Advertising is a sort of public, social and art life mirror of the society and country. The advertising reflects the perception of life and life processes by people, their interaction and needs. In this sense art posters are very revealing. The art posters are the art and the advertising bound in one. They indicate the people's approach toward the promotion of a product, the society's attitude to a business running style. This approach, revealed in the art posters, differs much in America and Europe. The home land of the art posters and the place of their wide implementation, including the advertising, became Europe. In America the advertising has become more pragmatic and less graphic. It has received a better use of the words rather than of the artwork. Most of the advertising art directors have a copywriting background. On the contrary, in Europe, most of the advertising art directors have an artistic background. The advertising in Europe is less pragmatic. It is more aimed to raise the interest, to attract attention, rather than to sell openly products. The art posters and prints posters are the best tools to do that.
In America the art posters have found a wide application in the film industry. It is practically the last field of activity, where the art posters are still functional in the US advertising. Since always, the goal of the art posters in the cinema advertising has been to communicate the plot of the movie and to attract the audience by it. However, now most of the people can view movie advertising trailers that show the movie plot and key moments able to attract the audience's interest. Thus, the means, by which the art posters attract the audiences' attention, have changed. Nevertheless, their main goal has remained the same, which is to attract attention, to intrigue, to sell.
The main tool of the art posters in gaining audience's attention is to tease them, to intrigue them. Now, leaving the movie plots aside, the cinema art poster designers have the chance to express through them images and ideas, appealing to the audience's associative thinking. Those images allure and attract without revealing the movie plot. They make an innuendo; they entice and evoke the desire to watch the movie.
The art posters are the advertising and the art bound together for the mutual benefit. Moreover, these advertising pieces of art are quite expensive. The price for the design of one of such art posters may vary from fifty thousand up to hundred thousand dollars. The significant expenses for the advertising eventually have to get recompensed by attracting viewers. Richness of the content and brilliant ideas have to be combined with some elements of the outdoor advertising, such as simplicity and clarity.
In addition, the art posters, as mentioned in the beginning of this article, must be acceptable for the public opinion and moral standards. They cannot show violence or sex scenes. Such limitation is only another benefit of advertising the art posters, since it stimulates artists to create more figurative and elegant images for communicating their advertising ideas