About the Image

Karen D’Silva
Anyone else see these ads and wonder what they’re for?  I first started to see them pop up in snowboarding and music magazines.  Finally curiosity killed the cat, and I found myself typing in their web address - http://www.nowwhat.com.  I was surprised to see the client was State Farm.  The choice of imagery seems so out of character for a stuffy insurance company. 

Maybe it’s because I’ve got a soft spot for this kind of documentary photography, but how refreshing to see someone take a chance like this.  The image represents a type of visual humor often seen on television.  We see it when watching “American’s funniest Videos”, MTV’s “Jackass” or “Punk’d”.  You can even spend hours glued to these kinds of bloopers on You Tube.  The picture becomes the punch line.  The end result of an unrehearsed and rather unfortunate chain of events.   Though sometimes painful to look at, the viewer seems to enjoying laughing with people, or rather, at other people’s predicaments.  This humor is quite different from the surreal, the metaphor, and even the slap stick humor we’ve seen in the past.  The image is reminiscent of a snap shot.  Technically, the moment wouldn’t work as well if the set were overly produced.  It’s that ‘happened upon’ look that evokes an immediate emotional reaction.   You believe this actually happened to some poor soul.

At Spark, we just finished researching Gen Y for our recent Spark*y issue.  The demographic was born between 1979-1994. They are the kids of baby boomers and are three times the size of Gen X.  Their spending power has marketers sitting up and taking notice.  Y’ers are the first to grow up completely digital, and marketers know that means they can’t reach this group through traditional media.  They spend far more time on their computers than watching tv or reading magazines.  They are also young so the cool factor plays a heavy role in whether they will buy into a product.  Many companies like State Farm Insurance are creating campaigns that aren’t an overtly over sell, but rather a simple curiosity.  For instance, this ad takes you to a specially designed site tailoring to Gen Y.  You can shop for insurance, check out their schedule of live music events, or even play an IM “nowwhat” practical joke on an unsuspecting friend.
 

Meg Asaro
State Farm is strategically approaching their audience this way on purpose.  Created by the advertising agency DDB, they know that just because Generation Y is young, doesn’t mean they are stupid.  Just the opposite, Generation Y can’t stand being sold to or talked down to or marketed to or any of that crap.  Marketers have to be smart to target Generation Y.  They were raised not just on technology but also on branding, they know all the tricks and see a scam a mile away. 

When you look at this ad with that in mind, you see how important the image truly becomes in advertising.  I mean, they didn’t even use their logo.  Only when you go to the “now what” website do you realize it is State Farm.  And kudos to them for folding in just enough of the State Farm logo into the “now what” logo.  Yet another way to appear savvy and therefore attractive to Generation Y.  According to Mark Gibson, Assistant VP of advertising at State Farm, "It's hard to make insurance fun and cool, but this creates that feeling is plausible, and stays true to the premise that insurance is a necessary part of life.  Young people tend to think about insurance a lot less than they think about music, cell phones and other things. But this [campaign] will engage them through key aspects of their lives: the Internet, videos and live events.”

What I love about the image itself is that we are not sure if this was shot by a high paid advertising photographer or if it was consumer generated, as that seems to be the trend of the moment.  Regardless, it was created within the visual vernacular of Generation Y.  It is plucked right out of their world, after college, still struggling but making it happen.

It is a still-life of sorts but that term to me is so old school.  Karen and I refer to this type of work as “Evidence” since it tells a whole story but includes no characters.  Yet, you still get a strong sense of what this person’s life is all about.  They are young, they have taste and well, things are about to suck for em.  What a universal emotion to tap into! 


 
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Meg Asaro & Karen D’Silva are the Principals of Spark Visual Research. For more information about the authors visit the bios for Meg Asaro, Karen D’Silva, or www.sparkvisualresearch.com. D’Silva and Asaro also publish their own newsletter for professional photographers seeking highly applicable market research presented specifically for use in conceptual planning for commercial photography productions.