Theories of Perception

Elysesads Has Moved!

2010-02-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

Hi people!

I want to let you all know that this blog will no longer be in operation. My new blog (same title) can be found at www.elysesads.wordpress.com. It's much more high-tech and I hope to do a lot more with it! See you there!

-Elyse

My Top 5, Week of 2/21-2/26

2010-02-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

Hello fellow adnuts,

This week's Top 5 centers mostly around upcoming and recently launched campaigns, as well as exemplary use of social media by others. I've pretty much exhausted the Olympics and Oscar talk, so we'll just keep it chill for today. Enjoy!

1. As discussed in my post below this, this week's number one has got to be Lady Gaga. Besides being an overnight sensation the likes of which hasn't been seen since Madonna, Gaga's use of social media through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and her Web site (see links in previous post) makes her relevant and relatable to her fans. This increases her fans' love for her while showing them how dedicated that she is to her "little monsters." To be totally cliche- yes, we are all gaga over Gaga. However, for a cool interpretation of her Bad Romance video, check out this article.

2. The launch of Axe's new product, Twist, which used a "co-creation" unit of both ad professionals and college students in order to develop the ads for the product. Twist is a new kind of deoderant whose scent changes as the day goes on - kind of, as the article states, how women expect men to be constantly changing in the game of love. You can find out more information on the ads for Twist as well as the first ad in the campaign here.

3. This super nifty article on old cereal ads from The Big Money, chronicling the evolution of the cereal industry from the past to the present. From sexist corn flakes to taboo frosting to a meat substitute, cereal has, and will, always remain a "g-r-r-eat" part of our culture.

4. Fed-Ex is now "shipping" its current marketing strategy to the World Wide Web. Just as other companies have done, the shipping giant, famous for its $379 million budget in 2009, which included ads for the Super Bowl and other pricey vehicles, is now targeting small businesses (less than 100 employees each) in order to rival its number one competitor, UPS. With a series of videos entitled "1-2-3 Succeed!" and starring comedian Fred Willard, Fed-Ex will attempt to increase what it calls a "key market" for them, due to the higher rates that small businesses usually pay for lack of the large volume discounts on shipped items that big businesses get. This Reuters article gives more information on the upcoming campaign.

5. Better watch out, Google. In a recent deal, search engine Yahoo! will now integrate Twitter feeds into nearly all of its products and pages, including Yahoo Mail, Sports, Finance, and Search. Yahoo's strategy to integrate all of the most popular social media sites into its environment rather than trying to compete with them will not only increase the search engine's popularity among younger demographics, but it will also provide an easy way for consumers to get all their information in one place. With the deal already in place with Facebook, this provides an interesting (and probably more successful) adversary to recently introduced Google Buzz, which tries to be its very own social networking tool, but which has not yet gained the essentiality that is common among already established sites like Twitter and Facebook. For more info on the deal, see this AdAge article. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, integrate 'em.

That's all for today. Have a great weekend!

Ra Ra Gaga!

2010-02-23T08:15:00.000-08:00

I love Lady Gaga.

So do the other 2,850,948 people who follow her on Twitter, as well as the 5 million fans she has on Facebook, and countless more who aren't as involved in the online sphere.

Lady Gaga is the quintessential definition of a brand- she is a unique, relevant personality with enough mystery surrounding her overnight fame and overall persona to keep audiences interested for long periods of time. She doesn't exploit her power; you don't see her face on packaging for other products, and she doesn't make commercial appearances for certain products like her past doppelganger Madonna did. Instead, she controls the exact amount of involvement she wants with these brands, and uses that involvement in a beneficial way for both the company and herself- take, for instance, her recent position as the new creative director for Polaroid, and her creation of the Viva Glam line of cosmetics in partnership with Mac and Cindy Lauper, which have sold more than any other Mac line in the past.

Another part of what makes the Gaga revolution so interesting is her use of social media through her dedication to her fans. Being one of those fans myself, I avidly read her daily, and sometimes hourly, updates on Twitter (@LadyGaga), and I've watched her music videos on YouTube (check out this one for the Grammys) more than I have for any other artist. I scanned her Web site today to see if there was anything new (ladygaga.com), and I read this AdAge article discussing her impact on social media advertising and branding in general.

In short, I think she's amazing.
This, again, proves the extent to which relevancy and creativity make a brand. Not only does Gaga's story (or mys-story, get it??) intrigue the masses, but her dedication to keeping her fans informed (and even pre-informed, as in the case of the Bad Romance video), along with her involvement in companies that allow her to use her creativity in such a way as benefits both parties, make her beloved by both advertisers and consumers, and thus able to use her power in whichever ways she deems necessary. She also retains control over her managers and agents, and in this way allows the full extent of her personality to come through.

Maybe this is exactly what we need to do with brands. Aside from making them relevant, we need to make them personable, unique, and utterly dedicated to their user base, which is exactly what you have to be when trying to create a following in the world of social media. People want to know that you love them so that they can love you back. Create a mys-story (I love my jokes...), and then dedicate yourself to it.

Then we can all have a Bad Romance.

My Top 5 Campaigns, Week of 2/14-2/19

2010-02-19T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's a very Olympic time of year.

Because of this, my top five for this week focuses mainly on the commercials I've seen during the Olympics and the campaigns surrounding them. Many YouTube links are provided. Enjoy!

1. Proctor & Gamble's first unified commercial campaign in the U.S. The first television spot the company aired appeared during the Opening Ceremony last Friday, and is part of their "Thanks, Mom" campaign. You can find the spot here - it made the people I was watching it with cry, and makes me feel warm and fuzzy every time I see it. In addition to this spot, P&G also gave Olympic families a $3000 stipend to attend and see their children compete, as well as creating a full family-branded center in Vancouver. All this comes from an attempt for P&G to both unify their existing brands under a single name, and to begin their upcoming push into sports marketing. You can find more details on the campaign in this AdAge article.

2. Kudos to Old Spice for their latest commercial, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. It's the best one I've seen in a while, and I'm kind of in love with it.

3. Visa's big push for the Olympics, which centers around the telling of athlete's stories with inspiring pictures and the tagline "Go World." The spots are part of Visa's first campaign that is directly tied to the Olympic Games; however, they've been a sponsor of them since 1988. The campaign not only includes inspirational spots, but it also features unprecedented promotions such as the chance to win tickets for life to the Winter Games, as well as some 3-D spots and a presence in social media. Here's their spot featuring speed skater Dan Jensen, the most popular one of the campaign. For more info, see this article.

4. Jet Blue's Twitter Test, which challenges agencies to have enough "know-how" of the popular Web site to find its senior VP- marketing and commercial on the site. The tweet, with the hashtag #sneaky, reads "We're pitching our advertising AOR. Curious on digital savvy...first test is how many of the agencies will find me on Twitter." Not only does this demonstrate the "savvy" of Jet Blue, but it also shows that they're going to take a geniune interest in the agencies that know their social media well enough to accomplish a simple, cheap task while weeding out the ones who may not be as interested in the account. Go Blue!

5. This BMW spot, aired in 2009. It's not the most recent, but it's the most creative thing I've seen BMW do in a while after that era of Clive Owen film shorts on their Web site.

That's all for today, folks. Have a great weekend!

The Art of a Story

2010-02-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

AdAge's long-awaited review of Google's "Parisian Love" Super Bowl spot is out. Bob Garfield, the critic known for his sarcastic style and sometimes snide comments when reviewing spots, did something extremely surprising this time.

"Naturally, like everything else these people do," he states, "it was perfect."

Shocking. You can find the article and the ad here.

Garfield states that the reason Google's ad was such a success was precisely because it was so simple. By telling a short, sweet story, Google effectively demonstrated how essential it is to the lives of everyday people, while at the same time emotionally impacting men and women alike.

The ad itself shows just how important the aspect of storytelling is to a great commercial. In all of the renowned spots of the past, this tiny trait has provided the basis for their greatness. It is obvious in its simplicity, and profound in its impact. Let's examine:

Apple's "1984" spot.

American Express' "My Life, My Card" spots.

VW's "Snow Plow" spot.

And, recently, Proctor & Gamble's "To Their Moms, They'll Always Be Kids" spot, which made my friends watching the Olympics with me cry.

All of these ads not only serve to further the brand and awareness of their product, but they also bring to light the importance that seemingly small items serve in our lives. Proctor & Gamble's products are very low-impact purchases; however, by airing this commercial, they show us that these products - those which we don't think about on a normal basis- are fundamental in the bonds that we have with our family. It reminds us how we learned to brush our teeth with our moms, the smell of clean laundry when we came home from school, and those minor messes we made when we were having the most fun.

The stories don't have to be obvious in order to be told. On the contrary, by being so implicit, they allow us to make connections we may not have made had they been more explicit. Google does not show the man doing the searching, just as VW doesn't show the man driving the snow plow, and Apple shows a non-comformist in the midst of an undefined many to demonstrate how it (and after buying it, we) stands out. By making them this way, the advertisers give personality to the brands themselves, and not the people using them. It allows consumers to form relationships and loyalties with the brand, and it stands out precisely because it does not overtly try to sell the product's attributes. Consumers don't like to be told; instead, they want to feel like they're seeing and understanding for themselves.

These ads allow them to do that, and all of them have been revered as some of the the great artistic spots of our time. So what does it take to make art in an ad, and how can we interpret a demonstration of commercial spending to exploit the American consumer as art?

That's easy. Make it a story.

My Top 5 Campaigns- Week of 2/07-2/13

2010-02-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try something new.
Every week, I'm going to post my top 5 favorite campaigns/videos/advertising-related news bits, and explain a little bit about what they are, why I love them, and exactly what they look like (through links, etc.). Shoutouts to my BFF Meg for giving me the idea. We'll see how this goes.

1. For this week, number one is going to have to be the upcoming campaign for the Academy Awards that I discussed in my last post. Oscar.com features a live count-down to the event as well as an in-depth look into what goes on backstage before, during, and after the show, along with predictions, message boards, a fashion section including last years looks as well as the evolution of style, opportunities for viewers to receive mobile alerts, videos from past Oscars, etc. The Facebook fan page includes a discussion board, links to the Web site, and opportunities for fans to view photos and nominees. Through making use of social media in these ways, this year's Academy Awards show will have more opportunities for engaged viewership than ever before.

2. Though this is kind of out-dated, I was recently introduced to VW's "Fun Theory" guerilla campaign in which advertisers took seemingly mundane activities (walking up the stairs, throwing something in a garbage bin) and made them fun by adding simple changes. See the YouTube videos below:

- "Piano Stairs"
- "The World's Deepest Bin"

Guerilla marketing at its finest.

3. Yesterday, several Belgian agencies went on strike to protest the recent neglect (rejection?) of a charter between agencies and clients that stated rules for putting out bids for agency pitches. The strike is a virtual one, featuring the now closed Web sites of 20 of Belgium's finest agencies (including branches of BBDO, JWT, Ogilvy, TBWA, etc.) that explain what the charter is, how it works, and why the agencies are on strike. Though only lasting one week, the virtual protest will nevertheless have an important effect on the way pitches are done internationally. To view their story, click: www.famous.be

4. Super Bowl ads, especially:
- Google "Parisian Love"

- Snickers "Betty White"

- Vizio "Forge"

- Dodge "Man's Last Stand"

5. Super excited for Sprite's new campaign. It's about time the brand came back. In addition to creating globalized packaging, Sprite's new campaign will move away from the "Obey Your Thirst" slogan featured in their campaign years ago, and will introduce itself as "The Spark." Featuring music and films stars, online music and social media content, as well as creating the Sprite Step Off competition, the campaign will be the first creative that Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has done for the client, which they recently won. For more info on the campaign, see the AdAge article here.

That's all, folks. Happy Valentine's Day weekend (go see the movie)!

Re-Mediation

2010-02-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

It's been crazy lately.

First, the Grammy's makes use of social media integration like they've never done before- using YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWdbMaOzYTE), Twitter (@thegrammys), and a whole new website (Grammy.com) to keep up in real time with the flow of sharing going on online during the course of the show.

Next, Google airs a TV ad during the Super Bowl. Now, I know this doesn't seem incredibly huge, but the fact that Google has never done a television ad before, and the fact that this ad, according to an AdAge article, ranked as the No. 2 most liked out of all Super Bowl ads on social media sites such as Twitter, says a lot not only about the fact that it was aired at all, but also about Google's reputation. The ad itself, "Parisian Love," plays upon Google's very simplicity, and by doing so shows us how important it really has become in the lives of everyday people.

And finally, the Oscars is launching a social media campaign. Venturing into lands they've always been too conservative to enter (they said it themselves), they're making use of more ad agencies than ever, and learning from the mistakes made during the Grammies, are fine-tuning their live streaming and social media capabilities to allow a totally integrative experience before, during, and after the show. The new website will be a huge draw for consumers wanting to see what goes on backstage, as well as the Facebook app that will allow users to share videos and stack their opinions of winners against others'. It will provide an opportunity for the Oscars to increase their television share- an important move, since viewership reportedly dropped 13% last year, which was the third lowest in Oscar history.

All I have to say in light of these new developments is: finally.

I'm extremely excited to see what Oscar comes up with, and how they make use of that integration during the show. Though they're not planning on using Twitter, I'm sure the Twittersphere will more than make up for that with the huge amout of material available on both Facebook and Oscar.com. And even though what the Grammy's did was fantastic, the opportunity for the Oscars to learn from their mistakes (both the Black Eyed Peas' attempt to integrate user fan videos into their performance and the lack of marketing that left many consumers bereft of 3D glasses during the Michael Jackson tribute) presents a whole new dynamic for experience.

In my TV & Electronics Culture class, we've been learning about a concept called re-mediation- that is, the capability of one form of media to both copy and improve upon another one. For example, a piece of paper in real life is more real, but less limited, than a "piece of paper" in Microsoft Word. They both have their limitations, but in a way, the Word program improves upon our traditional perceptions of paper by allowing us unlimited fonts, ink, and paper itself.

In a way, I feel like this is what these three entities are doing- taking their traditional form of marketing through TV, radio, and word-of-mouth, and improving upon them by copying other forms of media. Social media has its drawbacks, as does television advertising in the case of Google; however, combined with traditional platforms, they offer them unlimited exposure and engagement among their user base- and the opportunity to make themselves a lot more relevant to their target audiences.

I guess its time for us to get with the program....literally.

The New Age of the "Statusphere"

2010-01-24T09:53:00.000-08:00

Apple has a phone that has not only changed the face of the phone industy as a whole, but has also developed a market for applications that has had a profound impact on the advertising industy.

Google has a phone that's meant to give Apple a run for its money. By capitalizing upon the cultural change that society is undergoing in terms of digital media, Google's Nexus One (once they work the kinks out, of course) is supposed to be the quintessential utility for the quintessential digital consumer.

Now, however, a new theory is under exploration: that of a social media network- entrenched entirely in the digital community, making use of its own application on mobile devices, relying on others to propagate itself- expanding outside of our computer screens to bring to us...well, another phone.

What if Facebook were to come out with its own version of a smartphone? The AdAge article whose point of view I'm exploring can be found here: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=141627

Steve Rubel, the author of the article, states that because change starts small- as in the case of Microsoft overturning how we perceive computers (an industry previously dominated by IBM)- the ways in which consumers perceive their phones is growing rapidly. According to the article, 17% of all US consumers now own smartphones. This means that out of the 250 million people in America, approximately 32.5 million of them own phones that are quickly becoming handheld computers. With the prevalence of applications, games, and utilities combined with traditional handset properties of text messaging, data storage, and, of course, calling, phones are now estimated to displace computers in terms of Internet usage within the next five years.

So, really, how hard would it be to believe that a completely Internet-based social networking site could profitize on its page stickiness and popularity to create a phone that not only makes use of all the features stated above, but has unparalleled networking and communication features in addtion?

What would a Facebook phone be like? Would it be possible to update your status while turning on the phone, to get RSS feeds of what your friends and coworkers are doing when you see the home screen, to have full Internet access along with your friends' favorite or featured pages? Would you be able to automatically add funny text messages to your favorite quotes wall, and to add pictures that you take on your phone automatically to your albums or profile pictures? Would Facebook form a partnership with other networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter, to give people the absolute utmost in a mobile social media experience?

And, most importantly, what would this do to the advertising industry? Of course advertisers now are attempting to break their way into consumers' minds by infiltrating social media, and this is something we in the industry are still trying to get the hang of. However, a Facebook phone with (if possible) all of the features I listed above would again completely recreate how we perceive not only mobility, but our social experiences as people. Advertisers could sponsor favorite pages, and phones could even be free with advertiser sponsorship. Live feeds via Twitter could be essential for brands, as direct messages could maybe be received as texts, and brands could update their Facebook pages with messages for soon-to-expire offers or product information. Put your brand's most popular commercials on YouTube so that those who subscribe to your company can receive, view, and send them to their friends.

To put it simply, a Facebook phone would change everything. Facebook already has the popularity and even (dare I say it) the absolute need that most consumers feel for it in today's age- because come on, who goes on the Internet nowadays without checking Facebook? Now you can be social on the go.

Welcome to the new age of the "statusphere."

A Sip of Idealism

2010-01-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

Bolivian President Evo Morales didn't chew coca leaves at UN meetings just for the heck of it.

In an interesting politicial, social, and economic move, Bolivia's socialist leader has decided to manufacture a product that will give our capitalistic society something to think about:
A new Coca-Colla.

The name isn't a coincidence. It's intention is to give the U.S.'s Coca-Cola Company a run for its money, and theoretically put it into somewhat of a "villainous" position. According to the article at www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/bolivia-enters-cola-war-with-new-coca-colla.php?campaign=weekly_nl , Bolivia's Coca-Colla will "kill two birds with one stone. Not only is the socialist leader drumming up support for standing up against the great capitalist symbol (responsible for inspiring terms like "Coca-Colanization"), he's aiming resources to bring a boon to the nation's coca growers."

The project, expected to reach completion in about four months, is expected to further increase Bolivia's controversy with the U.S. Now, I'm not a political theorist, but it seems to me that Bolivia's move, while done for "good" (depending on how you interpret the word) reasons, may not be the smartest, especially considering that the work force of the American Coca-Cola giant is larger than the Bolivian standing army by about 20,000.

The way in which Bolivia is propagating the project seems to me to be actively attracting negative attention from the U.S., and while this seems to be intentional, I can't help but wonder: what if they had put it in a more positive light? For example, instead of openly stating the "point" this new product is supposed to demonstrate to the U.S., perhaps they should merely tout the fact that it is not only helping support the economy of Bolivia, but also helping the nation's farmers- something the U.S. has yet to do in both respects. By assuming the same name as its American counterpart, Coca-Colla will be an outright statement of the aggressive stance Bolivia has taken with the U.S. in the past, and done nothing to resolve.

It remains to be seen what the colors and logo will look like for this upcoming brand, and if the government will keep the project completely state-run or if they'll try to attract private capital (which, if they did, wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of this anti-capitalistic soda?). I have to believe that it won't make use of the same colors or font that the current Coca-Cola uses for its brand, because if it did, it would then be relegated to the same status as impostor brands for companies such as Starbucks in other countries, and this soda is much too meaningful for that.

The Impostor Soda of Idealism. Hmm. The name itself makes me wonder whether Bolivia is just trying to ride off of Coca-Cola's success, or if they really mean it when they say they're trying to demonstrate a point. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I think I'll go pop open a can of refreshing capitalism.

Can One Wax Socratic With Spotty 3G Coverage?

2010-01-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Cutthroatiness has apparently reached a new level.

From Subway's Jared to Taco Bell's Christine, from the ability of Kellog's Cocoa Krispies to improve children's immune systems to Frosted Mini Wheat's to "improve" their attention span, borderline false claims in advertisements have recently reached a new high (or would that be low?).

I totally get it. If something can be statistically proved, and we know how to say it in a sufficiently misleading- but not untrue- manner to plug our own brand, then why wouldn't we? Especially (and I hate to bring this up again, but alas, such is the century we live in) with the lower levels of consumer spending we've been seeing the last few years, and especially when we have competing brands that are similar in every way to our own.

But what I have to ask is this: Is there a point where the competition becomes so overwhelming that we can realistically justify stepping outside the bounds of ethics? And if so, have we reached that point?

Now, I'm not saying that Powerade's claim to be the "complete" sports drink was false, but the fact that Gatorade brought that claim to court and disputed it seems to me to be a bit, well...overkill.

According to the article in Forbes, last year a record 85 companies brought legal disputes against other companies for claims made in their advertisements- up from 63 cases in 2007. Yes, we should pursue it when companies make claims that really aren't true, but when we want to probe the meaning of "complete" as it applies to a sports drink? Oy.

It's fun to watch companies battle it out over the small screen. The recent AT&T vs. Verizon battle has everyone watching both companies' commercials to see which insult will be dished out next. Until now, I had never heard an audience say, "oooooh, ouch, he got you man" when someone accused someone else of having spotty 3G coverage.

But while we duke it out, let's try to keep in mind the ethical principles that are so important to consumers' trust in our industry. Because if we're taking each other to court over our own false claims, then what reason do they have to believe us when we say anything?

Make New Friends, and Keep the Old

2010-01-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

What are we so afraid of?

This morning, AdAge published an article in which current research done by the Advertising Research Federation (ARF) revealed that most advertisers see the wealth of consumer online brand opinions as more of a curse than a gift. Their main concern is that it's difficult to measure accurately the correlation between what is said online and offline, as well as the very fact that they can't control what is said.

Just to get it out of my system (and also because I'm a college student): People, if it's free, USE IT.

Like I said in my last entry- the trend of consumer dialogue with companies and brands is changing the ad industry as a whole. The wealth of opportunities offered by unsolicited (and oftentimes, unbiased) consumer opinion, and consumer dialogue, is unprecedented! We could pay consumers to come sit in cold rooms and tell us their [read: biased, paid-for] opinions of our commercials, or we could merely do some research on Facebook for an hour and find more there than we would have in three focus groups.

Now, maybe this isn't necessarily true, and there definitely are advantages to traditional methods of research. However, everything in moderation. We shouldn't confine ourselves to traditionality when opportunity is banging loudly on our doors, and in the currently uncertain economic climate, it's always better to save money and be more efficient where we can afford to be.

Yes, maybe this does mean hiring one new person to keep updated on the buzz going on about a particular brand. Maybe it means a new person in client-side marketing departments to interact with consumers through their social media. This change is not coming slowly, and we don't have time to prepare or be reticent about it.

So keep having focus groups. Keep taking surveys, doing one-on-one interviews, and anything else that is traditional and necessary to satisfy the clients on the research side. But make sure to keep informed about what's going on digitally, and make a concentrated effort to engage consumers in dialogue about your brand(s).

They want to talk to you. If they didn't, they wouldn't be talking about you.
One is silver and the other's gold.

Ten Times the Fun

2010-01-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

What the ad industry went through last year was, for lack of a better phrase, a mind-boggling experience. For the first time, agencies and clients alike were hit by the combined fears of the public: what to do with their money, and how to effectively reach them so that they're willing to spend it on us.

This year, as the public grows more and more aware of the effect that advertising has on them- and as they become more and more averse to it- advertisers and their clients should both be conscious of possibly the most important underlying theme to this dilemma:

Opportunity.

I just read an article in AdAge called "Planning Your Next Move in Ad Land: The Challenges and Pitfalls Ahead for the Industry in 2010." In it, AdAge discusses the (more often than not) negative trends that have been developing in the industry for quite some time: how automakers are dealing with the decline in television advertising; how soft drinks are facing a "sugar panic" from the general public; how agencies and clients are battling over compensation methods, especially in a time where cheaper digital media is growing in popularity while traditional forms of advertising are declining, and with it, the revenue of the agencies responsible. Those, among many other issues, are the challenges we face for the upcoming decade.

But maybe they're not as horrific as we think.

Maybe it's time for a change in the system.

This may not be realistic, but how about this: instead of keeping the divide between the big digital agencies, the small ones, and the ones that are just branches of full-service agencies, so that no one of them has all that is required in order to create a really compelling digital campaign (that is, great creative, great strategy, and effectiveness), why don't we collaborate all three so that we can get all three? How about, instead of worrying about the public's increasing tendency to shop online, we make it even easier for them, and thereby increase our own share in their lives? Have company-sponsored internet access on 3G networks for wireless providers (since people are living more on their mobile devices anyway, this really wouldn't be a bad idea). Make a Macy's department store iPhone app, where people can "walk around" a virtual store. Put signs in doorways of existing department stores with information about sales that's only available online- in the form of coupons, dates, etc. 20% of the American population owns an iPhone. How many more at least have some form of 3G?

I once saw a commercial for a pay-per-view movie where on the screen, there was a button you could click with the remote to watch the movie while it was being advertised. And therein lies one part of the answer for the auto industry- if they're afraid of completely breaking away from television advertising, why don't they integrate it with the online sphere they haven't quite conquered yet? In terms of the technological breakthroughs the article was discussing, why don't we make it possible for TVs to have internet access, so that we can explore products we may be thinking about as they're being marketed to us?

During my time as a participant in Disney's College Program this past semester, I learned about how the Walt Disney Company formed its global strategy. In the past, Disney was very fragmented- they marketed California Adventure to Californians, the Orlando resort to Floridians, and focused on what makes a theme park a theme park- attractions. Once they realized that wasn't working, they integrated their marketing strategy to have one global theme, which they now change every year. The first time they made us of this was with Walt Disney World's 50th Anniversary Celebration, in which Disney advertised throughout the nation, but still specialized its content to reach target audiences. The campaign had little to no television advertising; instead, most of it was over radio and internet, where people could interact with and customize the vacations they wanted to make. By taking what other theme parks had done before and integrating parts of that with their own ideas, Disney was able to establish a reputation that is known worldwide without ever really having to market it. They changed from the inside out. And that is exactly what the ad industry needs to do in this upcoming decade.

Instead of working through the problems we face, we should make the problems work for us. Every setback is an opportunity to do something no one's ever heard of before, and that is exactly what the times we're living call for. Instead of trying to figure out how to make consumers come to us, we need to figure out how to best let us come to them. We need to engage, we need to change, and frankly, we need to stop being so scared.

That way, we can go from being the industry that reflects the times in to being the industry that defines them.

The Box...Disrupted.

2009-06-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

The first few weeks of my internship with TBWA\Chiat\Day have taught me so much. First, that it's normal to work daily from 8:45a.m. to 7:30p.m. and sometimes later, because you're just that busy; but second, it has taught me the value of a simple suggestion.

What makes a great advertising campaign? Is it the power of the research that goes into it, or is it the simple brilliance of a creative team? Is it a combination of both? Of course; but I think some luck has to be thrown in there as well.

Take, for example, TBWA South Africa's campaign for The Zimbabwean that recently won the Cannes Grand Prix award for one of the best campaigns created this year. Through the use of their "Disruption Days," TBWA managed to not only examine the many facets of what makes a reader interested in a newspaper enough to actually read it, but also look at the surrounding political climate in such a way as to see the importance (or lack thereof) of the monetary system's decline in Zimbabwe. But, you may ask, how did they come up with the idea to stamp individual pieces of money with headlines so shrewd and meaningful that they made The Zimbabwean popular overnight?

It's all in the power of a brainstorm. It's not a simple formula. It's the capacity to think outside of the box while still keeping the box, and everything that surrounds it, in view. It's the ability to let self-consciousness go and suggest ideas that are not only startling and surprising in nature, but that also hit a deep chord with the human psyche.

Advertising, like I've always said, is a give and take. You get out of it what you put in to it, and sometimes it means more than just trying to promote a product. There is a reason that advertising has been called the picture of a generation.

And this, I think, is what makes TBWA stand out. I'm not saying it as a pitch for them; I think their advertising speaks for itself. Their realization that the younger generation of Pepsi was getting smarter, more involved, and changing; their discovery that the Snicker's label was recognizable in and of itself; their amazing ability to transform a relatively cheap vodka brand into something world famous; I could go on. By not only keeping their current social climates in view, but also branching out in terms of their creativity, TBWA has discovered the ultimate compromise- reigning in creativity in such a way that it ultimately becomes more creative.

In advertising, we should only hope to do so much.

What's In A Name?

2009-06-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

What goes into naming a company? How do they pick just the right order of their founders' last names, and how do they build the reputation behind it that makes these names iconic?

Is picking a name like writing a story? To me, it seems that it would have to be. When you write a story, you always write the text of it first- the actual plot, developing the characters, etc. The very last thing you do is come up with the title, because the entire point of the title is to sum things up, give an innovative and sometimes surprising aspect to the story in general. Some great stories have the most interesting titles, and not all are merely descriptive. In fact, it's the ones that aren't descriptive, the ones that lead you to believe something that may not actually be true in the tale, or may be inferred a different way than what is actually meant, that are the best stories. For example, take the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. The actual titles of the books themselves- The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass- are all descriptive for their respective books; however, the title of the series itself- His Dark Materials- almost, one would think, has nothing to do with the books themselves! Who is "he" and what do "his dark materials" have to do with anything that happens in any of these books?

As a matter of fact, it has quite a lot to do with them. Read the series, and then let's chat about it. I don't want to spoil anything for you right now, but I will say that this title provides a significant amount of insight in to the series' atheistic overtones, and the fact that God may or may not actually exist in these books. How do we find this out? Why, through using the dark materials, of course!

This name provides a twist. It gives insight. None of the words in the title is used in vain. All have a purpose.

This is exactly what the name of a legitimately good marketing or advertising firm should have as well. If the founder has an already-established reputation that speaks of good things to come, then use it. If not, see what else you can come up with. But the first and foremost thing you should do is establish the mission. Tell the story. Expound upon the philosophy. Make people believe you, and then they'll know your name and come to respect it.

In society today, it seems that almost all names are descriptive. But the ones that aren't are the ones that have the most credible philosophies, and those are the ones that I'm most inclined to trust. Don't get me wrong; there are quite a lot of great and wonderful agencies whose names are just that, and that's fine. But when starting out in today's economic situation and in today's world of cutthroat competition, it's important to have something that sets you apart.

So that a rose by any other name would definitely not smell as sweet.

Florida Our Alma Mater, Thy Glorious Name We Praise...

2009-06-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

When did you become a Gator?

This is the headline of the University of Florida's new advertising campaign. After several attention-getting runs of "The University of Florida is in Gainesville. The Gator Nation is Everywhere." and "Go Gators," the University has now turned its marketing and advertising focus to the people that really matter: the students and alumni themselves. Because UF runs rampant with school spirit all year round due to its highly successful sports teams, there really is no other school that can possibly compare in terms of the enthusiasm it encourages from its fans, students and non-students alike. Why not play off of this raving school spirit in order to make an advertising campaign that touches the hearts of those already emotionally involved in the school?

More universities are now trying to increase their advertising budgets in order to attract the nation's best and brightest. They've realized that in this struggling economy and the increases in both tuition and budget cuts throughout the nation, the time has come to use their staggering endowment money for more than giving outrageous bonuses to university presidents (ahem, Bernie Machen). There's something more to a good education, and now, it's no longer merely how much you can learn, but also how much you can experience outside of the classes themselves. Potential college students are now asking not if the universities can provide them with what they need educationally-speaking to be successful (because that's become par for all higher institutions in general), but how they can build their networks, what extracurriculars and activities they can get involved with, what leadership and job opportunities are available both within the university itself and the surrounding town or city.

For $40,000 a year (give or take $10,000 depending on the school), where is the place that will give me the absolute best bang for my buck? Oh, and what scholarships does it offer?

Nowadays, the world of higher learning is becoming just as cut-throat and competitve a market as any product brand. Colleges now have to establish new ways to reach the hearts of potential students and inspire in them a drive to both do well in school and reach their fullest potentials as human beings. In addition, they must deeply touch alumni and philanthropists to drive donations and endowments in order to make this level of experience possible. Because the costs of getting degrees are continually increasing, it's important that universities cater to both audiences, and, like UF, really encourage the school spirit that lends money and experience to both the university and the students and alumni themselves. College is the place where most people find out who they are, what they want in life, and determine where they're going.

Let's face it: where would we be without our college days?

I Am Rubber and You Are Glue. Whatever You Say Bounces Off Me and Sticks To You.

2009-05-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

There's been a new trend in advertising that lately has brought back images of medieval duels in 1500s-era France. When you're slapped across the face with a glove, what ensues is a fight to the death. May the best man (or company) win. Now, in advertising, competitors are increasingly slapping each other across the face...publicly.

Mac vs. PC. Powerade vs. Gatorade. Campbell's vs. Progresso. Progressive vs. All other insurance companies. Kia vs. Toyota. The list goes on, and all it takes to see the bloody battles is a search for them on YouTube.

Though comparative advertising is nothing new, the radical increase in the amount of it that has been appearing on air lately is slightly astounding. An article in AdAge brings to light this developing trend, citing the Campbell's soup corporation as one of the many companies for which this type of advertising has worked. In the past year, Campbell's condensed soup sales have gone up 6%, while rival Progresso's sales went down 7%. These commercials feature a blind taste test where cans of Campbell and Progresso are displayed prominently on screen. Other campaigns of this type include Powerade's billboard campaign in which consumers are strongly implored not to drink an "incomplete energy drink," featuring only half of a billboard for Gatorade and an entire one for Powerade directly behind it. Mac's "Mac vs. PC" commecials are becoming sharper and sharper, with future PC's freezing and legal copy pervading the entire screen.

Advertising is competitve, and comparisons between other tangible products are most definitely a workable way to market one's own product, because it prominently displays the benefits of the brand that is being marketed. However, are the increased insults, the snide comments, and the subtle derogatory statements becoming downright mean? If so, is this something that companies should fix, or if it's working for them, should they keep it? Is it ethical to so blatantly drown one's competitors in the sea of not-good-enough products, and even to ruin their painstakingly-established reputations among the buying market?

Is business becoming personal? And is it really ok if it is?

Though comparative ads do have their advantages, it's important to keep in mind the fact that an ad that is too hard-hitting and insulting may have consequences for the entire category in which this brand is marketing. Corporations should be careful about the amount of insults they throw at others, because karma really does come back around.

Fluxions in Fickle Faith

2009-05-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

"'Look at the parallels between religion and marketing, and it's almost identical. People become attached to a religion in the same way someone takes on a brand,' said Mara Einstein, author of Brands of Faith, and associate professor of media studies at Queens College. She and others contend that it is marketing, and our consumerist society, that has given people the idea they have a divine right to choose whatever they like -- and to treat faiths just like they'd treat any other brands, switching religions or choosing to have none."

This is a quote from an AdAge article I just read, detailing how religions are trying to get into the consumer conversation by implementing new campaigns (such as the United Methodist Church's "Rethink Church" campaign) to turn once-apathetic 18-34 year olds into avid believers. The article examines religion's decline in recent years; now, 62% of young people ages 18-34 identify themselves as "spiritual," while only 43% have prayed in the last two months (all this information is taken from AdAge). More people than ever are seeing themselves as "non-affiliated."

The ways in which religion works in the mind of the people today is simple: take what you like, don't take what you don't. In other words, religion has become a brand. And not necessarily a luxury brand, either; these decisions don't seem to be too highly involved. On the other contrary, they represent a well-I-feel-like-this-now-but-may-not-later-so-I-think-I'll-try-on-another-one-for-size attitude that has permeated the ranks of this age group.

One of my best friends is half-Catholic, half-Jewish. She was Bat Mitzvah'd, but not Confirmed; however, on Passover, she's Catholic, and on Lent, she's Jewish. It's handy, and it's definitely not bad (at least in my own point of view. But then again, I'm not too terribly religious either), but it does seem to promote the give-and-take that religion has become, the commitment-phobia that's really only prevalent when we have to pick something to believe in.

I think it's very interesting how religions now must promote themselves through the very mediums which they once condemned. Not only is it ironic, but it shows the development of our society through which people are free to choose their beliefs as they see fit. Whether they actually commit to those beliefs is another issue (see above paragraph), but the fact is that we can now actively decide what we want to follow and when we want to follow it, no matter how "sacreligious" that makes us.

According to the article, most people are on the flux with religions up until the age of 24, in which they get serious about picking one that seems reasonable. By the age of 36, most of them have settled on the set of beliefs that they will live by for the rest of their lives, and by 50 these beliefs are almost impossible to change. So these establishments already know their target market of ages 18-34, and they know what they have to do to cater to people of these ages.

However, this pandering does raise several questions: by conforming these religious institutions into belief-ified entertainment centers, are they becoming as superficial as people tend to actually believe they are? In this age of skepticism, is this same superficiality taking away from peoples' own tendencies to believe, thereby adding to religious decline itself? Or is it the phenomenon of marketing altogether, and the fact that we've spoiled ourselves into choosing and getting what we want, when we want it, that is spotlighting this issue?

On one side, it's great that these once-archaic churches, temples, etc. are now getting up-to-date on their social and traditional forms of media and are learning how to reach out to people without merely preaching in the middle of a plaza; however, on the other hand, it is pandering to the wants of fickle individuals who may not necessarily know what they want until they absolutely have to, and even then, the commitment is shaky.

I guess all they can really do is reach out and have faith.

Life Is For Sharing: The T-Mobile Way

2009-05-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

I love the new T-Mobile campaign.

There's a very cool blog post on it, with videos of the campaign and everything, at http://www.garethkay.com/.

Here, again, appears the theme of bringing people together through inspirational advertising. While Visa does it with encouraging people to "Go" places, T-Mobile is taking a different approach: bringing people together through doing common activities in public places. On the link to the blog above, you have thousands of people gathered together in Trafalgar Square singing "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, arms around each other, gathered around microphones with people they have never met. In this ad, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZrrbgCdYc, a handful of people in the middle of a subway station just stopped. And did nothing. For minutes.
And then they danced.
To the suprise and entertainment of all the passers-by, and even a brightening of several hundred days.

The best thing about this campaign is that it blends the nontraditional with the traditional. It takes events that normally would be construed as nontraditional, such as dancing in a subway station, brands them in that way, and then films it and airs it on TV, making it commercial and as such a common form of advertising. In planning their media this way, T-Mobile was able to not only promote their brand to those who were lucky enough to be in the station at the right time, but also the hundreds of thousands of other people around the country who happened to see the commercial when it aired.

It also has a different message than most of the other inspirational campaigns taking place now. Instead of trying to be inspiring or directly telling people that the only way to stimulate the economy is to go places and buy things, it simply promotes the fact that we can get through this together. Only by working with one another towards a common goal, whether that be a dance routine, a song, or a stimulus package, can we hope to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in.

In some ways, this message is even more effective because it plays off of the emotionality of people. Who doesn't love seeing thousands of people gathered together, singing a song that has been immortalized since the Beatles first sang it? Who isn't surprised and entertained to see a random group of people start dancing on their commutes to work?

T-Mobile (and Saatchi & Saatchi) have invented a truly great campaign. Let's learn from its message, and share it with each other.

Making Business Personal

2009-05-06T20:38:00.000-07:00

I had two really awesome conversations yesterday about Business to Business advertising.

One question that I've really wanted to ask, and finally got the chance to, was about the current trend of optimistic advertising in the face of the economic recession we're currently finding ourselves in. I was wondering if this trend, geared mostly towards consumer advertising, also held true in the world of B2B advertising as well.

As it turns out, the answer was yes. Though these huge businesses (and especially their C-suite executives) make extremely important buying decisions involving tons of research, several company pitches, and a much more involved level of thinking than we'd make as individuals in our daily lives, B2B advertising has to have the information that will help companies make the right purchasing decisions. In order to put together an ad of this caliber, catering to the top executives of some of the nation's largest companies, a great B2B agency has to not only recognize that these executives need to know exactly how their client really meets the needs of this company, but also that the executives themselves are (a very important thing): human.

They, too, are subject to the emotions and the personalities that seem to plague all of us. They, too, are probably feeling the effects of this depression, both in their careers and their personal lives. As such, it's important to not only advertise to their logical sides, but to their emotional sides as well.

And the recognition of this core insight is what helps top agencies such as Doremus achieve the standing they have today and in the past.

I find this concept to be so fascinating, especially in the light of the subject of my last post. If these B2B agencies made use of Mindset Media's research about personality and media usage, both in their media purchases and also in their creative executions, targeted towards the traits of the leaders of their target companies, would this have a significant effect on how effective their advertising is? Would it change the way that B2B companies advertise, and would it have any effect on how they choose their target companies and audiences? Would this also hold true for the internal advertising that some agencies do, catered to the overall culture and traits of their clients' employees? It would be an extremely interesting study to see how the use of Mindset Media's findings would change the way that B2B advertising can be conducted.

On the flip side, however, would the likelihood that people with leadership traits are more likely to buy hybrid cars really have an effect on the decisions that these leaders are making for their companies? Who's to say that changing its advertising to fit more of a C-suite executive's personality will actually help an agency in its quest to increase demand for its clients?

Like I said: a very interesting study.

At the end of the day, it always comes down to relationships. How can you foster a friendly relationship between a manufacturer and the company that sells the manufacturer's goods? How can you advertise the manufacturer so that sellers actually want to buy the products it produces? How can you create and nurture that relationship- between the agency and the client, between the client and its audience, and ultimately, between the products themselves and their audiences- to help it become beneficial and fulfilling for all parties involved? Is personality targeting the way to do this? Or will a traditional selling approach work better?

After all, maybe a CEO's tendency to buy hybrid cars would blossom into a focus on sustainability for the entire company. And maybe this focus on sustainability will ultimately help the company prosper in regards to its consumers.

And if the company is high in demand... well then, it must have a good supplier.

The Psychology of Media Buying

2009-05-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

This article that I've just read is so interesting I'm posting the link to it: http://adage.com/article?article_id=136408

It's an AdAge article that discusses the findings of Mindset Media, a psychographic research company that has recently discovered that personality may play more of a role in what media people tend to use than mere demographics would predict. Now, it's no longer that younger people like to use the Internet while older generations like print media; instead, "Top web users rank high in openness, and to a smaller degree, those who rank high in bravado are top users, too. Those highly open people who favor the web are 153% more likely to always buy organic products and 104% more likely to drive a hybrid car."

Now more than ever, it seems, it's important to know exactly who your target audience is, to create an actual person who embodies the core ideas of this market, and to really cater your advertising -especially your media buying- to this one person. Is s/he extraverted or introverted? Is s/he a leader or a follower? Is s/he a trendsetter or a conformist? Etc.

The breakthrough discovery of this research company may seem obvious at first glance; of course personality influences what media you use. Some people like TV while others don't, and some just don't have time for it altogether. Women are more likely to read magazines than men are. The same goes for other media- newspapers, the Internet, and outdoor advertising, among others. However, would you have thought that the amount that you watch TV, read magazines, or use the Internet would be influenced by how outgoing you are? By whether or not you look before you leap in making decisions? Maybe it's just the fact that I was a psychology major for a semester, but this finding seems to me to be an extremely meaningful one in the world of media buying, not to mention the entire marketing sphere.

If used correctly, this research would help both to make the media advertisers invest in much cheaper, and have more results in terms of consumers actually buying products. It would allow companies to speak to consumers on a more personal level, and isn't that what we're always aiming for?

I have to wonder, though, what effect this will have on the current trend of optimistic advertising in this economic recession. All automakers, for example, are offering some form of price protection, and these have made most of the car commercials that I've seen seem pretty generic. If they take into account their target people, and make their advertising prevalent in the media they know these people will use (based on both their personalities and their demographics), will these seemingly generic ads become differentiated and more effective? Does personality have an effect on how the creative for these ads should be executed as well? Perhaps that has to do with culture as a whole, but would creative be more effective if it really was catered towards the people it's targeting?

These findings bring up a slew of questions about the effectiveness of the advertising that we currently do, and about why, if these findings seem kind of obvious at first glance, we haven't already harnessed the potential of personality in creating campaigns for our products? Some brands have, and I think these are the ones that really have been successful- Dove, Visa, and American Express, to name a few.

Whether or not this discovery will indeed have an effect on the way media is bought and used by agencies and clients in the future, it nevertheless teaches everyone about the importance of psychology in every aspect of life.

A Foray Into The Financial World

2009-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

It's interesting how in this time of economic recession, the last thing I've thought to write about is financial brands.

But this morning it occurred to me: how are brands that handle money really functioning in this time, and how to do they have to change their advertising and behavior to continue to be a source of comfort in consumers' lives?

I just read an article by John Quelch in the Harvard Business Publishing Weekly on how these financial brands are doing, and what consumers are really looking for when they go to invest in banks, insurance companies, and other financial resources.

With the death of brands such as Merril Lynch, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and especially AIG, it has become apparent that consumers really are looking for a company who can "do no evil." Instead of the media publishing stories on a company's bad social behavior or the extravagant bonuses it pays to its executives, consumers are looking for stories about companies who really are trying to help. Thus, brands such as Charles Schwab and H&R Block, with their "talk to Chuck" and "you've got people" campaigns, are becoming more and more valuable because of their exerted efforts to really bond with their consumers. By making themselves seem personal, like a friend on whom one can rely in bad times, they are not only avoiding a host of potential media attacks, but are also growing the relatability of their brands, and as such, their businesses.

It seems to be like I've said before. With this change of times comes a change in how companies should market to consumers. Now more than ever, consumers aren't looking for companies they can merely buy from; instead, they're looking for companies they can have relationships with. As such, a trend of optimisim and personality has emerged in almost every brand out there, and now consumer advertising will probably never be the same.

I have to wonder, though: does this hold true for business-to-business brands as well? Are businesses themselves, in making efforts to be a friend to consumers, really looking for friends to supply them with their own resources? Do these companies have to market themselves the same way as to consumers, or can they just go with a simple "we're better than the competitors" pitch and have a real chance of winning the business?

I would think that these companies would at least have to differentiate themselves, and perhaps create more of a "professional friend" than a "casual friend;" that is, they would want to portray themselves as someone you'd want to work with (and that you can see yourself progressing with) rather than someone you want to go out and have coffee with. And therein lies the major difference between business-to-business and consumer advertising.

So it all comes down to a difference in personality. But personality itself, really, is the core of everything.
More research on this later.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

2009-04-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

How much would you pay for a diamond necklace?

How much would you pay for a high-quality Italian meal?

How much would you pay to use AIM?

What if your answers to these questions actually became the prices for these items? Would you be willing to pay them then? Would you be more willing to buy the product if you chose the price? Do you think it would make a difference if the price, without you choosing, was set at the price that you would pay for it if given the choice?

A new fad is emerging in the world of consumerism, it seems. Not only are companies making use of consumers' ideas and creativity on the Internet and social media sphere, but they're also letting the consumer, in some cases, even dictate the prices of their products.

It's an interesting phenomenon, and one that raises a lot of questions- about both what that means for advertising and what that means for consumers psychologically. In my second blog post ever, I mentioned a book called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. The book details the "hidden forces that shape our decisions": why we buy certain products over other ones, the ways in which we make these economic decisions, and what our pattern of decision making means for us as consumers and as psychologically functioning human beings. He discusses a series of scientific experiments that he has conducted with partners in each chapter, and shows how humans really are irrational in their decision-making processes. It's a fantastic book, and one definitely worth reading for its insight and enlightenment.

As it turns out, the subject of consumers being more willing to pay for a product when they have determined the price for it is actually true, according to Mr. Ariely's book. Not only are consumers more willing to buy it (due to the fact that they believe they're getting a "better deal"), but they're also more satisfied with the product because they've justified the price to themselves. This phenomenon of adjusting attitidue to behavior is called cognitive dissonance, and it's a major part of the reason why we tend to convince ourselves that doing things that we may not have necessarily condoned in the past become ok once we've done them.

Since these consumers have convinced themselves that what they're buying is really worth the price, because they've set the price, they're more willing to pay it and more willing to enjoy it. We tend to overlook the flaws in something when we've already justified it to ourselves, and this effect is seen in things as simple as buying a Gator football ticket for $100 dollars after waiting in line for 6 hours. No matter how boring the resulting game is, it was worth it because of what you went through to get the ticket. You're more willing to enjoy the game, more alert in paying attention to it. In short, the fact that you've had to go through a conscious decision-making process when it comes to the product (do I want to wait in this line? What will I be giving up by investing my time and money into this ticket? What do I gain by going to see this game? Is it really worth it for me?) makes you more open-minded with facing it.

This is what companies are starting to realize in the growing world of consumerism which we seem to be entering. AIM is beginning to offer specialized packages to consumers for prices that they pay themselves. A local Italian restaurant in Gainesville lets you order, cooks your food, and then accepts whatever price you think will cover the cost and the quality of the food that you've just eaten. Surprisingly, people (even poor college students) will tend to pay more for the food, not only because the waiter is staring them in the face while they determine the price, but also because they really have become more satisfied with the food than at other restaurants where the price is already set.

It's an extremely interesting phenomenon, and one that marketers may want to make use of in the future due to its seemingly lucrative tendencies.

However, as with anything in life, this should be used if and only if a company can afford to use it, and if it does not have an effect on their reputation (for example, an already-established premium brand such as Apple probably would not be able to use this method because the prices they have set, though higher than other products of the same quality, have already proven themselves to be willingly paid by the people who buy them). Instead, this method seems to work with businesses who are just getting off the ground or companies who need to resort to a new method to bring in profit. In this way, the fad will probably spread to other new-starting businesses, and hence might even become the future of consumerism.

Will this trend become the future of consumerism, and will it have an effect on the way we view products and the satisfaction we get out of them?
You decide.

An Updated Portfolio

2009-04-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

I have officially finished my portfolio for my advertising class. Here, I posted the updated and refurbished print ads from two of my campaigns- the New York Philharmonic and Lindt Chocolates. The body copy is beneath each of them.

The Philharmonic's campaign caters to working professionals ages 30-50, who have an interest in the arts and are looking to take their entire family to a performance that they would all enjoy. They know exactly what they think, about music and other aspects of their lives, and have a definite interest in the fine arts, having attended a public arts school or been involved in the fine arts during their education and childhood. To this effect, I've created the "Music is Everywhere" campaign, to show them that they can enjoy it anywhere they go, but mostly with the New York Philharmonic.

The Lindt campaign is primarily for people of the same age range as the Philharmonic, who know what kinds of chocolate they like and don't like, and are versed enough in the world of sweets to know a good chocolate when they see (or taste) one. However, they don't know that premiere chocolate such as Lindt provides is supposed to not only be an experience for taste, but also for the rest of the five senses. Chocolate is an experience unto itself, and to teach people this, I've created the Lindt "Five Senses Campaign." Each print ad is supposed to cater to a specific sense, with the first being sight, the second being touch, and the last being smell (the ad in a magazine would have a scratch-and-sniff over the truffles).

Enjoy!

The New York Philharmonic.

"It's there. All you have to do is look.

Can you hear it? It's blowing in the breeze, through the trees in the park. The kids playing baseball over there just add a different melody. The music is there, in the way we walk, in the sound our laughter makes as it peals through the air, creating notes we didn't even think were possible. It all comes together. Just listen to it."

"Do you feel it?

Listen to the fountain. The cars passing by just add a different tone. Those people going to the opera will tell you, there is no such thing as noise. All you have to do is ask them. Close your eyes, feel the mist, and listen to what is being created right in front of you. And what a masterpiece it's become."

"Can you hear it?

The sound is in everything we do, everywhere we go. There is no such thing as noise. It's only music. A harmony in the subway pulling into the station, a bass in the vibration we feel in our bodies, a counterpoint in the voices of all those telling stories on their phones, to their friends. It's all around us. Listen, and you'll hear it too."

Lindt Chocolates.

"Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands, and then eat just one of the pieces."

"Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies."

"Nobody knows the truffles I've seen."

An English Major's Interjection

2009-04-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

Since I have 20 minutes to write before catching the bus, and since I just got out of one of the best English courses I have ever taken in my life, I thought I'd write a little something about language.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."- Prospero, from Shakespeare's The Tempest

My Shakespeare professor just concluded a 16-week long course with the premise that our skin is the deepest one can go when trying to get "under someone's skin." The way to really do that, aside from cutting, gutting, or some other form of grotesquery, is to use language. Words are everything to us. I know this seems obvious, but if you really stop to think about it, language has an incredible impact on everything. People love, hate, die, cry, laugh, kill, educate, have epiphanies-- all through language. It's scary in its capacity to make us think, and in its own ability to move back on itself, play with itself, roll out from itself, and do things with itself that we absolutely could never dream of doing with our physical bodies.

The reason why so many serial killers don't speak is because they realize this. They're scared of the very language that may even have provoked them to do what they did.

How do we utilize this power? We advertise, we communicate, we try to sell, we write books and stories and papers, we talk, but do we realize? Do we fully understand the scope of the language we take for granted every single day we use it? The only way to "get under someone's skin," to affect them, to make them understand you, is through language. And isn't understanding what it's all about?

But how can you understand when all of these words, or almost all of them, may not necessarily mean what we take them to mean?
It's like conceiving a child (and this is relevant in Shakespeare). In the 1500s and early 1600s, you and your spouse could have a baby, but how do you know that it's yours? There's no way! S/He is fully in his/her head, and you are fully in your own. And whether or not the woman says "it's yours," according to Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale, "woman will say anything."
I don't mean to bring on the feminist criticism, but I just want to impress the point that we have no idea what words really mean.

And it's so wonderfully fascinating. Who knew that we could do so much with these letters, these symbols that don't really stand for anything, but that we've imbued with this absolute power that can make or break us in every single sense of those two words?

I could write at least four or five pages on that single sentence I quoted in the beginning. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is grounded in a sleep." And I bet you could too.

And I bet our interpretations would be completely different, and who knows if I would understand you or not?

Ten To The Thousandth Power

2009-04-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

If I were to ask you to come up with a creative idea for me for marketing, say, a stuffed penguin, what do you think you'd come up with?

If I were to ask 10,000 people to come up with a creative idea for me for marketing a stuffed penguin, what do you think they would come up with?

The "voice of the consumer" has now, it seems, moved from the denizens of whether or not they like the ad for a product, to actually having input in creating that ad.

Crowdsourcing is an increasing epidemic among online web communities. Several online communities have sprung up recently for aspiring creatives and experienced creatives alike, as forums where they can discuss their art as well as make the art by redesigning web pages, messing with and creating colors and palettes, and even having input on the creation of advertisements by actual agencies. Companies themselves have made use of this recent trend, with Starbucks beginning its interactive, crowd-based MyStarbucksIdea website, as well as others such as IdeaStorm, The Netflix Prize, and Lego's invite-only community of Lego enthusiasts. All of these have in common their desire to really get the consumer's input on their products, so much so that they create these communities where people can discuss current products as well as recommend new ones to be tried out in the market. It's an infinite opportunity for companies to relate to their customers as well as to really try to tailor their products to what those customers will buy, both regionally and nationally.

However, this new fad in creativity is sparking some controversial questions. Ad agencies themselves are beginning to also take advantage of these online creative communities, using them to get inspiration as well as to actually take some of the colors and designs seen on the websites. The designers of these creations, however, aren't getting paid for their work; on the contrary, they do it out of love for the art and a desire to contribute something to a community. Several questions arise out of this, the most important being if those designers should be getting paid for the work they put up. At the same time though, by putting up their designs to be freely shared among people, and especially with uncopyrighted work, are they not giving up their rights to be compensated for their labor? Should agencies be taking advantage of these communities at all? And if they keep doing this, will all the work eventually start to look the same?

The most obvious question that arises out of all of these, and the one that most concerns me, is: if agencies are using these online communities to get ideas for ads, and if companies are making use of their own microsites to get feedback on products that consumers will actually buy, is the need for advertising in general eventually going to disappear? Will creativity just become the process of selling and making known the products that consumers have already recommended? Will there even be a need for agencies anymore, or will companies hire their own creatives (or even their own websurfers with which to look for creativity on the net without actually having to create any of their own) to create purely selling advertisements?

This might be seen as an extreme situation, but in the realm of the unknown, anything is possible. Crowdsourcing as a trend is incredible because it takes the consumer and allows them to experience the product, the brand, and the advertising in a whole new way, giving them a relationship to it that is unprecedented. It provides an endless world of opportunity to agencies and companies alike, and, if used wisely and moderately, can even be a more effective way of reaching into the hearts of consumers.

They say that the brainpower of even 1000 people combined on a single issue is mind-boggling, and it is. Just think of all the Alternate Reality Games that online forums have been able to figure out in a matter of weeks, which for any normal person would take months or even years. This phenomenon will not only provide that which I stated above, but also an entirely new perspective on everything one might think about a product. It's amazing, and it should definitely be taken advantage of, but with a grain of salt and a very good amount of caution and care.

Let's think of something together.

A Chocolate-y Superman and a Musical Batman

2009-04-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

At last, my class members and I are in the final stages of putting together our portfolios for our final campaigns. For each one, we had to have a creative brief, three print ads, a television or radio spot, and a nontraditional ad.

Want to hear about mine?

My first campaign is for Six Flags over Georgia. It's not quite as built-up or as expensive as the Disney or Universal theme parks, but it nevertheless sports some roller coasters that have become quite famous. My concept came from the fact that it has a Superman roller coaster, which puts you on your stomach laying down so it seems like you're flying, and a Batman roller coaster that is currently being built. A lot of times, I hear people argue about which superhero is the better one- Superman or Batman, and so, taken with the roller coasters, I decided to create "Superman vs. Batman." It's somewhat similar to the "Mac vs. PC" commercials, except with more superhero pettiness. The print ads will have a comic-book type of look, and the TV ad will be guys dressed up in Supman and Batman costumes arguing with each other about the line lengths for their rides, the rides themselves, the villains each one fights, etc. against a backdrop of a roller coaster and some other things going on in the background. The nontraditional advertising will consist of hiring a couple theater majors on different college campuses across the country, and have them appear in certain public places on campus during the course of the semester and argue with each other. Of course, Six Flags will be included on the list of must-say topics.

My second campaign is for the Lindor (Lindt) Chocolate Truffles. That campaign's concept comes almost directly from the company's website: premium chocolate, the kind that Lindt offers, is supposed to be an experience for all five senses; not just taste. Lindt specializes in this because their chocolate is smooth to the touch, tantalizing to the eye, crip to the ear, irresistable to the nose, and wonderful in its taste. So my campaign, naturally, had to be the "Five Senses" campaign. The print ads look something like this:

The copy underneath reads, "Nine out of ten people say they like chocolate. The tenth person always lies." This ad appeals to the sense of touch through use of the satin. The other two ads in this campaign will appeal to sight (having a chocolate bar in the place of the satin), and smell (a truffle in the place of the satin that is able to be scratched-and-sniffed), along with similar quotes about chocolate. The TV ad will also center around this, with literal chocolate rain falling on people. The nontraditional ad will be called "The Lindt Experience," and be located in a major metropolitan area as a one-day event. There will be a table set up with different chocolate-related experiences for each of the five senses, including a box where you can put your hand in to feel the chocolate, a little cave that you can walk through to smell it, and a bowl full of truffles to try the taste.

My third and final campaign is for the New York Philharmonic. In order to get people (and especially young, artsy adults who make up my target market) interested in attending New York Philharmonic concerts, I came up with the idea that "Music is Everywhere." This campaign, then, focuses on juxtaposing New York City with musical instruments. The print ads are below:

The copy under all these ads has to do with performances during the months of April and May by the orchestra, including the website information and what is being performed, along with "Come experience the sound." I might have to think of a better tagline.

The television spot for this campaign is going to be focused around bringing the print ads to life. In this way, taxi cabs will have trumpets attached to the front to be used as their horns, the Statue of Liberty will be playing the violin, and subways will be flutes. This will all be to the tune of Rossini's "William Tell Overture" and be filmed in the same manner and as the same length as Sony Bravia's "Colour Like No Other" campaign.

The nontraditional element for this campaign will most likely be a music scavenger hunt arond the city, with large pictures of instruments in certain locations with clues on them leading to the next location. The hunt will be for high school and college students, and the reward will be either to meet a soloist or member of the orchestra, or free tickets to a concert or opera.

Those are my ideas, and some of my executions. I hope you enjoyed them!

The Greenest Form of Brown

2009-04-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

I think my new update-blog days are going to officially become Sundays and Wednesdays, because those seem to be the days where I have the most time.

In other news, I recently read an e-mail with the quote, "Save the Earth-- it's the only planet with chocolate!" Which, of course, is so true. However, Mars, Inc., the producer of candy bars such as Mars, M&M, Snickers, and Dove chocolates, has recently announced its intention to certify its entire cocoa supply as being sustainably produced by the year 2020. This trend is just one of the many efforts by companies to save the planet which we have unwittingly hurt in past generations.

Mars hopes to achieve this goal by partnering with the Rainforest Alliance, an organization that helps to safeguard natural habitats and ensure that workers are fairly treated. If Mars is able to certify that a significant portion of its products is produced in this way, they will be able to put the seal of the Alliance on their products, and thereby market their sustainability efforts, setting an example for chocolate producers everwhere.

However, this raises the question: if the Rainforest Alliance ensures the safety of natural habitats and the fair treatment of workers, is this to say that Mars had no previous regard for the natural environment or its workers who help to farm the cocoa? If, by setting this example for other candy and chocolate producers alike, are these other companies also demonstrating less-than-significant efforts to make sure that animals are not deprived of places to live, or that farmers are working normal hours?

The trend towards sustanability is one that has been catching on over the last few years. Automakers seem to be the leaders in this, as most car brands now offer some form of hybrid or extremely gas-efficient automobile. Even the University of Florida is catching on, utilizing its College of Agriculture to help the University reach levels of sustainability that will make it an example not only in the state of Florida, but also throughout the Southeastern university community.

Sustainability in and of itself has also become an invaluable marketing tool, as more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of consciousness in utilizing the Earth's resources. However, though the Rainforest Alliance has been widely certifying products such as coffee for a long time, these certifications by nonprofit organizations don't necessarily resonate with consumers as they aren't the most familiar. This was found by a study by BBMG, a branding and integrated marketing company, and raises another question: if there isn't too much marketing value in becoming known for sustainability efforts by these unfamiliar organizations, is it worth it to companies to do it? And is that, perhaps, why so many companies have not yet made the effort?

In the rising fear of global warming, erosion, and the depletion of the ozone layer, sustainability efforts by individual people and companies alike are extremely important to the preservation of our planet. Though these "green" efforts are often more expensive than other alternatives, they nevertheless help greatly in the move towards extending the healthful life of the Earth. If used correctly, they can also be an invaluable marketing platform for most products, as the "green" trend in marketing is becoming extraordinarily popular.

So the moral of the story, today, is: Save the Earth, because it's the only planet with chocolate!

Me, Myself, and I, Inc.

2009-04-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stopped to think about what your brand would be, if you had one?

Mine would be a blend of musicality, creativity, opportunity, hard work, and ambition. It would be the person I am, just emphasizing more of my qualities. My brand would love to read and take classes, play the cello while being in the marching band, do arts and crafts, and go to Disney. My brand is excited, fun-loving, open-minded, and optimistic.

Would I be a socially responsible company? Yeah, probably. I'd get involved in issues I cared about, probably helping sponsor events such as Dance Marathons at college campuses and helping causes that really meant something to me.

In an economic recession, would I increase fees, or would I come up with offers that would not only help stimulate some hope in the world but also give consumers a reason not to fear my product?

Guess I'll have to find that one out when I start to own my own company. But taking from that, AdAge posted an article a couple days ago about companies that are actually making it work in the state of depression we're in right now, and it's all about branding. Not to bring this up again, but all of these companies- JetBlue, Hyundai, XBox360, Bounty, and Miller HighLife- have all done something that has helped not just to sell, but to inspire hope and decrease the fear of spending. For example, Hyundai has put out an offer that if customers buy a car and then lose their jobs, they can return the car. Who knows if people will actually return their newly-bought cars, but the offer itself served to differentiate Hyundai from the rest of the declining automobile market. JetBlue, in the face of rising fees from other airline companies, has offered unlimited snacks and free DirecTV during the flight in their "Happy Jetting" program.

As a counter-example, Tropicana recently changed their logo, making it different from the orange with a straw sticking out of it that consumers have grown to know and love. Because of this, sales have declined 20% in the last month or so, and now company executives are discussing how to get the old logo back on the market. Gatorade's new G2 logo and brand hasn't worked for them either, and lately has become food for Powerade's "don't have an incomplete sports drink" campaign.

All's fair in love and war, and if we really think about it, advertising is a kind of constant battle. Who can be the most differentiated? Who can make the offer that no one else in that entire product category has made? And who can provide hope in an age of despair, merely through a simple sentence in a print ad?

Body Language

2009-04-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

I knew gestures were important in talking face-to-face, and even that smiling was important on the phone, because people can always tell. What I didn't know, however, was that gestures might be just as important in the world of digital marketing as they are in actual person-to-person conversation.

I just read an article on AdAge that described this new phenomenon. In the world of digital marketing on everything that is now acquiring an "i(insert word here)," human gestures and the symbolic conversation between a product and its user is now becoming just as important as the product itself. Since everything is becoming touch-- Nintendo Wii, touch-screen phones, even the apps available on the iPhone and iPod Touch-- the typical mouse-click won't work for your product anymore. Instead you need to be real, you need to be connected, and most of all, you need to be up on the times in every sense.

This new trend in digital marketing is not only yet another progression that society has made in the world of advertising (as a small digression, it astounds me how far advertising has come in the last century), but it also opens up an amazing opportunity for creativity and inventiveness. I know I've said this before, but the creation of innovative advertising that will go through traditional mediums is much harder now than is breaking into the new sphere of the "i____" and the Internet. It's a new time and a new world, with something new every day that will allow you to connect to your friend who lives in Hong Kong, or will allow you to play a game with people you don't know and probably will never meet outside of it. Though there is a flip side to all this (see my previous blog entry on the digitalization of life), we're lucky to be living in a time in which so much is new, so much that we have not yet even scratched the surface of in terms of branding, creativity, and invention, and so much that it is now possible to do.

Advertising is no longer shout-in-your-face. Instead, it has become subtle, with a focus more on branding than on selling, because branding is what's going to get people to become loyal to your product. It's about relationship building on an individual level, talking to the users of your products and finding out what they like, what they don't like, why they use you, and even why they don't use you. Social media has become more social than ever, and a person's phone is now the embodiment of his or her life (especially in my generation). Now, it seems, is the time to break out of the box if you've been in it before, to try something totally outrageous for your product and just see what happens, because no one has done it before.

I mean, if I'm seeing twelve-year-old girls with Blackberrys walking on the street in South Florida, that's definitely saying something, right?

The You Evolution

2009-04-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

There are a couple things I want to talk about today.

First off, how is a brand made, in general? How do brands such as Coca Cola and Disney gain the prominence that they have in today's market, and sustain the reputation that they've created for themselves over years and years? Is it a combination of luck and hard work, does it just have to be sheer genius, or is it all three?

I've learned from my Blake, Newton, and Disney class (an English class that I'm taking this semester which has been extremely enlightening), most of the origins of the Disney company-- all about Ub Iwerks and the original Disney-Iwerks animation studio, along with how Iwerks was the actual designer of Mickey Mouse. I know that Disney pioneered the use of sound and color in animation films, a feat that was the main attraction for audiences to the Mickey Mouse cartoons, which became extremely famous and were shown in actual movie theaters throughout the nation during the Great Depression. In that time of despair similar to what we're facing now in our economy, Mickey Mouse was there, providing laughs and mishaps, to the delight of audiences everywhere.
So maybe it was just good timing.

The development of the theme parks didn't come until much later after the Mickey Mouse cartoons, along with others such as the Silly Symphonies, were well-established in consumers' minds as a favorable, fun-to-watch entity, Iwerks had left the Disney company, returned, and left again, and several other deals were struck with sound and film producers ranging from New York to California. The parks were just an add-on to the already famous cartoons, a way for audiences to bond more with the Mickey Mouse character they had already become so fond of, but they exploded in popularity and today are the main fixture with which the Disney company is known.
So maybe it is luck after all.

Will people like your brand? That all depends on the time and circumstances in which you project it. The characters you create. The feelings you give people. The experiences you allow them to have. Will your brand become an epidemic of popularity across all nations and become an escape for people across the world, such as Disney has become? Probably not; I'm sure that only happens to one in a billion companies, the really, really lucky ones, with the really real geniuses and the really really hard work. Though Coca-Cola is an exceedingly well-known brand throughout the world, it still is not as prevalent as the Disney brand, and people have arguments as to whether Coke or Pepsi is better, in fact. Perhaps this is because Coke hasn't created any amusement parks, or perhaps it's because they're a completely different product. But they've still managed to become the undisputed leader in their category, and they did that as well as they could.

So maybe the key is just to really think about whether the way you want to project your brand is right for the times, its personality, its experience, its overall feeling. I think (and you've probably all heard this before, but I'm going to say it anyway) that brands are really people, and, as with any successful person, you have to make very clear to other people what type of person you are for them to really understand you. This is what Disney did with Mickey Mouse, and what Coke has done with their brand. The one is a good-hearted, clumsy fellow who gets himself into all sorts of entertaining conundrums, and the second is a happy, colorful, all around do-gooder. So who are you, product? What do you want from us, and more importantly, what can we get from you? Don't just tell us; make it fun, make it obvious, but most of all, make it relatable.

And perhaps, in these times, the key is...just to be yourself.

Who Knew Destruction Could Be So Creative?

2009-03-30T21:46:00.001-07:00

Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

So AdAge has now crowned the superheroes of Digital Marketing for 2009. Among the top contenders is Apple, whose TBWA/Media Arts Lab-created web ads have become some of the most innovate digital creativity ever to exist on the web. It's not just that Apple is incorporating synched banners into their campaigns-- it's that they're doing it on a consistent theme. Other companies have developed one-shot banner ads like these for their products, but what makes Apple's ads unique is that they all unite under the "Mac vs. PC" campaign, which, in and of itself, is one of the most popular campaigns in today's advertising sphere. The banner ad campaign began on nytimes.com and has recently spread to other sites such as YouTube through user recordings.

AdAge cites consumer distribution as the most important factor in the success of these ads, and obviously, they're right. The popularity of the ads, along with their innovativeness in interacting with the pages on which they are located (through destroying navigation bars, etc.) make consumers constantly interested in what's going to happen next.

However, as previously stated, Apple is not the first company to do this, and some foreign companies have made use of these interaction capabilities on their websites, instead of just in ads themselves. For example, visit http://producten.hema.nl/ to find out how German company Hema promotes its products by having them wreak havoc on their own website, followed by celebratory music and confetti. It's endlessly entertaining, and has spread throughout several markets due to its originality that appeals to all ages.

This new phase of interaction and further progress of the phenomenon called "advertainment" goes along really well with the trend everything in marketing is taking towards digitalization. The new technology that allows marketers to create these interactive, innovative ads and websites provides exciting opportunities for advertisers to promote their products in almost wholly original ways. You can put a twist on almost anything.

Soon, this kind of interaction will be just as normal to us as the average banner ad, and what will we do then?
Invent something else completely awesome, of course.

The Way To Their Hearts

2009-03-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

In this time of economic crisis, woe, sorrow, depression, and several other adjectives that may or may not adequately describe it, ad agencies are now turning to new ways to acquire new business. Since this is the subject I'm most interested in, the article from AdAge, posted two days ago, says a lot about the future of my potential career.

According to the article, there are six factors agencies are utilizing to drum up some new clients.
1. Innovative Networking
Apparently, a meeting of a close group of marketing executives at your agency once a month or so could be extremely good for business. AdAge cites Via Group's founder-CEO John Coleman, who does this every month, with extremely successful results. This way, they not only get a chance to discuss prevalent issues in the current world of marketing, but they also get your agency's name on the radar just in case those companies need a commercial or two...
So networking's not always about the martini lunches or the career fairs. Instead, maybe it, like an ad campaign, needs to be creative to be successful. Perhaps this is true of everything in life.

2. Show Your Social Media Savvy
Thanks to my best friend, I have now become a social media-savvy chick. Due to the epidemic success of social sites such as Facebook, the rapid development and expansion of Twitter, and the growing popularity of blogs, social media has become an essential factor to successful marketing. It's quite a plus to know what you're doing on the Internet these days. Not only does it provide great word-of-mouth marketing (which, we all know, is the most powerful type there is), but it also proves that you realize where the future of the marketing business will be: a bigger-than-ever-before mixture of digital and traditional, where the ratio of digital advertising to traditional ads will probably fall somewhere around the lines of 80%:20%.

3. Adopt A Recognizable Platform
To sum up this section: what is your theory of perception? How do you feel that advertising should be done, and how should the respective parts of your agency fit together to create a lasting campaign? Ogilvy makes use of its "360 degree Brand Stewardization" in which they monitor every aspect of a brand, from its inception to its execution, and Woods Witt Dealy & Sons has a philosophy where they have an individual team of account managers, planners, creatives, and media people working on the same client together, in a more intimate environment than those found in larger agencies. It's all about your brand philosophy, your perception of how these things should be done, along with (in most cases) a catchy name. And if that fits with the client, you're sold.

4. Be Willing To Contort
Haven't I said that advertising was like yoga? There's something in custom-made solutions. Obviously, you can't treat every client the same. And, let's face it, even though stretching hurts sometimes, in the end you end up feeling better and more flexible. A happy client breeds a happy agency. It's a win-win situation. Be willing to try something new.

5. Write A Book
Why, you may ask? Because it's fun, because it gives you a topic to explore in detail (I'm an English major, I love analyzation), and because it gets your name out there and brings you credibility. Authors of major works, such as John Steele's Truth, Lies, and Advertising, (also one of the best books I have ever read) are renowned throughout the advertising world, in agencies as well as in classrooms, and are always invited to speak at conferences and conventions due to their "expertise" on the issues discussed. Plus, how cool would it be to say you got a book published?

6. Offer A Direct Line to the CEO
AdAge cites this, but I'd like to as well: Zimmerman and Partners Advertising in Ft. Lauderdale, FL (the agency that I've interned for twice), is great at this. Jordan Zimmerman, founder and CEO, is available to his clients 24/7 and checks in with them on a daily basis. This not only breeds trust and companionability between the agency and its clients, but it gives the agency a certain edge over others who may not be as close with their clients. As a result of this constant attention, Zimmerman wins 85% of their pitches, and has managed to significantly expand the businesses of all of their clients. For specific cases, see their regional Nissan work and the results they've gotten for Papa John's.

All in all, the things that can be accomplished with putting in just a little bit of extra effort can be astounding. Even in today's economic situation, new businesses are still being pitched, fought over, and won. Everyone is looking for a way to get their product sold, and the way to help them lies in your agency's ability to break outside of the boundaries of traditional new business pitches. Don't just create a campaign to pitch, create a relationship. Create credibility, companionability, and compatibility.

And, most of all, create wonderful advertisements.

The One You Want To Know

2009-03-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Imagine this:

A black screen with sad, sentimental (yet simple) piano music playing in the background (under and throughout). On the screen in white type fade in the words, "Six Flags Presents," and then fade into a picture of the Joker (yes, the Batman villain) sitting on a stool, crying, against a backdrop of the Dark Knight Six Flags roller coaster. The screen fades to black again and fade in the words, "A Villain's Renewal." Fade in to the Joker again, who looks sobbingly at the camera and begins to speak. "I…I was just so..so moved. I mean, I expected to come and blow something up, but then I saw it, and I ….and I ….(stops, wipes away a tear, and sniffles) I just couldn’t. It was so big, and there were so many drops, and twists, and loops, and the people looked so….just so happy. I never knew Batman could have that effect on people….on me. My criminal days are over. I just want to ride. Again, and again, and again…(fade out voice)" Fade in the black screen yet again, with the Dark Knight coaster logo and "Only at Six Flags" beneath it.

And that, my faithful readers, is my television spot concept for Six Flags. Coasters so intense that they rehabilitate even the worst villain.

But speaking of people we've all heard of, today's discussion centers around the midday advertiser, Jim Sokolove the lawyer. We've all seen his commercials, at home in the middle of the day doing housework, homework, or just hanging out while we're supposed to be in school. AdAge posted an interesting article about him today that discusses his law firm in terms of an ad agency. He gets the most business out of almost any other law firm in the nation, but litigates virtually none of the cases the commercials bring to his firm. Instead, though his commericals air almost by the minute in certain media vessels across the nation, he routes these calls through to one of his hundreds of national affiliates, who handle the cases and then pay him a fee for referral. Though he states himself that his business is a law firm in the strictest sense of the term, it nevertheless acts like an agency in that it provides a conduit for the profit, through paid media advertising, of other clients in the industry of which he is a part. As a consequence, he is one of the most successful business owners in the nation.

It's interesting to think about the effects of this trend, if it were to spend. Sokolove's business model is a novelty, for sure, but will more companies catch on and attempt to do the same thing? Could this work in industrys such as insurance, where a giant company such as State Farm of AllState, through their advertising, can individualize each call that they receive for business so much so that they can find the best deal for each situation, and refer that person to the insurance agency that would be best for them (for a fee from the receiving agency, of course)? Would this only be able to be accomplished in these kinds of service industries? And most importantly, if this were to spread, would this revolutionize the way that these services are advertised by agencies themselves in the future?

If so, agencies would not just be advertising for only one client at a time. Through that client, they'd be advertising for possibly almost every business in that industry, or at least every affiliate of the client's. However, if this were to happen, it would only be possible if one or two firms in the industry in question were to take part. This would require inter-industry cooperation and would, most likely, lead to the creation of mega-giants in each industry, with one or two companies being in charge of how much business all the other businesses in that category receive. I'm sure this would finally incur government regulation and ultimately be stopped, which is probably why it hasn't happened yet, but regardless, the consequences are interesting to think about.

Sokolove's idea, though probably not feasible for the vast majority of businesses and industries in the nation, is nevertheless a genius way for him to not only receive business for his own firm, but also to ensure the success of his industry as a whole. Perhaps, in the future, ad agencies and companies alike can work together to create a workable approach to this system of advertising and referrals that is fair to everyone involved.

In An Age of Optimism

2009-03-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going to digress a little from yesterday's track.

But going along with all the Obama hype, how everyone in America is and has been so excited for his promised "change" that countries around the world are seeing it as a possible fad or fashion, companies too are taking this hope and turning it into a form of optimism to try to get consumers to buy more, and "hope"fully (haha, get it?) try to restimulate our lagging economy. In this effort, TBWA/Chiat/Day has created a new campaign for Visa which I am a pretty big fan of: it's called Go, and it attempts to push people out of their boxes and inspire them to have hope that there are still possibilities out there, that they can get out and really do something if the mood strikes.

Their primary commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr42rfptEdg

Using the voice of Morgan Freeman, the commercial incorporates the word "Go" into inspiring, beautiful images of people doing things they maybe wouldn't normally do, coupled with upbeat music that uplifts the viewer. All in all, it is a commercial that expresses the fundamental feeling of today: though we are in a terrible economic recession that is having dire consequences not only domestically, but around the world as well, we have nevertheless entered a new era in which the times will change, and things will get better. It's not just the election of Obama; instead it is the core optimism rooted in each of us that brings hope to this struggling time. Things will get better, but we have to be willing to break ourselves out of our daily routines and try to make them that way.

On another note, for my advertising class yesterday we had to create a radio spot for our products. As mine is Six Flags, and there is a Batman roller coaster and a Superman roller coaster, I played off of the often heated debates that are incited when people get into arguments about which superhero is better- Superman, or Batman. In my spot (and subsequent ones if this became an actual campaign), they argue about the villains the other fights (making fun of them), the lines at their respective coasters, and the twists and turns that their coasters have. Since Batman won this first round of battle in my spot, I made Superman seem like, well, kind of an idiot, talkative and more sociable than Batman, who is sarcastic, pretty anti-social, and doesn't speak too many words; however, the ones he does say do have impact. It needs some tweaking so I won't put it up here yet, but the general idea is that even superheroes can be petty when it comes to rides as cool as the ones at Six Flags.

Carpe Diem!

Obamarama...or Not.

2009-03-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought racism was international?
AdAge just posted an article about a Russian print ad from Voskhod for the ice cream bar Duet.

The interesting thing about this ad is that it not only plays off racial stereotypes between black and white, and holds both of them in contempt in certain ways, but it also alludes to the popularity of President Barack Obama, which some people contend, is only a fad (see the phrase, "Flavor of the Week!"). The ad features Obama holding his hand in a "peace" sign, signaling his attempts to bring Americans out of the war in Iraq; however, Obama plans to concentrate his efforts more on the war in Afghanistan, making the peace sign somewhat ironic. The rainbows in the background possibly also stand for the President's asserted support of the gay community, symbolized by his willingness to sign the bill that decriminalizes homosexuality worldwide, and has been supported by 27 nations in the European Union along with three dozen other countries.

Perhaps this ad was meant to be funny. Instead, it not only makes fun of Obama's campaign promises and the work that he has accomplished in his first three months in office, but it also discriminates against several minority groups, including blacks and homosexuals, and ridicules Americans in their efforts to change after the mess made by the Bush administration. Maybe this ad was just a failed attempt at humor, or maybe Russians just really don't like Americans.

On the other hand, however, one cannot see this ad as run-of-the-mill. It does, indeed, drive home the point that the ice cream bar does contain both chocolate and vanilla, and may even be quite tasty. The ad is brightly colored, and its political and racial overtones do stick in the mind. Though it will most likely increase awareness of the Voskhod brand, this awareness itself may not be entirely positive, with the amount of criticism that the ad is drawing, and there is no way to predict whether or not it will actually increase sales of the Duet ice cream bar.

I also have to wonder what consequences the ad will have for Voskhod's brand image. Will the image change at all, and if so, in what way? Will Voskhod be seen as a racist, bigoted, anti-American company, or will the ad's failed attempts at satire be forgiven by the Russian (and the world's) populace? Will the ad have an effect on America's (and Americans') relationship to Russia (and Russians)? More importantly, however, is it fair to generalize on agency's ad for a client that happens to negatively impact the feelings of Americans to the entire Russian populace?

The prevalence of advertisements domestically and intenrationally affects not only how countries relate to each other, but also the general opinions held by the masses of each country in which advertising is produced. In the worldwide sphere, these cultural icons can affect not only whether one product is bought or sold in certain quantities, but also the political and social atmospheres of the nations involved, as well as their relationships to one another.

No wonder advertising is seen as the core of our culture.

Surgeon General's Warning: Content May Be Dangerous

2009-03-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

Interesting fact: I have an exam in my Law of Mass Communications class on Thursday.
Another interesting fact: today's current issue (a 3-Minute AdAge spot) is about the advertising issues that lobbyists in Congress are becoming upset about.

There is a federal act in the works that, if passed, would prohibit or severely restrict tobacco advertising, even more than it has already been restricted. This move, promted by the American Advertising Federation itself, has been the subject of much debate in the House since earlier this month. However, the new President of the AAF, James Datri, is now speaking out about his views that advertising, as a form of commercial speech, should not be curtailed. He says that not only was advertising almost the beginning and the core of commercial speech in this country, but it has also provided the basis for our cultural growth as a nation, and spearheaded the development of our market economy.

True though that may be, one has to wonder: by curtailing tobacco advertising, would we, in fact, be severely limiting our potential as an advertising nation? Is the cutting off of one (very harmful) product from the world of commercial speech- and not even entirely cutting it off, just limiting it- going to matter that much in the long run? The government, through agencies like the FCC, has already passed legislation requiring tobacco companies to join together to create the Truth campaigns about the dangers of smoking. This in and of itself is contrary to that which the companies would strive for- greater product sales. Is this really that different through adding more protection for children and their families?

On the contrary, however, is the government really being fair by curtailing one potentially harmful product when there are so many other harmful products currently in the market that do not receive the same amount of criticism? Alcohol products, for example, are largely advertised; in fact, alcohol advertisements are among some of the most creative and most prolific in America, let alone the entire world. However, alcohol if not used in moderation is just as- if not more- harmful to individuals as cigarettes or other tobacco products are. Though people do not become physically addicted to alcohol, it is a psychological addiction, and millions of people a year (maybe more if we're including college students) become alcoholics. There is a Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs that includes all the potential dangers associated with smoking, but all that alcohol bottles are required to say are "Please drink responsibly," and include the alcohol content. Is this right? Should this be considered constitutional? Is the government interest in curtailing the advertisement of only one of the many potential harmful products in the market today really substantial enough to merit further regulation of the tobacco industry? And, more importantly, is the bill phrased in such a way as to narrow that substantial government interest in such a way that it doesn't limit other forms of commercial speech?

There are two sides to any issue. Yes, tobacco as a product is incredibly harmful and, though the use of has been declining in recent years, it is still a widespread epidemic among young and old people alike. However, there are other harmful products in the market today that do not face the same criticism and social ostracism that the tobacco market faces, and perhaps this is for good reason. But we should ask ourselves- is the cost of further limiting the creative and essential core to our country that is advertising really worth cutting off the commercial speech of one of the many industries in today's business world?

The Downward Dog of Advertising

2009-03-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

Everything in life has a little bit of yoga in it.

I know this is a departure from what we've been talking about in our last few posts, but I feel like it's necessary. Advertising, especially, is like yoga.

This requires some background on the yoga front: taken in its own context, yoga is all about balance. Not just "Tree" pose, or any of the ones where you're only standing on one leg. Yoga is feeling the tension between the down and the up, finding the center between right and left, in order to discover a place within yourself that is totally free and balanced. Building the foundations in any pose requires this, but especially in poses such as Warriors I and II, in which one leg is bent while the other is straight. Your first instinct is to lean into that bent leg, bringing your entire body forward and putting undue pressure on that leg. It may be a great quad workout, but your knee will definitely not appreciate you after all the time spent on it. Instead, you're supposed to balance the weight between your front leg and your back leg by grounding your back foot in such a way that the outer edge of your foot is pressing into the ground. That way, you find the balance between your bent leg and your straight leg, and allow the lower half of your body to sink into the ground while at the same time reaching upwards with your arms. You're spreading yourself out, you're up and you're down, and ultimately, you're balanced.

It works the same way with any campaign. They key to an effective advertisement is all about the insight, finding the balance between the obvious and the unseen, and discovering the space, the niche, in which no other advertiser has ever been. A campaign cannot be too funny, too sarcastic, too depressing, or too cliche; instead, it has to be some of each. It cannot just be one of the above, it has to be a personality. It has to be a human being- relatable, understandable, and knowable. Any brand is the person behind the product, and not just the target market; it is everything that that product would be if it were an actual person. And to find that person, you have to find the space out of which that person is created.

This is why one has to know a little bit of everything in order to be successful in the advertising business (not that I would really know, but this is just what I think)- you have to know enough about what the brand would be made up of in order to bring it down to the consumer's level. There's a fine tension there, and it begs a lot of questions about the brand personality itself. What are its axes? What pulls and pushes it around? What stretches it out?
But most importantly- how can we take that personality and contort it, put it through its paces, so that the consumers can see the space that is created? And even more prevalent than that, how can they appreciate and become loyal to that space?

Just like any person, brands can become more flexible with time. They can hold themselves up through trials and tribulations, and sweat out any toxins that are built up within them. They are malleable, and in the end (if they're successful), they're appreciated just for who they are.

Namaste.

Results Not Typical

2009-03-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't updated any work that I've done from my Copy & Vis class lately, let's start with that today.
Last week, we had to come up with 6 creative concepts for yet another product (for a potential campaign). This time, I did Lindt Chocolate Truffles. Some background information on them: they're the round chocolate truffles that are solid on the outside, but then when you bite into them they're filled with a melty chocolate center on the inside. They come in every type of flavor- white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, hazelnut, peanut butter, espresso, etc., and on the back of the packages it has information about when they were created and their most special aspect- that they can make you "melt."
Taking all that into account, here were my creative concepts:
1. Show people biting into the truffles and then melting in interesting ways, because the truffles make you melt (literally, get it?). For example, have a picture of a lady biting into the truffle, with her legs merging into a puddle. The only problem with this idea is that it would probably only generate three or four ads at most; not much of a campaign.
2. Make the chocolates (still in the wrappers, because the wraps are so distinctive and multi-colored) into forms of things that chocolate goes with- strawberries out of the red ones, coffee cups or a mug of hot chocolate out of the white and brown ones, a marshmallow, etc.
3. Have ads like most resorts do, where you don't show the resort, but instead show a picture that describes some sort of feeling, or the escape you'd get from being at that resort, but instead make it about chocolate. For example, have a fireplace in a cozy room with snow outside. These truffles make you warm on the inside.
4. Have famous quotes about chocolate next to a simple picture of the truffle- in the wrapper, out of the wrapper, with only the wrapper left after the truffle had been "eaten," with a half-eaten truffle, etc. Quotes can be along the lines of, "Lead me not into temptation. I can find the way myself," or "Enter the chocolate kingdom."
5. Similar to number 4, but going along the same lines, have lines of poetry describing warm feelings, feelings of being in love, feelings of happiness and contentedness, next to images of the truffle in various states, as in number 4. Could these possibly be combined into the same campaign?
6. Show images of objects that are hard on the outside but melty on the inside, or things in states of melting- for example, a rock with a slice cut out of it oozing chocolate, or a half-melted ice cube, or a frozen pool with steamy water underneath- anything describing the feeling you'd get from eating these truffles.

Ironically enough, I read an interesting article in AdAge today that, if what it described comes to fruition, would have dire consequences for the diet and fitness infomercial business. The article talked about an idea circulating around the FTC to make disclaimers such as "Results May Vary" or "Results Not Typical" in these types of advertisements illegal. Instead, the diet or fitness companies would have to create commercials that demonstrated the "generally accepted results" or make it obvious that the consumer is likely to have a similar success as the person used in the testimonial when they use the product for themselves. This would not only completely change the way these companies do their advertisements, but it would also have several consequences for how these products are viewed and received in the general market.

Though Bob did lose 50 lbs. on NutriSystem, not everyone who uses that particular brand does lose that kind of weight. In fact, a good friend of mine barely lost 10 lbs. when she tried the product. However, the disclaimer in the commercial stating that Bob's results were not the results of the majority of people who used NutriSystem, though small and hard to see, was there. But I have to wonder- if my friend had heard that Susan had only lost 5 lbs. on 10 weeks of NutriSystem instead of Bob's 50 lbs. on 5 weeks of the same, would she have still wanted to try it? Even though Susan's results were more representative of the majority results, would NutriSystem be doing as well as it is today?

But this begs the question: if these companies are getting financial support from consumers who believe that their products will work weight-loss miracles on them, and then getting disappointed when the results displayed in the commercial don't apply to them due to their non-typicality, do the companies deserve to have their products bought by these unsuspecting consumers? Instead, shouldn't the companies be required to post information about the real results that people are gettting, so that their products can be bought on a more reasonable basis, and an arguably more deserved one?

It may be said that all's fair in love and war, and if you think about it, advertising is a kind of war. Competition itself is a series of constant battles. But does that mean that we should sacrifice our time and money to try products and solutions that advertise the extraordinary results that we cannot necessarily hope to achieve?

The answers to these questions may vary.

More on the Digital Age

2009-03-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a short one, folks.
Continuing on the trend we've been talking about for the past couple posts, I just read an article in AdAge by Noah Brier, head of strategy and planning at the Barbarian Group. It was an interesting post about how display ads really aren't that creative. And it was so true.

Display ads, according to Mr. Brier, should be developed with the same kind of tender love and care (aka, strategy and planning) with which a print or a TV ad is developed. With all the increased opportunity and exposure a client can get from a display ad- a more narrow audience, tailored to exactly the buyers who want or are looking to buy the client's product- why wouldn't you place as much or even more importance on developing these ads? They don't necessarily have to get you the correct CPM, or even click-throughs, though those would be nice. They just need to grab attention, and, like billboards, embed themselves in the consumers' subconsciouses to come into effect at a later date. They don't have to be huge flash productions of ads, either; a simple smart headline would do the trick, or a smart picture, or any combination of the above.

The trick of these ads, however, is to blend in while standing out. Brier provides two main points for creators of display ads to keep in mind while developing these ads:
1. Make a different ad for a large site than you would for a small site. Pretty self-explanatory. Large sites are probably more important, or at least get you more exposure, no?
2. Design things that belong. Ads that stand out so much on a page that they just have to bring attention to themselves almost scream "Don't pay attention to me!"

Like all ads in today's day and age, display ads have to blend in with the website on which they're being displayed while at the same time standing out enough to attract attention that sticks. Like everything in life, it's all about finding the balance.

More about comparing advertising to yoga later.

The Sociability of Not Being Social

2009-03-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting article in AdAge from March 6, by Ian Spalter, the creative director for mobile and emerging platforms at R/GA.

First off, let me start by saying that I've had many discussions with people about the increasingly computerized, less personally social path that more advanced forms of technology are leading us towards. With the advancement of the Internet, the increasing amount of social networking sites, social videogames, instant messengers, etc., people have less and less of a need to be social in person. Already, we've graduated from calling potential employers to ask about job or internship opportunities to e-mailing them, and I think we can all agree that e-mail is less personal, if more convenient. And while all these forms of communication are incredibly easy, convenient, and helpful to people who want to stay in touch, we nevertheless have to keep in mind the old proverb, "easy come, easy go."

The article discussed the ways in which social media is increasing, and the fact that it is headed towards becoming available in almost every aspect of our lives. Looking for a new digital camera? Just go online and look at all the recommendations from your friends. Made a bet about the outcome of that football game? The second it is decided, a message pops up from your friend saying you owe him $50. From an advertising perspective, this growth of social media provides a whole new opportunity for brand expansion and community. Companies will no longer have to create their own online communities; instead, merely set up a forum, or have key people do it for you, and you've got a whole nest of people who love your brand right there. In the future, it will become so easy for companies to set up discussions about their products, to find ways to make them better, more efficient, more appealing to everyone remotely interested in them. This phenomenon will make communicating with others, even people you don't know, so much more available to everyone. Who knows, maybe it will even help people make more friends. A whole new world of bonding over brands that only some companies today (like Harley Davidson and Saturn) have begun to realize.

This will be amazing for advertising. It will open up so many new opportunities, and may even be cheaper and more efficient for clients and agencies alike. Advertising will become more digitalized, and even traditional advertisements like TV and print will have links you can click on with your remote control, or a link to a website with the same print ad that has an animated flash version of it. There will be more advertainment rather than just advertising. Companies will have access to social research that they will not even have to do themselves. Social networking sites already have databases available for businesses to tap into in order to define strategic approaches to marketing their products, and already it's working for them in unprecendented ways.

As Mr. Spalter warns in his article though, companies should not be quick to delve into the realm of social networking in places such as Twitter and Facebook. Instead, they should strategically identify the ways in which they want to reach consumers, and make sure they have the capacity - on websites such as Twitter - to reach individuals and accommodate those needs. Products and brands marketed in this way need the same care, attention, and insight that are prevalent in traditional campaigns, for this networking will soon become the "traditional" form of campaigning. How can it not, at the rate with which it is progressing?

But what's the trade-off?
With the advent of multiple ways of social networking, will we forget how to truly be social? With everyone becoming so busy that they don't have time in their days for person-to-person socializing, will talking over the computer become the standard way to maintain friendships? Will it even become the main way to make friendships? Now that we have the option to put ourselves in several different places at once, all while remaining at home, will we start to take that for granted? Is there a way that advertising can help to maintain or even enhance person-to-person relationships while gaining their presence on the social networking sphere?

These questions and more are all things that must be considered when thinking about the progress of social networking. It provides an amazing opportunity, but just like anything else, can have a dark side.

And, of course, I say all this in my social-networking blog while I could be out meeting people at the beach...or on Facebook. Deep down, we're all consumers, aren't we?

Too Cool for School, but Not Really.

2009-03-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

So the other day one of my professors mentioned http://www.absolutads.com/.
Some 100 of them are now saved on my computer waiting for me to make them into a background for my wallpaper.
Yes, they are that cool.

Since I'm still trying to figure out an organized theme to write about continuously in this blog, I think for today I'm going to write about a cool current event in advertising that I just read about off of AdAge's Twitter/Website. Maybe I'll have a cool current event of the day and then talk about whatever else is going on in the advertising part of my life. I think that sounds good.

So Honda just launched this campaign called "Rhymes & Reasons" for the Accord, since their sales the past few months have been absolutely dismal (along with most other companies, I would assume. Oh economic crisis, how we wish you would abate...). They signed an underground, not-really-heard-of-by-the-mainstream hip-hop artist named Mickey Factz, a 30 year-old man who works a day job as a paralegal in New York. The campaign features a 30-second spot that leads viewers to a microsite on which Mickey has an episode of his online show, "Rhymes & Reasons," along with a blog, music, videos, and information about the Accord. The campaign mostly preaches spending wisely, and Mickey's raps and advice center around how to spend less and save more in this economy. He handles problems from callers whose money woes leave them with seemingly no alternatives; however, with Mickey's advice, these alternatives seem almost obvious. For example, instead of spending money on taking your girlfriend to the movies (where you can't even talk to each other), why not go for a walk in a nice park? Cheap, and maybe even more fun.

It's interesting that Honda is trying to bring back the hip-hop fad that is losing its luster in today's world of jaded teenagers, but Mickey's down-to-earth, educated style might actually be a hook for some teens who need money-saving solutions just like the rest of us, without having to ask their parents for that extra $20. It seems like Honda is genuinely interested in helping people overcome this woeful economy rather than just promoting its own products, though tying the two in together certainly couldn't hurt them. Since the Accord embodies all the aspects that Mickey asserts (a smart, cheaper, more sensible alternative than something large, flashy, and expensive), the campaign fits well together, and hopefully it will work for this company that's trying to help both itself and others in these times.

Granted, I'm a little biased because of the fact that I own a [lovely red amazing] Honda Civic myself, but a smart campaign is a smart campaign. http://rhymesandreasons.honda.com/

Now, as promised, here are the 6 creative concepts I presented in class the other day for one of my possible campaigns. My product this time was the New York Philharmonic (couldn't really resist, being a cellist and all).
1. Have pictures made out of or with parts of orchestra instruments. For example, an ad where the Statue of Liberty is playing the violin, the Coke ad in Times Square is held up by a bassoon and a trombone, or the subways are actually flutes.
2. Have sort of a nondescript background with headlines as the main event depicting an interesting historical fact about the times in which pieces were composed, or an interesting reason as to why pieces were composed. For example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in A minor was written during World War II as a requiem for the end of civilization. Why wouldn't you want to see/hear that? (Plus, it's absolutely breathtaking and moving.)
3. Have the same type of look as the ads in 2, but instead of facts, have quotes from poetry depicting music. For example, Act V of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is one of the most prevalent examples of music in poetry ever.
4. Life without music. Just imagine it. It would be life without sound. For TV spots, the plan would be obvious- silent commercials with people looking bewildered and sad, along with trying to play instruments that don't have any sound, etc. For print, have pictures of instruments with no players, players with no instruments, something that is obviously musical with a headline of "Imagine this in silence." or something like that. The goal is to make people appreciate music and want to hear more of it, and hence buy a ticket to the New York Philharmonic.
5. This one was just silly: have a big picture of a person that you would or would not want to go to an orchestra concert or opera with. For example, you could have Average Joe Sixpack on a page with "Places you wouldn't go with him: to the orchestra concert," or Queen Elizabeth with "Want to meet her? We know where she'll be."
6. Along the same general lines as numbers 2 and 3. Have a picture of a composer (cropped interestingly, of course) with a headline or some copy describing an interesting fact about them or snippet from their lives. For example, Tchaikovsky always held his head on with his right hand while conducting with his left whenever he conducted concerts because he was genuinely afraid that it would fall off (yes, Tchaikovsky was slightly crazy, but he was also an incredible genius when it came to music).

See you tomorrow, kids. :)

Six Flags

2009-03-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned yet that I'm taking a class this semester called Advertising Copy and Visualization?
Basically what we do in this class is learn about creativity and all its lovely aspects (including design, type, copywriting, etc.) and then make ads. We have a "fun" product which we pick to do several one-shot ads, and then have to pick three separate products to do full-out campaigns for. Here's what I have so far.

My "fun" product this semester was Six Flags. I figured it would be fun to pick an amusement park that was not Disney specifically for the reason that it was NOT Disney. In my creative brief, I cited this fact as the main concept off of which my campaign (if I did one) for this product would be constructed. Sadly, since I'm not doing a campaign for this product, my idea of having Mickey Mouse riding all the Six Flags rides because even he is sick of Disney (because he's been there so many times, obviously), will never come to fruition. However, I do have a couple ads that are kind of fun, though they don't necessarily go off of this campaign.

For our first ad, we had to do a fact-based, two-fer, or demonstration ad. I chose fact-based.
Background picture of a roller coaster going upside down.
Headline (inverted on the page): Increase the blood flow to your head.
Body copy going up the loop of the roller coaster: Studies have shown that inversion helps you breathe and reduces stress. We'll make you one of the most stress-free, breath-supported people on the planet.
Six Flags logo in the bottom right-hand corner.

Our second ad had to be a reversal or metaphor ad, but I'll add that one when I get it back from my teacher, so I can correctly type the body copy.

Since I'm so interested in planning, however, let me tell you a little bit about my target audience for Six Flags.

These are teenagers between the ages of 12 and 20 who spend lots of time with their friends, and are independent enough to take road trips, either in large groups with their parents, on school trips, or just by themlesves once they are old enough to drive. They are sick of the monotony of the Disney parks, which they've been to with their families more times than they can count. They're looking for a theme park experience that gives them thrills rather than the "frills" of the Disney parks.
They get along with their parents, and live either with them or at school; however, they aspire, like any teenager, not to be like them, and as such are more apt to "rebel." They like trying new things and having new experiences that may not be the most wholesome, but neverthleess give them the opportunity to enjoy something ithout supervision. They hate being told what to do, and in school they hang in the hallways between classses, having left class just a tad early or arrived a little late.
They like going to the mall and to the movies with their friends, and believe in their own individuality and right to texpress themselves however they see fit.

This conception of my target market was, due to time constraints on the creative briefs, not brought about by research; instead, I got it from the Six Flags website (mostly the thrill section, since that's what I'm catering most of the ads towards), and the work that I did on this park when I interned at Zimmerman and Partners in the summer of 2007.

However, unlike Zimmerman, who thought that Six Flags should be branded on the fact that it is cheap and thrilling, I thought Six Flags should be rebranded on the same level as other theme parks including Walt Disney World, but as almost completely their opposite. Whereas Walt Disney World provides family-fun, lighthearted atmospheres for a premium price, Six Flags is not for the faint of heart. The parks provide high-thrill, high-impact rides and adventures that will give anyone who wants it the opportunity to scream. This is not mere family fun.

Therefore, my key concept is that Six flags is the anti-Orlando theme park, aimed for thrills and adventure rather than magic and lightheartedness.

Hopefully that wasn't too repetitive, but it makes me happy.
More about my creative concepts for the New York Philharmonic and Lindt Truffles later.

Day 1 of 21

2009-03-02T12:41:00.000-08:00

I am now 21 years old, as of yesterday night. When did that happen?

Last week, I took a trip to Chicago with UF's AD Society. We went to Leo Burnett's Mosaic Career Fair, got inspired by Leo's EVP of Human Resources and Global Innovation Manager (a woman of maybe 30 years who went to both Harvard undergrad and Harvard Business School for her MBA, worked in Italy for four years just because she felt like it, and became Leo Burnett's regional manager for all countries in the general vicinity of Italy. After coming back to the United States, she got her MBA, worked in investment banking for a while, and then became Leo's manager of Global Innovation for the entire world, making us all feel completely underaccomplished), met lots of employers for internships, and learned about the future of advertising.

It's so fascinating. Companies now are not only doing traditional media forms of advertising- television, radio, magazine/print, etc- but are expanding into a whole new realm of interactivity. On the website for the Sony Bravia (yes, I know I'm obsessed), there's a section of the website where you can click to literally change the color of a building in Tokyo for a certain amount of time. The site attracts lots of consumers because of its novelty. Leo Burnett did an ad campagin for McDonald's breakfasts in which instead of having the golden arches on a pole for everyone to see, they put an egg that opened and closed depending on the time of day. An open egg signified breakfast time, whereas a closed egg signified that it was past breakfast.

Digitas did a digital campaign (who knew, with a name like that) for KitchenAid where they redesigned the website from a vertical, static format to a horizontal, flash one. The products flashed across the screen, and upon clicking on one of them, the consumer was directed to a page where hotspots for the products had special links that one could click on to learn more about that aspect of the product.

The future of advertising is completely nontraditional. Now, it takes more than creativity to reach consumers because of their insensitivity to traditional forms due to all the clutter. It takes adaptability. It takes knowing that new form of technology that may not even be available to the general public yet. It takes a completely out-of-the-box theory of perception.

I won't let you go so long without hearing from me again.

The Theory of Relativity

2009-01-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

Last night, I began reading this book called Predictable Irrationality by Dan Ariely. The subtitle reads, "The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions."
Using research, observations, and an interesting view of looking at the world, Ariely has uncovered several insights into what makes humans tick - that is, why we do things the way that we do, from choosing a romantic partner to buying products that are advertised to us. As one might guess, he finds that people overall make decisions irrationally, though they may not know it. However, not only do we make those decisions irrationally, but we also make them in a predictable pattern as such.
The first chapter of his book deals with decision making in the context of relative objects. He asserts that people are more likely to buy a product if they have something similar yet inferior to compare it to. For example, say you're deciding between taking a trip to Rome or Paris, but your travel agent gives you these three options:

Rome for 7 days with free breakfast included
Rome for 7 days with no free breakfast
Paris for 7 days with free breakfast included

Which one are you more likely to pick? Ariely states that most people, as seen from his findings in this experiement, would pick the Rome including the free breakfast. In this case, then, and most similar cases, the travel agent uses the Rome with no breakfast as a decoy option to get you to pick Rome, because Rome with free breakfast looks better by comparison. Since Paris is a completely different object, it doesn't fit into the comparison sphere and you'd almost automaticaly push it to the sidelines.
So the long and short of this story is: most of the time, people fall for decoys. If you want to introduce a new product to the market, introduce that, along with a similar but more expensive one. Though people may not buy the more expensive one, your product will start to sell because they'll have something else to compare it to. People don't like making decisions (especially purchasing decisions) in a vacuum. Give them something to think about and they may play right into your hands.

I can't wait to see what else this book has in store.

This Is Called Having Too Much Time On Your Hands

2008-12-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

New obsession:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykW4rtW2eu0

I'm such a dork.
It's funny how songs just automatically remind you of people sometimes, don't you think? Automatic associations, and sometimes you can't even tell why certain things remind you of certain people. For example, Go Girl by Pitbull reminds me of one of my best guy friends; however, while it is about the fact that Pitbull is a complete pimp, that has almost nothing to do with my friend. He does not party like a rock star, look like a movie star, play like an all star, or do anything remotely like a porn star (not that I would know, but still). But the song is inexorably linked, and I get a smile on my face every time I hear about Pitbull's escapades with Trina.

Since we're on the topic of obsessions, and I have time (hence the title of the post), here are my favorite three ads of all time:

Sony Bravia- Bouncy Balls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bb8P7dfjVw

Sony Bravia- Paint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GURvHJNmGrc&feature=related

American Express- Kate Winslet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1zJk0Mx-n4

They are all mysterious; they are all colorful, with beautiful cinematography and genius concepts. The most amazing thing about advertising is that the best campaigns are based off of completely obvious and yet wonderfully profound insights into the psyche of the mass population. They're so obvious, yet so moving.
I want to learn how these insights are found. I want to be able to discover them for myself and put together the team that comes up with these award-winning ideas. I want to be able to take the most denied aspects of ourselves and turn them into something beautiful, meaningful, and most of all, productive.

Mini Cooper: Such a small car, so make everything around it bigger. What a concept.
Dove: There's so much stereotyping as to how women should look these days that even adolescent girls are becoming affected. Why not tell them that they're beautiful just the way they are? After all, that's the most true essence of this superficial society in which we live.
Sony Bravia: With a television that has the capacity to show color like no other, why not make things as colorful as possible? Inundate the world with color, to show how amazing it can really be.
American Express: For all of life's experiences, no matter how crazy your own is. Live it to the fullest, and do it with the right card.

Have I mentioned I'm in love with advertising? I feel like we're going to be very happy together. It's the start of a beautiful relationship.

Ads Number 1

2008-12-27T21:02:00.000-08:00

The first of many.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBN4roSRwg

The link is worth it, I promise. The concept of leaping into bubbles of music is so cool, at least to me, for more than one reason. It's so true. Just imagine listening to your iPod, CD, anything with headphones attached...it's like slipping into a bubble, isn't it? It's your world of music, your experience, your time. No one can intrude on it, and it's something that is completely in your control.
Love the music, love the photography, love the ad. Kudos to whoever does Rhapsody's advertising. More awesome (at least in my opinion) ads later.

An Introduction

2008-12-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is extremely exciting.
As this is my first blog post ever, allow me to introduce myself. I am a student at the University of Florida, a junior majoring in Advertising and English and minoring in Business. I have a huge obsession with advertising in general, and think that the theory behind the aesthetics of English (and writing overall) is beyond fascinating. I play the cello and the trombone, and I'm currently a member of the University of Florida marching band, about to go play in the BCS National Championship title game, where the Florida Gators will be playing the Oklahoma Sooners. Have I mentioned that I'm excited?
Our band director also told us that there was a "very good chance" we'd be playing in the Superbowl, as we just recently got invited. Wow, did I pick a good year to join band.
I love yoga, chocolate, Phantom of the Opera, school, New York, books, music, and life in general, to name a few things.
But, as I am now sitting here with my wonderful friend who helped me create this, I should probably go. Nice to meet you, and I'll talk to you soon. :)