Over the past 6 months or so, I have been noticing an increasing trend in advertising for both print and television ads. A growing number of companies are joining this trend, and after this blog post, I hope that you will be more aware of it, and recognize it as you go about your life. The trend is minimalist and kinetic typography.

Pepsi

The first example I noticed was from Pepsi. They launched their “Refresh Everything” campaign that was the first major advertising campaign with their newly redesigned logo. They used the 2009 Presidential Inauguration as a vehicle to get their message out there. They launched their campaign and put it EVERYWHERE replacing all ‘O’s with the new Pepsi logo.

They also launched a television spot:

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YouTube - View Pepsi's Refresh Everything TV Ad

South Park

Mocking Pepsi, South Park Studios used this same ad format and produced a parody ad, which was played on Comedy Central last Winter.

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YouTube - View South Park's Parody Ad

Ford Motor Company

The trend has now filtered into the automotive industry with Ford Motor Company using it for their F-150 commercials. There have been several so far, and it seems that they are sticking to the style.

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YouTube - View Ford's TV Spot #1

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YouTube - View Ford's TV Spot #2

Recently Ford adopted this advertising style to commercials for another one of their vehicles, the Ford Taurus SHO.

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YouTube - View Ford's Taurus SHO Commercial

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company has recently started to use this as well in their national commercials that explain their nightly schedules. These have not yet made it onto the internet yet.

Planet Fitness

Starting the 1st of the year, Planet Fitness launched a campaign similar to Ford’s. Upon further research, I discovered that they had been doing using kinetic typography for almost a year’s time.

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YouTube - View Planet Fitness' Commercial #1

Starbucks

Starbucks joined Pepsi encouraging people to vote by offering them a free cup of coffee if they voted in the 2008 election.

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YouTube - Starbucks Get Out And Vote Campaign

They also used this advertising style to raise awareness for their Red fundraising efforts to help fight AIDS.

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YouTube - Starbucks Red Campaign

Charlie Moore: The Mad Fisherman

Even local area stations have started employing the trend on ads. Mad Fish is a show on NESN, New England Sports Network, featuring Charlie Moore. Recently they have launched an ad featuring the same kinetic typography style as the Ford commercials. I also could not find any clips of this online.

Zombieland

Another example I noticed was in the film Zombieland. Throughout the film, viewers are reminded of the basic rules of survival in Zombieland by typography creatively placed and animated within the scene.

These are just a few I have noticed. I am sure there are many more. Don’t be scared, share yours, and share your thoughts!

Photo Credits: atwatervilage, ourtimelost1, ourtimelost2, kbolde, c2k, reyobkram, ryaninman, Pepsi

This was an article that Jon recently wrote for AIGA Johnson & Wales University Student Chapter’s blog of which he was the 2009-2010 President. It has been updated and improved for our blog. You can view the original post here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 4:15 pm by Jonathan Desrosiers.
It is filed under the following categories: Blog.