The other day I talked about a special breed of advertising predator: the zombie. An ad so ancient you assume it‘s essentially lifeless, only to discover that it can still crawl inside your skull and take control of your brain.
Now I’m wondering what to make of this ad on the cover of my son’s manga magazine. (Technically it’s on the back cover, as manga is read back to front. But since he leaves it lying around the house in classic Western fashion, I see the ad much more than I see the cover.)
As you can see from the photo, this skater dude’s stomach has hijacked his brain, literally sprouting a big hairy arm to stuff a hot dog in his mouth. The message: “Hunger gets what hunger wants.” But what I don’t get is why the hot dog company’s logo, Ball Park brand franks, is such an afterthought on the page. I saw this ad dozens of times before I realized which brand of hot dog was being pushed. So is it just a poorly designed ad? Or is there some hidden component here that makes this a special breed of predator? I’m going to see if I can track down the authors of “Ad Nauseum” to see what they’ve got to say.
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