The Royal Wedding a PR bless?

Maybe art or not there Royal wedding has been the major subject on the street. There is nothing else more expected and talked about in the world than the event in question. The strategy used to promote the wedding has never been so big and inclusive. The Clarence house has been using all channels of communication available. It is a real social media wedding. The strategy has the aim to promote the Royal family and keep the interest on it. The couple’s picture and wedding details can be seen anywhere by anyone. Still, has it worked?

It seems that inside the UK people are really concerned with the bank holiday but not the couple. Yet, abroad the event seems to be as special as the Royals desire. On the hand, companies inside the United Kingdom have been using the strategy to promote products and services. According to journalists there were never so many press releases with the same subject. The lines are same ‘fit for a king’, ‘calling all Kates and Williams’, and ‘following the footsteps of...’. PR agencies have been using event to promote beds to places to visit, boots to engagement rings. The magical world of being a future king and future princess still exist inside us and nothing appeals more than our own feelings.

Barcelona F C & UNICEF

Yesterday I was dragged along to watch the ‘clasico’ Real Madrid vs. Barcelona. Even being Brazilian, as most of the girls I am not a football fan and little I understand about such a sport. However, something grabbed my attention during the game, the name UNICEF on the club’s shirt. And if my friends say that football is also art, I believe I have the right to write about it.

Barcelona is considered the second richest football club in the world and pays the highest average salary to players nevertheless the club has never worn adverts on their shirt. Nevertheless the rule changed 2006 when the club agreed a 5 years partnership with UNICEF which includes the use of UNICEF logo on their shirt for free and a 1.5 million of Euros donation per year.

The partnership has the aim to help children in the developing world and keep up with the club’s motto “More than a Club”. When Barcelona was created their intention was to be a sporting but also a philanthropic club committed to social, cultural, educational and humanitarian activities in Catalonia. Yet, with this decision the club has created a huge PR opportunity to expand its name abroad as an organisation that is not worried just with games and player but also with global issues.

Joan Laporta, then president of Barcelona said "It will not be the brand name of a corporation. It will not be a commercial to promote some kind of business. It will be the logo of 'UNICEF'. Through UNICEF, we, the people of FC Barcelona, the people of 'Barça', are very proud to donate our shirt to the children of the world who are our present, but especially are our future."

Even considering the relevance of such a partnership, the Spanish club was criticised by its attitude, which possibly being just another promotional strategy in other to get the place as ‘everybody’s second favourite team’. One or the other, as long as there is help given to those in need it will be worth to do it. Well done Barça for a PR and humanitarian work!

Do artists ever retire?

Last month the movie director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement, but only after his last two movies are completed. His decision created an indusdry discussion on whether retirement is an existing option to artists. And if he is only trying to grab attention to his next two works, a PR strategy.

It is complicate to think that your mind can retire and stop thinking when you decide to. As long as we are alive our brain is working. Therefore how can an artist stop thinking about and producing art? Artists are driven by passion, or should be. Their work evolves with time. And apart from Shakespeare there were never a artist who made enough money and retire. To become a master is necessary to work the whole life, and likes Picasso, Michelangelo and Gaudi have proven that best works comes with experience.

Brussels - Art Nouveau

Recently I have had the opportunity to spend a few days in Brussels, capital of Belgium and the administrative centre of the European Union. The European capital is mostly famous for its importance to the EU, its chocolates and see sights like the huge Atomium or Manneken Pis yet has not fully used its importance and reference for Art Nouveau in order to promote itself.

The Art Nouveau movement represents a period when the bourgeoisie decided to created a new philosophy and art which could be showed as part of their way of thinking and as exclusive and expensive as any other form of art consumed by those who had power and money. The idea was to create buildings, furniture, jewellery and silver objects to their own class which today is perceived as a transition from neoclassicism to modernism. And Brussels offer an incredible opportunity to experience this period for free. During a short walk around the city you can be surprised by buildings, windows and decoration from the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th everywhere. The city offer the best of Art Nouveau taking you back to the begging of the past century.

In 2000 the Unesco recognized in Belgium 4 houses by Victor Horta, one of the biggest names in Art Nouveau, as a World Heritage which were described as “works of human creative genius” that are “outstanding examples of Art Nouveau architecture brilliantly illustrating the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in art, thought, and society.

Images, should we trust?

The opening of any exhibition is generally linked to glamour. Most of those invited are there to appreciate the artist or the gallery director as to build contacts, and only a few to judge if the work it is of any importance. However, on the opening of a photography exhibition on Hoxton Square, East London the expected behaviour of the audience towards the pieces of work changed from appreciation to hostility as soon as the gallery director had a few drinks.

The exhibition, on the artist’s words were said to be a show of his time in America. He decided to show the public what he had been through while visiting the northern country and as its meaning. Nevertheless, the gallery director and curator, by the end of the show, said that the pictures were not “real” but created in a scenario with paid actors, one even being British. Which has nothing wrong, once the photographer is a fashion photographer and used to work like that but the fact that he had decided to published and sell its work as his own experience changed the perception of the its guest.

As in described in a prior entry to this blog, the manipulation of image is vivid everywhere yet people seem to be graving for realistic works, in which they can believed the image is authentic and proves to have meaning. And in this particular exhibition this desire became clear when the interest dramatically dropped as soon as the news of a fake trip was spread around the public. We, as public, are graving for reality, for things that can move us yet can we believe on images completely?

Pictures: are they still effective?

Today we live surrounded by pictures. They are everywhere from magazines to flyers, on the tube, on streets and every corner shop. The way they evolved is unbelievable. From its use as a family record, an instrument to capture historic moments and as a work of art to now capture every human feeling and expression.

Nevertheless the indiscriminate of pictures and the constant changes made on it has created a sceptical feeling towards it. The use of Photoshop softwares, mainly for advertising and promotion purposes is said to be the responsible the big villain. The emotional power of a single and not manipulated image has been lost with the number of images we encounter every day.

There is little trust on pictures. The exaggerated used of manipulation has changed the way we look at it and the uncertainty of its veracity has changed our feeling towards it. We no longer fall in love with it or cry over it. The effect it use to have over us is long gone. They have simply become a meaningless mirror of the world we live. And although pictures are as better as they could be, they may have lost the power to move us.