Yesterday the Times ran an interesting piece about French advertising, noting the cultural (if not legal) norms there prevent such things as the hard sell.

To us money implies corruption, and moreover, because we consider ourselves the inventors of freedom, never mind if that’s not true, we still consider advertising as a kind of manipulation,” Mr. Séguéla said. “This explains why television commercials started so late here — essentially because leftist opposition saw ads as corrupting the soul.”

As a result, the ads there tend to be more oblique, elliptical. All of this begs the question of whether the effectiveness of television advertising can be controlled for cultural norms. But for the aesthetes among us, the question is simple: what do they look like? Though the Times failed to link to relevant spots in a current museum exhibit there, the sleuths at the Alley Insider did. Here’s one:

Many moons ago, preparing for a year in Europe, I can remember being warned (or was it teased?) that the commercials there would be much more artistic. I was, in the next few days floored by a Levis ad that, over the years, I would remember mainly in fragments. I have attempted to describe its dreamlike qualities many times, but failed to touch in conversation what the commercial had evoked in my impressionable teen psyche. Mainly, that the coolest place to store a condom was highly concomitant with a pair of Levis (now my only brand of jeans). The commercial, I would learn years later, was directed by frenchman Michel Gondry. Allez les Bleus!

—
The still above is from another Gondry-directed spot featured here.