March 4, 2012

#25 My Website

March 4, 2012

#24 Flashing Lights 

Since my last post was long and wordy, I will refresh your eyeballs with a video. Yahoo!  Mercedes ran this campaign in Germany, and so far the comments on Youtube have been generally supportive.  It seems like the only people who weren’t very into it, were those who have heard of LED light technology forever ago and aren’t impressed, or those who think that the car is actually purchased to be invisible, instead of just used that way as a temporary ad campaign. Yes, those people exist.

I think it is an effective, clever way to get people to engage with the product and get the point across. 

March 4, 2012

#23 “There’s Some Wisdom in This Shit”

I am a very hard worker and I care a lot about whatever I do. I’m very competitive.  I want to work for the best and be the best. 

For these reasons, I found the prospects of the advertising world to be very intimidating. I feared that even if I was a hard worker, a nice person and smart, what if I wasn’t creative enough? What if I just didn’t have the grade-A brain juice that it seemed like all of my past classmates and future competition had? 

So, before JT’s “Cry Me a River” starts playing in your head, I am going to list reasons why I think there is no immediate reason to fret for lack of brain juice. These reasons are based on our visit in Creative Strategist from Tracy Wong, which lead to further conversations with friends over 3 bottles of wine on the subject: 

As Tracy Wong said, “There is some wisdom in this shit.”

1) You are going to go through a lot of shitty ideas before you get to a good one. Let them go, let people criticize your work, let go of your ego and actually listen to people. It’s all going to be okay. «< what we all want to hear in Week 9  

2) Actually listening and using all the information account planners and clients give you is going to give you so much material to find the right ideas. Wong said in lecture that 99% of a good idea is strategy. The Dear Me campaign for the Washington State Department of Health is a great example of getting information from the client and the account planners who noticed the behavior of smokers to really pump out a good idea. 

3) Based on the “Don’t Be an Asshole” principle, you don’t really need to be a genius from birth like Jeff Goodby (although it would help) in order to find a place within the industry. You just need to be able to play nice with others, listen, compromise, contribute, and keep your mind empty (drain the brain juice).

A professor once told our class,

“If you think you are the only one walking out of here with a four year degree, community service, and internships on your resume, think again.  There are a million people who have the same, if not better credentials than you. But what it really comes down to, at the end of the day, is can I spend 40 hours a week in an office with you?” 

There is some wisdom in that shit. 

March 1, 2012

#22 “By Jingo, it’s Dairy All Around” 

Wieden + Kennedy, London’s new advertisement for Lactofree is the reason I want to be in advertising. What other job pays people to play with hedgehogs?

To be honest, I don’t feel like this ad really blows my mind, makes me want to go out and change the world, or makes me laugh my ass off.  However, not all ads have to serve one of those three purposes for them to be successful. If the ad solves a problem for the client, does so in a creative, interesting way, and is well recieved by the target audience, then I believe it has succeeded. 

I found it interesting that all of the comments posted on the Youtube channel so far have been positive.  

I think the ad is adorable. I am a huge fan of cute animals and the British so maybe I have a little bit of a bias, but I for one am also so sick of commercials that have animated animals, or real animals that are manipulated so they seem to be talking. The humor in this ad, is that its just a bunch of real hedgehogs hanging out. 

Did you know hedgehogs were really lactose intolerant? I sure as hell didn’t. 

March 1, 2012

#21 Gap's New User Experience

Good example of creating brand connectivity and using social media well: Gap

Gap recently joined forces with multiple fashion blog sites including one of my personal favorites http://lookbook.nu/ in order to create a richer experience for users. 

Instead of using a traditional catalog to display their clothing, Gap encouraged consumer participation by letting people who wear Gap and participate in fashion blogs, show off their personal style.  It also presents potential Gap customers with an idea of how their brand exists within the real world.  The website shows people that Gap’s products can be worn by people with very different personal styles, which opens doors ups for more consumers. 

For example, I saw Gap as a place mainly designed for soccer moms.  Gap seemed like a great place to get a new pair of office khakis.  However, when I explored the site and saw bright blue skinny jeans paired with a cropped blazer I saw potential that I wouldn’t have seen on their main site. 

Gap also gives a direct link to share these blogged looks with a share button that includes Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. 

Well done. 

February 28, 2012

#20 PETA is Fail Spelled Backwards 

Not really, obviously, but their latest ads that were banned by the Super Bowl were arguably an epic fail. 

I can run with the concept of the one with just the naked girls rubbing vegetables all over themselves. Yes, it is raunchy, but it could also be viewed as a playful spoof of the Burger King commercials showing hyper-sexualized bikini clad women dripping in burger sauce. Inappropriate? Maybe. Funny? I think so. 

However the advertisement that involved a girl in a domestically abusive relationship was absolutly not okay. Here is were PETA crossed the line.  The advertisement’s point is to prove that vegans have better sex.  However, this video shows a girl walking around with a neck brace on, because her boyfriend, “had such great sex with her.” PETA argues that because the girl comes back to the boyfriend and smirks at him, she wants it, and it is a playful interaction instead of a blatant show of domestic abuse. No matter what way you look at it this video links “good sex” to violence.  It says that good sex for both partners is when you are so badly injured that you require a neckbrace. What?! I’m sure other people have different points of view towards this video, and I could love to hear comments for what you think PETA was thinking. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutly one for optimisim in advertising, and i don’t want to list all these videos and  why they suck because there are other blogs for that. However, I do think that it is our job to analyze the advertisements around us, see the problems and propose a solution for how to fix them

February 28, 2012

#19 Social Media and Branding: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Obviously social media and branding in this day in age go hand in hand, or hand and foot or something. Whatever, they are related. In a lot of the ad blogs and social media commentary floating around in the internet machine, there is a lot of obvious brand fails. For example, Kenneth Cole’s tweet that suggested the Arab Spring riots were due to the release of his spring line, or Dr. Pepper’s Facebook hack that resulted in a 2 Girls One Cup reference.

Yes, these are the ugly. But what about all of those brands out there floating (word of the day apparently) in social media purgatory? Right now we have so many brands that are trying to jump on the bandwagon, (brandwagon?) but are doing so ineffectively. They got a nice little Facebook page set up, they have fans, but they aren’t seeing any extra revenue. So what gives?

Just having consumers “like” something or asking a question on your brand’s site isn’t an effective use of social media. Brands really need to communicate with their consumers and provide interesting and relevant content in order to be successful. For example, H&M always asks questions like, “What is your favorite summer accessory?” But really, who cares? Consumers are looking for the “Why give a shit factor” and brands need to use social media as a platform for consumers to interact, play, give feedback etc.

Let’s end with some optimism, shall we?

The Good: Good brands are ones that find a way for consumers to join in on the conversations, have a real impact and post good content. Some brands are succeeding in finding creative ways to create legitimate consumer value. (P.S. Giving away free swag always helps too!)

Great example of The Good

February 28, 2012 • 4,132 notes • erinrinrinrin
kayleewolf: Had to re-blog this after my Comic Sans rant post. Thought it was a tad bit morbid at first, but then scrolled all the way down and had a nice little chuckle. 

kayleewolf:

Had to re-blog this after my Comic Sans rant post. Thought it was a tad bit morbid at first, but then scrolled all the way down and had a nice little chuckle. 

February 26, 2012 • tumblr.com

The Dailies 

February 26, 2012

#18 

I have felt as of lately that something about fashion advertising rarely meets the mark. Either the brand has advertisements that just show off the clothing (and usually women in hyper-sexualized positions) or, in the case of the latest Urban Outfitter Catalogs, just try to show off a lifestyle. 

Both extremes, in my opinion, are failures. 

1) The advertisements that show off just the clothing, don’t ad any sort of value for the consumer. Yes, that Gucci dress is great and all, but why should I pay $1500 for it? How would it better my life? What would a $1500 Gucci dress say about me that a $1500 Chanel dress wouldn’t? So many questions are left unanswered. 

2) The advertisements that just show off a lifestyle can look cluttered and the clothing can be lost in the images. I remember one Urban Outfitters catalog (Sorry Urban you know I love you, but really you need to hire me, ‘nuff said) that had all of these people playing in the snow, and a pile of clothes was folded in corner of the picture. The catalog didn’t even show how the clothes looked unfolded, let alone on a person. I understand the importance of advertisements that show off a lifestyle and not necessarily a product, (Nike, bravo, love you boo) but it has to be in the appropriate context. If you send out a clothing catalog to a customer, you want to fit as many pieces of clothing into that catalog as possible, and display them clearly so people know what they look like, how they fit, what colors they are etc. If you have a catalog that is half black and white, and the pictures are all fuzzy, and the clothes sometimes aren’t even on a person, you company is being ineffective. 

Anyway, this whole numbered tangent leads to this video. I think this video of Marni by H&M is a successful merger of the two categories I described. It shows off the clothing well, but is more than just a video runway. You get a really good idea, for what the clothes wear like, but you also get a story, and an idea of the vision of the designer for the type of girl these clothes are made for.

(Not saying that you have to live in Morocco and be a super model to wear these clothes, but it’s saying this is Spring wear, this is semi-causal wear, don’t wear this to a German techno club, this is not my vision. ) «< look at all my tangents I go off on! Here’s another one!

This video is directed by the beautiful Sophia Coppola and is thus, awesome by default.