & Gretel Foundation

Here's a sobering set of posters from the German Hansel & Gretel Foundation for the prevention of child abuse.From the website HERE (the site is in German. I suggest using babelfish.yahoo.com to approximately translate the page):

"Not every child is looking forward to coming home.

In Germany every 5th child gets sexually abused.

In 80% of the cases it happens in their home.

Get more information at: www.haensel-gretel.de

Help prevent child abuse"

The scariest thing about the Hansel and Gretel story - for me at least - is not the witch. Had both children been a little less faint from hunger I doubt they would have gotten in such trouble, though I have to wonder if their role models had a hand in setting them up for such a terrible thing. Whatever the case, eventually their smarts helped them escape the situation (this was particularly due to Gretel but Hansel should be credited for taking his sister's advice on the letting the witch test a stick instead of his finger for meal-readiness). It's the abandonment (at the very least) of the children that always got me. That the kids continue to return home despite the clearly malicious behavior of both parents always baffled me as a child, especially when everything seems to be a happy ending - the witch is dead, they escape, they have treasure, they find their way out of the woods... only to go back to the place where they received the most harm. I always felt my breath catch in my throat at the point in the story when they run - they RUN! - back to their father. Why? I know why now. It doesn't make me any less sad or distraught.This problem is as old as the ages but at least it's not considered 'normal' anymore. I applaud, thank and support all who work tirelessly to end this problem, the resulting abuse cycle and child pornography. Thank god for foundations like this that tackle these issues daily and rescue children from these crimes.

New "The Princess and the Frog" Artwork

In the last week, two new pieces of artwork from Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" have surfaced on the internet (you can click on the images for a larger view):

The first one is an International Poster. You'll notice this is almost identical to the artwork being used to promote the Disney preview events of the movie in Los Angeles and New York City. As you can see, there's quite a cast of characters in this version of "The Frog Prince/King."

The second is a mural of 'the shadow man' (a.k.a. the villain, Dr. Facilier), painted to promote the movie and being spotted at some theaters. You can see some close-ups HERE.

Keep Their Fairy Tales Away From Hospital

Here's a Romanian ad campaign for a recent charity ball (August 28th, 2009) for the Steps Towards Life Foundation. The English translation on the posters you see here was released this last week (mid-September 2009).The charity ball was run by "La Motoare" Club.

Here's the TV ad (In Romanian, but it's clearly part of the same campaign with some storytelling at the beginning).

The ad shows the phrase: "Ține poveștile copilăriei departe de spital." It translates (very roughly) as "(Keep) youngster story children (?) out from hospital":



You can see the ads full size HERE.

Amnesty International's Graphic Fairy Tales

Amnesty International has a campaign in Chile, South America, denouncing violence against women that uses fairy tale characters.

I'm only going to show one of the two posters here. The other one with Snow White is far too graphic for a general posting.

The ad campaign is this:

"Violence against women is violation of human rights.

Denounce."

You can see the Snow White poster HERE (Scroll down to see a thumbnail of the Snow White one. You can click on it for a larger view.).

V-Ray Tales by Silvia Bratanova

Discovered on deviantART, this 'V-Ray Tales' series is advertising the power of the V-Ray rendering engine for 3D computer graphics but I think these images (not including the accompanying text) show us yet another interpretation of our old favorites.

The artist is Silvia Bratanova (SOOO on deviantART) and is an 'experimental photographer/designer', working as part of 'Wings Creative Studio' team.

There is text on each image with the 'tale' (according to V-Ray). Clicking on the images will take you to Silvia's deviantART page where you can click 'Full View' and have a closer look to read what's written (there's an example at the bottom of this post).







NOTE:
Copy for The Princess and the Pea V-Ray Tale:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a beautiful princess, cursed in a most peculiar way - whenever she saw a bad pixel, it would turn into a pea underneath her mattress. She would lie awake every night praying for a new v-rayvolutionary product - reliable and accurate enough to render out all the pixels and break the curse.

V-Ray - no more sleepless nights!

Eugenio Recuenco's Fashionable Fairy Tales

Eugenio Recuenco is a well known Spanish photographer who's fashionable avant garde fairy tale recreations for Vogue caused a big splash back in 2006.

In this popular series he recreated The Princess and the Pea, Snow White, Puss in Boots, The Pied Piper (though this shot could double as the delirious Dancing Princesses), Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast.

Here are the spreads from Vogue that swept the web at the time:
I recently found a few more, though I'm not sure when they were taken. For this set we have Sleeping Beauty, Thumbelina, Snow White (take two), The Ugly Duckling and two additional Beauty and the Beast shots.And, just for fun, here's an ad for Saniterpen Pet Odor Remover in France (from March 2008). Puss in Boots gets a little on the smelly side...All of his photos have a dark, other -worldly quality. His extensive online portfolio is well worth your time to browse.

Make Sure You Have the Right Accessory Before Going Into the Woods...

I'm not really a bag-person but these ads from Louis Vuitton make me think twice about that assessment, besides, don't you think Snow White would have fared better if she'd just grabbed her bag before heading out the door with the Huntsman? Besides, how can a princess function without a few changes of clothes? (And shoes - don't forget the shoes!)And you have to wonder if Alice would have had quite as much trouble had she taken the right accessory with her through the looking glass... At the least she could have grabbed a few souvenirs along the way!Don't you want to reinvent the tales, just a little now? ;)

(You can see more creative ads for bags HERE.)

Tough Characters

On March this year Levi's Kids launched a campaign (found HERE) showing tough versions of fairy tale characters, all wearing Levi's of course.

You can click on the images for a more detailed view.The advertising agency is BBH Asia Pacific & the illustrator is Tye Sok Kuan (clicking on his name will take you to his blog to see a lot more of his work).

Fairy Tale Characters in Critical Condition

The Literacy Foundation released a new 2008-2009 campaign on the basis of this message:

"When a child doesn't read imagination disappears."

The ads show fairy tale characters hospitalized and looking very unwell as they slowly fade away.

There are 2 radio ads, one 'voiced' by The Prince and one by The Big Bad Wolf. You can listen to them below:

The TV ad is described as follows (from their website):

Cinderella wanders the corridors of a hospital with her IV drip. Her blue ball dress is all wrinkled. Visibly worn down by illness, she is pale and weak. She passes, one by one, Tom Thumb, moving along slowly with his walker, a sick elderly dwarf, an aging Peter Pan in his wheelchair, and Sleeping Beauty, still asleep. Suddenly, the continuous buzz of a heart monitor is heard, warning that a patient’s heart has stopped beating. Cinderella watches as medical staff rush toward Little Red Riding Hood’s room. Then a child is heard saying: “When we can’t read, the world of our imagination disappears. Give The Gift of Reading^®.”

You can see it below:

Visualizing Red Riding Hood (a paper)

I found this interesting paper from a 2006 issue of Moveable Type - a publication of the Postgraduate Society of the Department of English Language and Literature at University College London.

The post-graduate student, Sarah Bonner, takes a look at how society is interpreting the tale of Red Riding Hood through visual means and incorporating it even more into society's make-up.

From her paper:

In recent years contemporary artists have been appropriating and re-inventing traditional fairy tales. Subverting and interrogating received meanings, artists are challenging the traditional parameters of tales which convey ideas of gender role and racial identity. The fairy tale is being translated from literary text into visual culture. The artists recoding the tales address shifts in cultural attitude, engaging predominantly with issues of identity and discrimination. In this paper I examine the visual development of “Little Red Riding Hood,” investigating the manner in which the literary tale has been adopted by contemporary artists, how the visual responds to the textual, and cultural attitudes embedded in reiterations of the tale.

This is a pretty fascinating exploration for anyone interested in fairy tales being interpreted in a visual medium. While academic in tone, it's still very readable and looks at everything from advertising and fashion to artistic renderings.

You can read the whole paper (with some pics throughout) here.

She also cites her references - a handy list, should you wish to do some more study on the subject.

Don't Let Our Forests Become Once Upon A Time...

As the traditional fourth of July fireworks and festivities get into full swing I thought this Smokey Bear PSA was very timely as well as perfect for the blog.

Did you know Smokey Bear originally came about in response to using Disney's Bambi as a 'Prevent Forest Fires' poster?

From the History of Smokey Bear:

Walt Disney's motion picture, "Bambi" was produced in 1944 and Disney let the forest fire prevention campaign use his creation on a poster. The "Bambi" poster was a success and proved that using an animal as a fire prevention symbol would work. A fawn could not be used in subsequent campaigns because "Bambi" was on loan from Walt Disney studios for only one year; the Forest Service would need to find an animal that would belong to the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign. It was finally decided that the Nation's number one firefighter should be a bear.

Here's an early PSA using Bambi footage combined with an animated Smokey Bear. As it's from 1964 it's in black and white but there was no doubt it reached people:

The Walt Disney Company has since allowed the use of their characters from Bambi (see campaign poster & ad at start of post) and is currently employing Sleeping Beauty to help spread the message of fire safety. There are two approaches. One is the more gentle, 'protect our friends in the forest' which you can see below:

The other is more dramatic, letting us know most fires are caused by humans and could be prevented:

You can see both Sleeping Beauty PSA's at the Smokey Bear website here. In addition to resources for children's education in fire safety, the website has many tips and resources on how to prevent wildfires.