I used to work in advertising, so I guess I have some cred when it comes to commercials. TV is a huge part of the arts, and TV advertising sometimes takes on the status of poetry (let's not get carried away!). For me, a case in point is the series of commercials from Liberty Mutual Insurance on the theme of "responsibility."
I'm the last one to give insurance companies credit for anything remotely altruistic, and as advertising messages, these commercials ring hollow. But as short films, I love them.
Like me, you may have seen the commercials and not realized what they were advertising: They're all a series of extremely short vignettes where somebody does something nice for somebody else: opening a door, picking up something dropped, etc. Another character in the scene sees this and then we see that character doing something nice for somebody else, and so on. That's it. Logo, slogan, website, the end.
I guess the idea is that Liberty Mutual is more responsible than other insurance companies (OK, but the field isn't very hard to beat on that!). But the idea itself - that little things we do every day out of politeness or empathy can really make a difference in the world - is quite beautiful.
You can see the commercials on Liberty Mutual's YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertyMutualAds
The campaign is part of Liberty Mutual's "Responsibility Project," which seems to have a lot of interesting ideas attached to it. There are also several short films on the theme of responsibility on this site: http://www.responsibilityproject.com/
Of course I'm not endorsing Liberty Mutual, or the insurance industry in general, but I like these commercials.
