Print ad for Beatles 1
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| Poster image for Beatles 1 |
For the third time in modern day, this photo has been used to promote new product by The Beatles, this time it’s for “Beatles 1”, the new edition of the 2000 release. One can only speculate that the current people working over at Apple Corps Ltd and/or Universal Music Group are unaware of the previous uses of it. It started with the release of the single “Real Love” in 1996, and continued ten years later with the boxed set of the US albums on CD, “The Capitol Albums Vol 2” from 2006.
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| The “Real Love” single |
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| The Capitol albums Vol 2 |
Nine years later, the photo is again used to promote a new product. In the photo, taken by Robert Whitaker, the Beatles’ cigarettes have been airbrushed or photoshopped out of the picture, just like it was on the two previous usages of the photo.
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| Full page ad in the November issue of British music magazine “Record Collector”. |
See this ad in action over at Universal Music’s Beatles page in Japan.
Here’s Whitaker’s original photo, with the cigarettes intact. It has also been used as a calendar photo in the eighties and nineties.
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| The drawing behind the Beatles is not featured in modern renditions of the image.
Photo: © Robert Whitaker |
With so many photos of the Beatles available, and new ones emerging almost on a weekly basis, there is no reason to re-use photos used in earlier campaigns.
The picture on the Capital box set is a slightly different "version" of the photo. They photoshopped Ringo's index and middle finger.
In all versions they failed to remove the background graphic between Paul and George however.
Lazy and uninspiring. It only takes a bit of research, but nobody these days seems to bother.
I thought that the Richard Avedon photos (both psychedelic and original) might be used for the '1' promo campaign. I also though the four psychedelic portraits might be in postcard form in the '1+' package…
Roger, do you know when they will announce the double Vinyl or even a release date?
wow, badly done.
I guess original photo is popular with artworkers, for the almost white background, which you can auto select in a couple of clicks, rather than cutting round the figures, which would have taken longer but given a superior result.
Maybe these people at Apple are business men first and fans second?
So they used the same picture three times on three different products? Big deal!
It's probably down to Universal. Either that or Paul and Ringo can't be arsed about how a Beatles promo goes out any more…. It's hard to imagine Neil Aspinall giving the green light for such a tacky ad…
That photo was also used to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Love Me Do, in 1992.
I love that the Record Collector ad actually says: "The Beatles as you have never seen them before."
haha, yeah, good one…
Looks great to me. Ringo now looks like he's giving some kinda hip hop signal or just about to throw one of his peace signs.
Possibly the best caption for this shot is 'Over-pampered Beatle fans as you've probably heard them whinge before'
It's actually a terrible shot of Paul; and George looks a little odd too. I don't think too many people here are whingeing exactly. I suspect they're not particularly pampered either: I'd guess most of us have paid good money for all these products out of our own pockets. I certainly have. Apple and the other companies involved here are businesses. These products are not released out of love; it's all about money. That doesn't mean no one involved cares about the music or the band. It doesn't necessarily mean that. We can't just assume it means that. But it would be easier to believe it doesn't mean that if just a little more care and imagination went into every part of the process.
It would be nice if they used a pic that hasn't been used twice to promote stuff. But big deal. The important thing to remember is we are finally getting these videos. They can use that promo pic all they want really. The ad's don't cost us money.