Reading the rest of this weeks Campaign, I came across another interesting article:
"You really know that Christmas is approaching when every ad break seems to be full of images of windswept models joyously running through sand dunes before launching themselves into a passionate clinch. Yes, it's the return of the perfume ads. Not only are they the same as last year, they're the same as each other- and so hardly liekly to make anyone pick one scent over another. Please if you must blanket-book ad slots for the entire festive season, can we have something that is a bit more engaging next year?"
I think a very good point has been made here. As aspiring ad creatives would it be a good idea to do a fragrance brief, with a different approach to the norm for our portfolio?? I think it would definately be worth considering, and would hopefully stretch our problem solving abilities as I imagine it must be quite hard to try and sell something as intangible as a smell, although I do realise that it is the "lifestyle" of the brand rather than the smell itself which is usually the concept, as a way of tackling this difficulty I guess, though can it be approached in a different way? As an eager, open minded student, I think yes!!!! (maybe naively?!!) bring on the challenge!
And although I agree with the article, that yes fragrance ads can be a bit monotonous, I believe that there must be some justification to the constant use of beautiful models etc, else why would this approach continue to be taken?
I myself am a prime example, along with many other women, who have been affected by such an advert, I am quite ashamed to admit. In this particular ad, a man gets out of bed naked, and only puts on his Lacoste Pour Homme and sits in a chair and waits for his partner to come home. Not much of a concept, I know, but hey, lets face it, sex sells, not always but in this case, to me it certainly did!
Wow! And I have never forgot this ad from the first day I saw it which just shows that not very often, but sometimes there are exceptions to the rule where it seems ok to throw any kind of concept out the window and just get a bloody gorgeous man with a rather nice bottom and have him walk around naked and drink a cup of tea!
Would it make me buy this product? I don't think this man and his lovely bottom would make me run out to the nearest shop and buy it in the hope that my boyfirend when wearing it may magically transform into the very same man, because the thing with fragrance is the ads can draw in as many people as they want, but at the end of the day its the smell that counts, and people will nearly always smell before buying! (I speak as a former fragrance sales gal!)
But would it make me remember Lacoste the brand, and that particular product? and be much more likely to pick it up and have a whiff? Yes it would!
Nikki
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Combs
Sorry about the picture quality but i thought i would support the third year advertisers. They have to raise 3,000 to exhibit at the new blood exhibition. So every two weeks they are hosting an event called the Salon with Dj's called Hair by Rodderick. And the tickets are combs, a different one each week. Jolly good idea and proven very popular! EEps next year that will be us!
Emily
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Campaign for breakfast
This morning whilst consuming my ever so nutricious all-bran I found a very interesting piece in Campaign. Its from Rory Sutherland's blog,
"Are Brands Eco-Friendly?: I have suddenly conceived the insane notion that brands are good for the environment.
Brands are, after all, gloriously intangible. You can build a brand without killing trees, and few precious raw materials are needed in their creation. I might go further.
The value of any branded item often decays far more slowly than the value of unbranded equivalent. Those Chanel sunglasses you buy today will still fetch a fair price on eBay in 20 years' time, while their cheaper unbranded equivalents have been clogging up a landfill for a decade.
Yet, such is my lack of confidence in the environmental benefit of brands, I can't really believe my own argument. It can't be true,can it?"
Good question! and great notion! I shall use it next time some advertising hater throws me the typical spiel, on how advertising is the pimp for the prostitue known as commercialism (So brilliantly worded by my lecturer Rob Bowdery)So thanks Rory! Heard good words about the man whilst visiting Ogilvy and now I think I like him even more!
Following up my blog the other day, concerning the new Oxfam Unwrapped campaign, I read an interesting article on this too, also in Campaign. Adrian Holmes, executive creative director of Y&R Europe says the fundraising idea is "commendable enough" and "Hats off to the various celebs for mucking in" but then goes on to say, "...but I'm a bit perturbed by the slightly jokey tone of voice of the spot:it starts off as a parody of a typical charity ad, and can't quite wipe the smile off its face from then on" He concludes by saying, "Yes, it's fun and all that, but I do hope the credibility of the whole enterprise isn't undermined as a result."
Even though I said I love the ad, and still do, as i truly feel this satirical slant really grabs the audience's attention, I feel Adrain has made a very good point here, one I had not considered before. Whether or not he is correct I am undecided, but it did make me wonder about any possible negative outcomes. For examply next time a serious Oxfam ad comes on, will i start thinking of a flapping fish and of fluffy pigs and dung, and begin to smirk uncontrollably?!!(which would be very bad timing!) or will i simply make no connection between the two, and leave the spoof in the far away distance of my christmas memories?! Only time will tell!
Nikki
"Are Brands Eco-Friendly?: I have suddenly conceived the insane notion that brands are good for the environment.
Brands are, after all, gloriously intangible. You can build a brand without killing trees, and few precious raw materials are needed in their creation. I might go further.
The value of any branded item often decays far more slowly than the value of unbranded equivalent. Those Chanel sunglasses you buy today will still fetch a fair price on eBay in 20 years' time, while their cheaper unbranded equivalents have been clogging up a landfill for a decade.
Yet, such is my lack of confidence in the environmental benefit of brands, I can't really believe my own argument. It can't be true,can it?"
Good question! and great notion! I shall use it next time some advertising hater throws me the typical spiel, on how advertising is the pimp for the prostitue known as commercialism (So brilliantly worded by my lecturer Rob Bowdery)So thanks Rory! Heard good words about the man whilst visiting Ogilvy and now I think I like him even more!
Following up my blog the other day, concerning the new Oxfam Unwrapped campaign, I read an interesting article on this too, also in Campaign. Adrian Holmes, executive creative director of Y&R Europe says the fundraising idea is "commendable enough" and "Hats off to the various celebs for mucking in" but then goes on to say, "...but I'm a bit perturbed by the slightly jokey tone of voice of the spot:it starts off as a parody of a typical charity ad, and can't quite wipe the smile off its face from then on" He concludes by saying, "Yes, it's fun and all that, but I do hope the credibility of the whole enterprise isn't undermined as a result."
Even though I said I love the ad, and still do, as i truly feel this satirical slant really grabs the audience's attention, I feel Adrain has made a very good point here, one I had not considered before. Whether or not he is correct I am undecided, but it did make me wonder about any possible negative outcomes. For examply next time a serious Oxfam ad comes on, will i start thinking of a flapping fish and of fluffy pigs and dung, and begin to smirk uncontrollably?!!(which would be very bad timing!) or will i simply make no connection between the two, and leave the spoof in the far away distance of my christmas memories?! Only time will tell!
Nikki
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Bruce Mau's incomplete manifesto for Growth
A little list i was handed from a graphic folk- i really like some of his points to help you creativly grow and be inspired!
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
Emily
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
Emily
Monday, November 26, 2007
Oxfam unwrapped-far from disapointing!
Well...Christmas is upon us and so are the crimbo commercials! One that really stood out to me, was the Oxfam Unwrapped commercial:
As it stands I don't yet know what anybody else thinks about it, but I absolutely love it!!!
Its said to be the first-of-its-kind spoof charity TV advertisement for Oxfam Unwrapped, and to me this really shows, as I haven't seen a spoof charity advert before,and if i have it obviously hasn't left an impression on me, whereas this one certainly did.
Creatives Jonathan Burley and Jim Bolton from the agency Leo Burnett, have successfully turned the traditional charity advertisement on its head! However, my only discontent was the inclusion of Helena Bonham-Carter laughing at the end, which I felt kind of spoiled the illusion of the satire a little, however,still a really good ad that grabbed my attention, as did the billboard posters (images taken by iconic photographer Rankin)
Nikki
As it stands I don't yet know what anybody else thinks about it, but I absolutely love it!!!
Its said to be the first-of-its-kind spoof charity TV advertisement for Oxfam Unwrapped, and to me this really shows, as I haven't seen a spoof charity advert before,and if i have it obviously hasn't left an impression on me, whereas this one certainly did.
Creatives Jonathan Burley and Jim Bolton from the agency Leo Burnett, have successfully turned the traditional charity advertisement on its head! However, my only discontent was the inclusion of Helena Bonham-Carter laughing at the end, which I felt kind of spoiled the illusion of the satire a little, however,still a really good ad that grabbed my attention, as did the billboard posters (images taken by iconic photographer Rankin)
Nikki
Sunday, November 25, 2007
A follow on.....
Advertising Agency: Y&R Asia, Singapor
Browsing through You Tube today and found another execution for Sony Bravia. Its similar to fallon's work with the same theme of bursting rich virbrant colours. I love the shots used to really get some pace and energy in the ad. personally i prefer it to Playdoh ad. Have a gander:
Emily
Advertising Agency: Y&R Asia, Singapor
Browsing through You Tube today and found another execution for Sony Bravia. Its similar to fallon's work with the same theme of bursting rich virbrant colours. I love the shots used to really get some pace and energy in the ad. personally i prefer it to Playdoh ad. Have a gander:
Emily
Friday, November 23, 2007
knitted hats!
Once again a very clever yet simple idea grabbed my attention and screamed buy me!! Innocent drink's new wolly hats each hand knitted on top of the smoothie bottles also raise money for help the aged to help keep grannies warm! Its all so cute and addorable but also an ingenius idea and fit perfectly on top of your mobile after youve finished your drink. nice!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)