I am sure as you go about your day, regardless of how self confident you are, we always have that little voice in our heads that say to us "I wish my hair was straight like that," "I wish I was as outspoken as him," or as simple as "I wish I had her/his courage." It does not matter how confident we are we always have these moments, some more than others, because in life we always have people we look up to and people who we want to be like.
Last fall the Pittsburgh Business Times put out a list of the coolest offices in Pittsburgh. Naturally, some of them were ad agencies. Agencies usually have innovative and visually appealing offices in order to impress clients and inspire creativity. Many offices will have ping pong tables, couches, chalkboards, etc. Here are links to some of the agencies features on the list.
Bright colored walls, common areas with couches, brick walls, etc. Do you think you'd like to work in an ad agency because of this type of environment? Also, do you think agencies are justified in spending the extra money to develop these environments? Does it payoff in the long run?
Throughout Budweiser's advertisements, there was always the ones you looked forward to during the super bowl. The cute puppies and horses working together, tugging on your heart strings. A hardworking family on a farm making a living. Or just enjoying the refreshing drink.
Super Bowl Ad 2015
This ad plays on the heart strings big time, a lost puppy. A man and his horse are longing for their puppy. The music choice of 500 Miles in a slowed down, dramatic tone helps imagine the stress of trying to find this puppy. Budweiser always knows how to make you cry.
Super Bowl Ad 2016
This year however, they have a different role. Budweiser is taking a stand for a more #NotBackingDown attitude. This being said they are showing that they are not ponies, not a hobby and not anything else; They are proving they are not for everyone and will not back down as a beer choice.
Personally, the puppies and horses are always adorable to watch. But something about the new 2016 #NotBackingDown commercial really sticks with me. It is so different for them during a Super Bowl spot and really shows what they stand for, while incorporating every aspect of their company and past in it.
So, with these shown and watched by everyone... Which is your favorite? Do you like the new image Budweiser has made for itself?
This is without a doubt one of the best advertisements that
I have seen in a long time. It starts off with four men and a bag full of
money, clearly stolen, stopping in a pub to get a pint of Carlton beer.
Unbeknownst to them, the pub is a hangout for police officers. This leads to
the said police officers chasing after these robbers in the funniest police
chase ever. Rather than drive in a car, the robbers opt to have a “beer chase”
on foot with the police officers since they had been drinking.
Queue the classic 1980’s police chase movie music. The
robbers run in a group of 4 and the groups of police officers are paired in
twos. Rather than the robbers running the police off the road, as they would
normally do in a car chase, they push them into a pile of boxes. Next comes the
casual “guys crossing the street with a giant pane of glass”, which I have seen
happen in countless movies but never in real life. They avoid hitting the glass
only to come to a roadblock set up by other police, but this does not deter
them. Instead, a policeman yells out, ”they’re not gonna stop” as they hop over
the blockade. Finally, they jump over a drawbridge to land on a party boat and
finally enjoy that pint of Carlton that they’ve been running with since the
pub.
This advertisement uses humor, rather than shock or fear, to
encourage people to not drink and drive. In my opinion, this approach is much
better than the other. For this reason, if Carlton beer was available in the
United States, I would certainly walk to the nearest bar on East Carson Street
and drink one (or a few), and then walk home.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Blogger... There are so many channels to pour our ideas into these days and some people know exactly who to target and how to brand themselves. Don't we all love trendsetters and people who can help us dress better or simply teach us new makeup techniques? Fashion bloggers have been able to achieve high income levels and turn blogging into a full-time job.
This has all been possible because advertisers saw the potential that trendsetters can have in product sales and brand awareness. Fashion bloggers like Camila Coelho, a Brazilian blogger who is currently known around the world and who sits now at 3.9 million followers on her Instagram account once started as just a simple Instagrammer. On the video below from 2013, Camila talks about her favorite products for the month of September. These products are, for the most part, sent to her house as gifts from the brands in order for her to try them and talk about them to her 3.9 million followers. Clever advertisement, huh?
Camila Coelho now endorses many products on her YouTube vlogs and Instagram posts. When going through Camila's photos it is shocking to see the style change from when she was not endorsed by brands to the Camila of today who wears brands like, Prada, Chanel, Michael Kors, Versace, Coach and more. These brands know exactly Camila's power as a trendsetter and gift her and many other highly followed fashion blogger around the world clothes and accessories in exchange for a "shout out". She basically wears the clothes and tags the brands on her photos and just like the balance theory, people tend to shop for the pieces they see on Camila because they love her style.
Below are some pictures of Camila before product endorsement:
A drastic change in style can be noted now that the trendsetter gets clothing pieces and accessories from high-end brands:
*Above you can see the brands tagged on her photo*
So what do you think? Clever, huh? Brands are everyday learning how to brand smarter and not harder. Social media can be so powerful and bring so much brand awareness! Again, smarter, not harder...
Another Super Bowl came and went, once again hosting a
plethora of good advertisements in between stoppages of play in the game.
Normally, I enjoy watching the game while waiting for the next wave of
advertisements to come, but I found this year’s game to be rather boring which led
to me enjoying each advertisement even more. However, one advertisement stuck
out to me more than others, and that’s mainly because it was the third version
of an advertisement I had already seen twice before. Of course, I am talking
about the T-Mobile ball advertisement with celebrity endorser Steve Harvey.
This all started in December, 2015 when Verizon started a
new ad campaign, that consisted of different color balls that represented
Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, going down a ramp. To no surprise,
Verizon had the most balls in this commercial, which meant that they had the
best wireless performance, among other things, compared to their competitors.
Sprint did not appreciate this, and decided to make a
commercial for themselves.
In the commercial, Sprint claims to have faster download
speeds than all of their competitors, including Verizon, and that Verizon
forgot to mention that in the first commercial. This response by Sprint to call
out Verizon apparently inspired T-Mobile to do the same thing, except they
waited to pay $5 million so that they could air it during the Super Bowl.
Utilizing the fact that Steve Harvey was being turned into memes and trending
on the Internet about a month prior was helpful for T-Mobile in the fact that
he was still relevant. In the commercial, he says that Verizon used the prior
years numbers rather than keeping up to date with the current ones, and in fact
that T-Mobile doubled their wireless performance which basically is now the
same amount that Verizon offers. However, there was no way that Mr. Harvey was
going to take the blame for getting the numbers wrong the way he took the blame
at Miss Universe 2015 when he announced the wrong winner, but instead
completely holds Verizon accountable for the wrong information.
Out of the three commercials, T-Mobile was the only one who
used a celebrity. Although, with three versions of the same commercial being utilized by these companies, at some point one has to call into question as to where the originality of advertisements has gone that used to always be present. Overall, Steve Harvey making fun of himself and the “colorful
balls war” going on between the cellphone companies was in good fun and, in my
opinion, better than both Verizon’s and Sprint’s commercials’. Now we’ll just
have to wait and see if AT&T comes out with their own ball commercial over
the next few weeks (I hope not).
As the most watched, annual sporting event on TV in America, big-name companies spend millions of dollars on ad production and broadcast airtime during the event. As such, there is an expectation for them to be entertaining and compelling. This year's lineup was full of high-budget product and service ads, A-list celebrity endorsements, and entertaining humor.
But one ad, in particular, resonated with gamers with a heavy dose of feel-good nostalgia: Pokemon!
Pokemon Super Bowl 50 Commercial
To celebrate the franchise’s 20th birthday, Game Freak (the game developers of Pokemon) aired an ad in the third quarter of the game. The ad featured a diverse array of young people: a boy runner in a setting that resembles the Indian subcontinent, a young female chess prodigy, an adolescent black football captain rallying his teammates, and finally - a young Japanese Pokemon trainer about to engage in a championship battle.
As the camera moves from character to character, the youth become inspired and invigorated by the accounts of the previous character.It's an creative scene transition mechanism that positively associates the Pokemon brand with a diversity of cultures and activities in a compelling manner, especially with background taiko drumming reminiscent of Battle Star Galactica.
Last September, Dior released their first men's fragrance in almost ten years... and they asked Johnny Depp to star in their new promotional commercial.
The end result was a random collection of thematic shots (cityscapes and open desert) framing Depp in his usual roles (think brooding Depp with a hint of Jack Sparrow) with some seriously open-ended dialogue ("I have to get out of here. Which way? I don't know.") and a pretty strange plot "twist" featuring Johnny burying his jewelry in the desert. Here's the 60-second promotional spot:
Dior: Sauvage - Johnny Depp
Marketing a fragrance through an audio-visual medium is a tricky task. Agencies must craft the narrative of the ad carefully, be selective with their visuals, and tie in other forms of advertising (i.e. celebrity endorsements!). Unfortunately, Dior seems to have crafted an ad that is purely aesthetic-abstract and banks on America's high power difference consumer culture buying into the exclusive Dior brand. On another note, the urban/rustic contrasting scene settings and open ended dialogue definitely reminded me of Buick's commercials featuring Matthew Mcconaughey... what do you guys think?
Billboards. Love them, hate them, fail to notice them, whatever you're deal is with them, they're here. They're a staple in advertising, and have been around (supposably) since the 1450s.
Here's my question - why are companies still using them? With all the other ways to advertise nowadays, why spend the time and money on billboards?
Over the last decade or so, companies have gotten pretty creative with how they infiltrate their markets. Part of the reason for this change is simply because mass advertising is not as effective as it used to be.
Product markets are packed with different companies trying to sell you the same things, and by just throwing blanket ads out to the general public, companies are not seeing much success. That's because organizations are heavily focused on their own specific target demographics.
A huge player, obviously, is social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others all sell ad space that have the potential to reach millions of users multiple times of day. Billboards, other than those in New York City, just don't have that kind of reach.
Personally, I don't think billboards are effective. Maybe I'm just oblivious, or I drive too fast, but I never pay attention to them, regardless of whether or not they're digital.
That being said, there have been a few that have grabbed my attention.
This one, for distracted driving, is well done. It's kind of a conundrum, but I think the message gets across:
Morbid? Yes. Necessary? Given the number of people who die from texting and driving, I'd say so.
Then there's this one. It's right off I-290 in Worcester MA, and I pass by it all the time:
I don't know who puts these out, but they really need to do less. I'm just trying to drive, not have an existential crisis triggered by questioning my mortal fate.
When it comes to creating a marketing or advertising campaign every brand or company is looking for something new and creative. In order to draw attention to a new product launch, label, strategy, etc. With that being said evidently someone forgot to tell the cologne and perfume industry that it time to try something new. In most cases in order to draw attention to a new product or spokesperson they should probably create an advertisement that looks at least somewhat different from the 100's of other cologne ads that are already out in the market. There is also the fact that the marketing strategy for these cologne companies have not changed since the early 2000's at what point does the act of using a black and white photograph of attractive people just become old news.
If a passerby was in a hurry and was only able to get a quick look at either of these ads there is no way they would be able to tell, which company was promoting which product and may even make the assumption that these were both advertisements for the same company. Considering they have basically the same exact layout
The same goes for the two perfume companies below and yes those are two different women advertising two different products.
While the point of all of these ads is to make their products look visually appealing, at what point does seeing the same thing over and over again become less impressionable on the consumer, who is seeing at least 5,000 ads a day. Is relying on sex to sell still working for the cologne and perfume industry, or is it time to reinvent how we perceive them.
Have you ever found yourself sitting in a restaurant and when the meal is brought out, you immediately pull your phone from your pocket, snap one off and post the photo to Instagram?
While the article debates the ups and downs of shooting completely with an iPhone, the approach and theory is advantageous. However, even when you give a photographer the challenge to capture food in such a way that is magazine worthy, the technological aspects remain a hindrance. A DSLR camera greatly exceeds the image quality of an iPhone. Also, the magazine's decision to run the idea challenges the profession of photography. It is important to note, just because we all own a camera: iPhone, does not make us professional photographers.
"I’m curious as to why they'd choose to use the iPhone in studio.
Traditional photography is important because there are so many variables
when doing something in a studio, especially," says Sarah Filippi,
photography director at Fast Company. "There’s a reason why people consider different lenses and lighting. The iPhone doesn't give you that opportunity."
Every company has their main selling point that helps create a persona for the product they are trying to promote. For beer companies Stella Artois and New Castle their selling points are vastly different, both companies try to bring a certain attitude forward with their advertisements, in order to attract a certain target audience. Stella tries to give off the perception with all of their ads that Stella is a high class beer, a beer that is so high end in order to truly enjoy it the consumer should drink it out of a chalice, not any ordinary glass. Stella obviously is not trying to attract just the everyday beer drinker with their ads, but a more sophisticated group they hope to intrigue with their classy advertisements.
By creating these snobby advertisements Stella created a persona that they essentially have to live and die with, and their choice of trying to sound classy by incorporating the word chalice into their billboard has left them open to some very clever attack ads from rival beer company Newcastle. Newcastle is the complete opposite of everything Stella Artois is perceived to be. While Stella tries to sound elegant and make drinking their beer sound like an event, Newcastle is more grounded with their company slogan of "No Bullocks". Meaning they won't try and trick the consumer with fancy gimmicks like Stella. Newcastle's brash attitude fits perfectly with their attack advertisement, as they make fun of the elegant nature that Stella is trying to put out. The chalice has become associated with Stella Artois over the years, as a way to differentiate the brand from other beers and Newcastle just showed them that what you put your beer in doesn't matter, only the taste of the beer is important.
Although I study advertising, a lot of commercials go right over my head. I hate to admit that I don't always pay attention during commercial breaks. However, I saw this commercial recently and it immediately caught my attention. It uses the song "If I Only Had a Brain" and transforms the lyrics into a motivational anthem of people from all walks of life trying to obtain a degree. It's called, "More than Brains."
The song acts as an inspirational speech so to speak that encourages people to pursue an education. I think it understands its target audience perfectly. It is an online school that's brand is built on convenience. It is targeting people that are too busy to go back to the classroom but want to move up in their professional careers. The commercial itself runs through a slideshow of people from all different walks of life, book in hand and studying intently. The song is sung beautifully with a perfect tone and the lyric changes are subtle and relevant almost the entire time... until the last line.
"A degree is a degree, you're going to want someone like me, but only if you have a brain." The school has come under fire recently for the quality of its programs. However, to say, "a degree is a degree" diminishes the prestige of having one. If that were the case, nobody would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to Harvard or Yale. Additionally, the tagline "We Rise" does not contain the same originality and inspirational context as the rest of the ad. It sounds cliche, which is what the ad avoids, amazingly considering it is rewording a Wizard of Oz Song.
Do you think the commercial achieves its goal of altering negative perceptions?
The average consumer sees thousands (5,000) of advertisements everyday. Making the job of the advertising professional, very difficult as they have to create a visual advertisement campaign that makes their product different and original from the rest so that it sticks in the mind of the consumer, as well as adequately separates their brand from the rest of the products that may populate their respective industry. Three factors of advertising that have proven time and time again to help sell a product is humor, nostalgia, and sex.
Sometimes a company has to take a risk in their quest to give themselves a clear identity. This identity may involve moving away from highlighting the aspects of the product that sets them apart from the rest and instead focusing on the entertainment aspect of the advertisement that may not be informative, but it does draw the consumers attention. Some companies have been able to find that sweet spot between informative and entertainment a prime example would be the entertaining Dollar Shave Clubs ads that are able to sell you on a product without making the consumer feel as if they were being sold a product. That perfect combination of comedy and advertising a product that works very well, was the big "thing" in advertising that helped to ingrain a product and an ad into that moment in time.
Every brand is looking for the next big "thing", the advertisement that becomes part of the culture of that point in time that defines a moment. A perfect example of this besides the Dollar Shave Club that relies on humor to draw in its audience, of course would be the memorable Budweiser ads. That generally run around major events such as the Super Bowl or christmas time, that pulls on the heart strings of the viewers and relies on that feeling of nostalgia, so that the ad then becomes associated with the events that are occurring at the same time as the advertisement. This nostalgic feeling of time spent with family was utilized to perfection by Budweiser to get people to honestly feel a personal connection to beer, a pretty impressive feat.
When it comes to using sex to sell a product no industry does it more than the perfume and cologne industry. Every single one of their advertisement has a scantily clad female or male simply walking around while some catchy song plays in the background. The hopes of these companies is that the consumer will stop and watch these advertisements simply because they notice the attractive people in the commercials or print ads. They rely heavily on the sex appeal of the adcvertisements so the consumer will remember the name of the products and try out the scent at a nearby store. Cologne and Perfume are a tricky product to sell since their are so many products available, many of which use very similar advertisement campaigns. This is the reason that the major players in the industry on top of using attractive people have tried to bring in famous faces to help draw attention to their products.
Humor, Nostalgia, and Sex are three main keys to drawing the consumer toward your companies product. The reason being that they play a major role in controlling the consumers emotions. The majority of the time the consumer will never remember what is said in an advertisement, but they will remember how the ad made them feel.
So, we've all been there. You don't feel like Netflixing, and Facebook/Twitter/MySpace (if that's still your thing)/Everything else is boring you. Enter, YouTube. It's the greatest, because all you do is bounce around from topic to topic. In case you have some kind of organization to your YouTube browsing, let me show you what I mean.
What I've used YouTube for in the last few hours:
music videos
game highlights and player interviews
make-up tutorials
all of Snopp Dogg's plizzanet earth (truly, a masterpiece of our generation. 10/10 would recommend.)
buzzfeed videos
montages of puppies
YouTube is the Super Wal-Mart of the Internet. There's everything on YouTube. It's fair to say that our lives have improved since the video site has been around.
So what has YouTube done for advertising?
First and foremost, it's changed the way companies advertise using videos. Nowadays, you'll see adds running on popular videos. These ads vary in length, anywhere from 15 seconds time to a minute. A lot of times, these videos will just be shorter or modified versions of the company's ads that run on TV.
Secondly, it's changed the way pop-ups happen. The pop-ups can now be embedded into the video, prompting viewers to "click for more" or "subscribe" to other videos and channels.
It's also allowed for advertisers to really hone in on their audiences, and target a specific part of the market.
For instance, as I mentioned above, I was watching beauty tutorials earlier. Before one of them, there was a rather lengthy advertisement for eyeshadow. I was annoyed, yes, but also intrigued that Covergirl took the time to advertise specifically to people watching make up and hair videos. That's pretty smart.
On the other hand, advertisers on YouTube also just saturate the market, and add their commercial to everything. Most recently, it's been the one with Amy Schumer.
What do you think works? What doesn't?
Regardless, I think we can all agree that, since its creation in 2005, YouTube changed the World Wide Web for the better.
For whatever reason, we love celebrities. We love knowing who's marrying who, who's going bankrupt, who's selling out, who's cheating, and who's career is washed-up. Check any magazine stand, and you'll see glossy cover after glossy cover describing famous people doing the same mundane things we all do, but it's somehow more noteworthy because they're famous, and we're not. (See: Celebrities doing things.)
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that some companies and organizations choose to advertise with celebrities. Actors, actresses, singers, and a whole host of different athletes appear in ads for a variety of products and services.
Take Taylor Swift and Diet Coke. The music megastar recently signed to a partnership with Diet Coke.
(Sidenote - Hey Coke-a-Cola, I have an idea for your "Share a Coke with" campaign: Create a line of bottles and cans solely with Taylor's ex's names on them. Joe, Conor, Jake, Harry, Zac, John....they're all generic, anyway. Mark them as such. Instead of insisting to "Share a Coke" with an ex, put catchy song lyrics. i.e. - "i knew you were trouble", "we are never ever getting back together," ect. and insist on promoting all over social media. This perfectly blends crazy ex-girlfriend with extended embarrassment of said ex-boyfriends, and wonderfully captures the passive-agressive nature of high school breakups, which is what Taylor primarily sings about. Right in time for Valentine's Day. #nailedit)
Pepsi, not wanting to be outdone by archenemy Coke, launched a commercial, starring a different music queen.
So, which one is better? There is definitely a right and wrong answer, but I guess everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Even if it's wrong.
Is using celebrities like this an effective way of advertising? In my opinion, no, especially as far as soda (or "Pop", for all you crazy Yinzers) goes. Queen Bey is #Flawless, yes..but just because she's drinking Pepsi in that ad doesn't make Pepsi any less gross to me. I personally hate Pepsi. I'm team Coke all the way, but not because of Taylor Swift. I just think Coke is better than Pepsi.
Another reason why I don't think this works is because it's soda and not something that Beyonce or Taylor would really have any in-depth knowledge on. I think Swift should advertise on something she's really known for, like red lipstick or something.
And maybe in that ad she can give a 15 second tutorial on how to put on red lipstick without looking like an absolute fool.
@Taylor: How do you get your lipstick on so perfectly? How is it not everywhere? Every time I try to wear red lipstick, I look like I just got punched in the mouth and my lips are busted, which is the exact opposite effect I go for when trying to wear lipstick. How do I go from "someone get that girl some ice, her mouth is bleeding" to "wow, totally Joulie worthy pout"? Teach me your ways, Swift.
Celebrities should stick to advertising to things they care about and things they know about.
Perfect example, one of my favorite hockey players and yours, Pascal Dupuis.
Now, maybe I'm biased, but I feel like I can safely assume Dupuis knows the sport of hockey. So, if I was in the market for hockey gear, I'd trust his opinion. Volia! An effective ad.
Celebrities should stick to what they know and what they're known for, and it will be a better advertisement for all parties involved.
In a world where paid search, multimedia and social media dictate the marketing conversation, I think it's refreshing to see a great print campaign. My favorite campaign of all time is Volkswagen's "Think Small." I might be biased because I am a huge VW fan, but I became a fan because of the unique brand image the company has maintained throughout the years.
In 1959, an era of bright colors and crowded posters, Volkswagen went against the grain and called on DDB to develop and ad that balanced white space with small copy. The ad read "Lemon," and the small text underneath it reads a few paragraphs about how much Volkswagen pays attention to details when designing its cars. Overall, the car was a lemon because the chrome strip inside the Beetle had a blemish.
The print ad was a huge success and regarded as one of the best ads of the twentieth century, and of all time. It helped spark Volkswagen's surge in the US and define its brand. Today, Volkswagen continues to go against the grain, making license plates that read, "Uber Cool" and lining their cars with "hipster" bike racks. The design of Volkswagen's themselves are simple and understated, and its ads today continue to utilize white space, event though it isn't quite as innovative.
In the clip below is from Mad Men when Don Draper his creative team are talking about the ad.
The creatives of Sterling Cooper seem to think the ad is a waste of space. However, Don Draper poignantly points out that even though they hate the ad, they are talking about it. Do you think people of the 1950s and 60s talked about the ad because they liked it or because they hated it?
As we approach our creative portion of the group projects, take a minute to scan this nifty, interactive breakdown of design
The site, Avocode break down how designers really worked in 2015. Avocode sampled over 400,000 designs that were uploaded to their site in 2015 and analyzed everything from design software, color palette, to final naming conventions.
It won't take you long to scroll down through the page, but as you do, take in the helpful tips that they illustrate as you begin drafting your creative ads.
What the website does very well is take seemingly boring statistics and create a visual, interactive way to absorb the necessary information. It is important to follow and stay up-to-date with the years design trends. There are many of other web resources available for this.
