For most copywriters snakes are first of all synonymous with trickery and seduction. They are also chosen because they are venomous, hiss, shed their skin, or swallow their prey whole.
There is often only a weak correlation with a characteristic of the animal.
It would be better to donate the contribution for the card directly to WWF. WWF receives the same amount and the donor spends much less money.
Finally, note the attempt at a little joke. There are things you don't buy with the WWF card
, says the header, and we are shown a luxury snakeskin handbag. The snake is not presented for any particular characteristic or behavior, but as a victim of the luxury industry.
Isss pleasssure a sssin?. The title is written in a playful way as an onomatopoeia of the hissing of a snake. I think it's well done. Too bad the first lines of the text seem so silly. Judge for yourself:
If you don't want to indulge in pleasure, you'd better stop reading now. … No matter how far her [the car's] rivals twist themselves, this seductress is always too cunning † for them. … Her pointed snout and provocatively rounded backside will not leave even the strictest recluse unmoved. …(from Dutch).
We see more seduction in the next example. Be seduced
(3) is for an eau de toilette for men and refers clearly to the
story with the apple. Another brand, the fragance in № 12, comes also with a snake but I have no idea what the
meaning of the snake there may be.
Snakes cannot be trusted, we are told in № 4. Can you trust a first impression? Not with animals. Even this adorable baby tree python turns into a ruthless constrictor
, goes the text. And Likewise, a wrong choice of floppy disks can put a stranglehold on your automation.
Those were the days: floppies!
So it is clear, for many copywriters snakes are first of all synonymous with trickery and seduction.
So if you're using a chrome tape and still hear a hiss, you'd better check the room for snakes.
While in the previous example the snake is used to illustrate a bad characteristic without passing judgment on the snake itself, in № 6 the snake itself is the bad news. This software Gives You the Bad News … Before it Strikes!
and the snake represents
unpleasant news that you don't immediately see coming.
This same product ran a similar advertisement about bad news lurking below the surface with a shark.
snake devouring its own tail. It is an old symbol used in different cultures to denote different cyclical processes like death and rebirth, but also circular reasoning and vicious circles. The advert tells how a new therapy uses living, weakened cancer cells to stimulate a patient's natural resistance and also to detect and treat similar cancers in other patients. So the cancer cells are used against themselves: therefore ouroburos, regardless of whether snakes eat themselves or not.
Silent and perfectly camouflagedand on this paper
the slightest contrasts become visible. This kind of snake may be green, is venomous, and they can easily blend into their environment. So this must be the link. Not something that applies to snakes only. Other green animals could also have served.
Natural wear for natural men(9) a new men's fashion collection is out. The snake has shed its old, faded skin (the previous collection) and appears in the bright and distinguished black and white of the new fashion.
In Some things in life are hard to swallow
(10) the snake stands for a company which needs to buy new equipment.
But the investment required can be a hard pill to swallow, just as large prey can be for a snake. The snake must bite the bullet, but for the company, second-hand equipment may be a solution.
№ 11 is part of a series of similar advertisements for ICT professionals. We have found them with several kinds of animals — e.g. Zebra, Giraffe — and nothing in the text gives a hint about why that particular animal is called upon.
№ 12 is about men's fragance and I have already told earlier that the snake is a mystery to me. Perhaps that is the feeling a man who uses this perfume wants to convey. Who knows.
№ 13 if for design lighting products. What the man standing in a forest of lupines with a snake over his shoulder may mean? It is beyond me.
gladde slang, which translates as
smooth, slippery, or
cunning snake.