EOC Week 11: Final Evaluation

I’ve developed a lot of experience working within the classroom. I learned how it feels to be an ad agency coming up with a campaign for a product. I’ve worked alone on multiple projects so I can see the struggles most agencies have when they’re working within a group.

The instructor was a well educated one. He knew his stuff and knew how to teach the class so we all could understand it. Truthfully, some of the work was a little challenging but that’s what we have to face when marketing ourselves or certain products. I also like the fact how he gave us hands-on experience with advertising. He made us research other successful ads and study them so we could see how a successful ad campaign is compiled together. I enjoy being a student of his and I seek to learn from him some more as my life moves forward.

The projects that were given were a little tough but manageable. Once again, it teaches us how the industry functions and we have to learn how to maneuver our way around it. Not everything in life is going to be watered down and handed to us; sometimes we have to put in some work. After doing our studies of other successful ad campaigns, the instructor put our knowledge to the test. We had to apply what we learned to develop a successful ad campaign. I really enjoyed doing this project because it brought out my inner-most creativity. I was determined to make a really successful ad campaign and that’s what I did! I applied all that I’ve learned to this project and finished it off nicely.

Overall, this course was very beneficial and I recommend this course to anybody seeking knowledge in advertising. There’s so much to learn and you can never get enough of it. You won’t be able to look at ads the same way again. I’ve learned so much throughout this course and I’m ready to take my knowledge to the next level. I feel I deserved an A for the course.

EOC Week 10: Art Serving Capitalism

Art serves capitalism in many ways. People walk by many paintings in malls, antique stores, yard/garage sell, etc. If you haven’t noticed, only certain paintings, drawings, or designs stop people in their tracks so they can get a better view. The visual beauty of art appeals to the viewer causing them to prolong their presence of the artwork. The above advertisement clearly shows beautiful art. The colors harmonize together wonderfully as well as giving the viewer an emotional stronghold. The color red stands out the most out of any color so by making the iPod red, it stops the viewer in their tracks (i.e. a stop sign and a red light). The background of the ad is blue, which helps bring out the color of the iPod more. The headphones are white, as well as the music notes, to sort of give a breaking between the two contrasted colors.

How does the art in this ad serve capitalism? The text of the ad is stronger than the visual itself. “Feel the Sound” is what sells the product. The ad is saying that when you have an iPod, not only are you hearing the music and sounds, but you can have an emotional connection with them by feeling the music and sounds. Feeling and hearing music are two separate things. Anyone can hear music but to feel music requires an emotional connection with the listener. Once they established an emotional connection between their product and the consumer, they succeeded in selling. The art of the advertisement is what sold the product, as well as the emotional connection. The beauty of the art was incorporated within the design. The design stopped the viewer. The art of the design and the design itself established an emotional connection between the ad and the viewer, causing the product to sell.

EOC Week 9: Triplets

Evian water isn’t your average purified drinking water. They support their product’s difference by using the slogan “Live Young.” The refreshment of Evian water fills you with so much energy to where you want to jump around and go wild, basically become a young kid again. The ad campaign above displays this message very clearly. In one ad, they have a female model around the age of twenty holding a bottle of Evian water. In the other ad, they have a male model around the age of twenty three holding a bottle of Evian water as well. As clearly as it shows, both models have a t-shirt with a baby’s body on the front of it, which symbolizes that Evian water brings the energy and joy out of them; making them feel like a kid again. There’s different variety of these ads with all sorts of ethnicities, but they all display the same message. Each ad has a male or female holding a bottle of Evian water with the body of the baby of their t-shirt. If you ask me, the creator of this ad is brilliant because he/she structured each advertisement the same and conveyed the same message, differently.

EOC Week 8: Really Good Example of Chapter 8

This Crystal Cruise campaign is phenomenally designed. The ad is a full page advertisement so the fact that the background is dark blue, almost black, draws attention to it. The ad stops the viewer in his/her tracks. The contrast between the splash and the background draws the attention to the correct spot, which is the logo of the cruise line. The splash coming out of the bottle forms the logo of the cruise line. “Using the product as the main visual usually puts the potential consumer on alert.” (Advertising by Design, page 143). The viewer identifies the logo within the splash and immediately knows what he/she is looking at. Another thing with the splash is that it looks so realistic to where it makes the viewer thirsty. Here, Crystal Cruises made an emotional connection with the audience so they accomplished success.

The fact of how the splash and the cruise line is corresponds was well done as well. The purpose of taking a cruise is to get away from reality and feel relaxed and refreshed. Who would want to go on a cruise and get stressed about everything? The Crystal Cruise campaign took the feel of being on a cruise and utilized it within the advertisement. The splash coming out of the bottle looks refreshes and relaxes the viewer; giving him/her the same vibe they would get if being on one of their cruises. Again, the Crystal Cruise advertisement established an emotional connection with their audience. In order to make an emotional connection, you must “know your audience” (Advertising by Design, page 142). You must know how your audience feels, what your audience is looking for, etc.

In conclusion, this ad was a very successful campaign. They know exactly who their target audience is and established the emotional connection with them. The campaign’s concept of design was utilized very well. All the basics of design (harmonization, focal point, unity, etc.) were used in this campaign and made this ad successful.

EOC Week 8: Authority

“Make sure text fonts are easy to read” - Denise M. Anderson (Advertising by Design, pg 163)

This quote inspired me to use a basic font for my advertisement. I’m going to be advertising a Smirnoff Vodka bottle and it’s going to be video based. There’s only going to be one line of text so I have to make sure the font is easy to read or I’m going to lose the consumers. The text is going to say “Ay, don’t blame me.” The text of the commercial is what’s going to draw the customer in. The consumer isn’t going to understand what I’m trying to sell only by looking at the visual part of the commercial. As soon as the text appears on the screen, the audience is going to laugh and have that connection between what I’m selling and the visual. In conclusion, it’s very important that I make the text on the commercial easy to read so I can connect the consumer with the visual to persuade them to buy the beverage. I figure a pretty plain text, such as a bold face Arial or Arial Black font, should do the right job for the project.

EOC Week 7: Exciting Ad

When working with visual advertisement, you have various design principles you have to conquer. You have to make sure you define a focal point, have correct balance, guide the human eye, harmonize the colors, etc. The above ad is successful because it utilizes basic design principles to make them all work together wonderfully.

The Nike ad defines its unity by their use of elements. The ad appears to be very grungy, dark, and poor. When the word “poor” is said, majority of people think of the ghetto or an overall community with low income. The media made African citizens look poor and dirty; mainly because of the commercials for adopting poor children, movies, images, the fact that Africa has the highest percentage of AIDS consumers, etc. Nike made a grungy, poor, emotional setting for the ad and unified a young African boy to go with it. The colors of the ad harmonize with the setting because red symbolizes pain while black symbolizes darkness. The unification of the colors, emotional setting, and the African boy work well together.

As well as unity, the ad shows great balance. Even though there’s a human and a dog on the left side of the image and text on the right side, the ad is still balanced. There are five elements within the ad that corresponds to each other to help balance the advertisement: the African boy, the dog, the Nike symbol, the Nike’s slogan, and the perspective of the shot. The way Nike worked the five elements are phenomenal. They utilize perspective to make the African boy and dog appear smaller than usual because it’s further from the camera. By the African boy and dog being smaller, they made the Nike symbol and slogan fairly big to balance the shot between the boy and the original empty space on the right side of the image. By doing so, it completes the perspective because anything closer to the camera is bigger than what is further from the camera.

Nike did a great job with their usage of visual hierarchy. The viewer doesn’t have to ask themselves various questions about the ad. Incorporating the slogan with the image was visually a master piece. They have an African boy urinating on the wall and not caring at all. The slogan “just do it” is pretty self explanatory. Nike is basically saying to not worry about anything, just do it.

Lastly, the composition of the ad is very well done. The African boy was the focal point of the shot but to take your eyes away from one side of the ad, the designer made the Nike sign red and fairly big. The color red stands out the most out of any color. Your eyes are automatically drawn the boy, then you see a red Nike symbol which shifts your eyes to the right, and the slogan is in black because black text on a light background (or vice versa) causes a pretty big contrast. Once your eyes drift from the boy to the Nike sign, then the next destination for your eyes will be the slogan. By utilizing the boy, symbol and the slogan, they displayed good composition and made the sell.

EOC Final Project: First Thought

I’ve thought about doing a Trojan Condom advertisement. I was thinking about making a video that displays the importance of staying protected when having sexual encounters. I’ve sort of have a slogan already that I can use but it’s pretty basic. The slogan was going to be “Stay Protected.” I’m going to have to do some research and see if that slogan has been taken already. For the video, I was thinking about having various shots of males, and females, saying “I’m protected” then I appear at the end saying “I’m protected…are you?” then the slogan and the Trojan brand logo appears at the end before it shuts off.

EOC Week 6: Make 'Em Laugh

I found this commercial hilarious! I've chose this commercial because I liked how they advertised the product (Doritos). By making the little boy the "man of the house", they threw the viewers off course because it was totally unexpected. The little boy slapped the boyfriend and told him to keep his hands off of his mom. The ad was a success as soon as he said "and my Doritos." The message they delivered was to show how good Doritos are. Doritos were so good that it made the little boy protect his chips like he protected his mom. Not to mention the way the little boy looked at the boyfriend at the end to show how serious of a person he was. I believe the funniest part of the video was when the little boy slapped him. When you were first watching the video, the slap was totally uncalled for. You see a guy walking into the household and brought the lady flowers. Once she walks away to put the flowers in a vase, the boyfriend looks at her butt and gets excited about dating her. What does any boyfriend do when they see their girlfriend’s son or daughter? They try to connect and associate with them. The boyfriend tries to connect with the little boy by talking about a game then out of nowhere, he gets slapped. The way the slap sounded, the way the boyfriend looked, and the fact that it was a kid slapping a grown man, made this commercial a total success. They caught the viewers’ attention from the start by making it a current situation but they increased their attention once the slap was made. The emotional connection it made with me makes me want a bag of Doritos

EOC Week 6: Jerry Metellus

Having Jerry Metellus as a guest speaker was very beneficial! His time spent speaking to the class was far from wasted. There are many things I've learned listening to Jerry speak:

1. Everything you do in life is a lesson learned to help you succeed in the future. All your past experiences are learning experiences. If you start off working at a shoe store as a sales associate then you learned customer service, increased your people skills, how to speak in an appropriate manner as well as correct grammar. Once certain experiences are learned, you are then able to apply them to help benefit you for the future.

2. If you can't reach an audience emotionally then you won't sell. In order to successfully sell, a product or you, then you must have some sort of an attachment to the consumer. If you weren't too satisfied with the color blue and someone tried to sell you a blue car, then you probably won't buy the car. There's nothing about the product that emotionally attaches you for you to empty your pockets.

3. In the marketing world, make sure you do your research. There are many successful businesses but they didn't become successful off "luck." You must know your stuff and research. Where are the best places to market your business? Where is the highest population of your specific type of audience? Who are you trying to reach out to? All these things are incorporated when trying to market yourself, a campaign, a product, etc.

EOC Week 5: Ad Categories

The two ads above coordinate with each other. They are declarative ads because they are declaring how strong and how fast the vehicle is. They quote "It's better than technology. It's instinct."The above ad is a Red Bull advertisement. This is a fantasy ad because it gives us a personal fantasy of flying once we drink red bull. We get to enjoy our fantasy of having wings!

The above ad is for McDonalds. This is a good example of a recognition advertisement because even if I didn't say, "the above ad is for McDonalds"; you would still recognize the company just by looking at the color of the billboard and the golden arches on the McDonalds symbol (M).

EOC Week 4: Bob Isherwood, Why is he important?

Bob Isherwood was the creative director for the Saatachi & Saatachi Company. Bob knew how to work the creative side to advertising. At the time, advertisements were leaving the information era and entering the creative era. Not only did Bob sell products, but he also made emotional connections with the clients. “He believes passionately in the power of ideas to change the world and, appropriately, serves as the driving force behind the Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas.” (http://www.saatchi.com/news/archive/clio_lifetime_achievement_award_for_bob_isherwood).

Bob battled the fight between relevancy and irrelevancy and constantly won. He believed that you needed good ideas to cut through the risk of advertising to make your ads relevant. Bob Isherwood says “The risk for clients isn’t being noticed. The Risk is in being irrelevant and invisible. Everyone’s fighting for attention, media owners and your competitors alike. This is an attention economy, and you need striking ideas to cut through.” (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 87).

Bob’s bright ideas for advertising brought him tons of recognition. Isherwood knew how to penetrate the consumers strictly from creativity. Bob figured he didn’t need many words to lure a client in; just a brilliant idea. Bob worked strictly from ideas and because of that, he denounced Saatachi & Saatachi from being advertisers. “…we’ve taken advertising out of our name; our focus is on building an ideas company. We see our role as transforming our clients’ brands, business, or reputation through highly valued ideas, and those may not be traditional advertising.” (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 87).

In November 2008, Bob Isherwood resigned from Saatachi & Saatachi. After bringing life into the Saatachi & Saatachi Company, he wanted to live a different life within his lifetime.

EOC Week 3: Tobacco Advertisement

Interpret the problem: The ad is effective because Camel cigarettes are trying to correlate power and high-classiness with their cigarettes. They mentioned a president’s name, which is Franklin Roosevelt. America views a president as having the highest power because he’s in control of the nation. If the president smokes a specific brand of cigarettes, it signals to the community that it’s cool, high classified, and you’ll feel you’re not an average citizen because you smoke the same brand of cigarettes the president does.

Understanding the creative brief: Camel developed a tremendous strategy to get their point across to tobacco users. They used the president, someone with the highest power in the nation, as a consumer of their product to persuade your average Joe to buy Camel Cigarettes. Wouldn’t you find it incredible that you can actually afford and use the same the president uses?

Say it outright: This Camel advertisement kept its persuasive message. Camel was trying to display the message: “Camel Cigarettes. Even the president loves us.” Camel went as far as putting Franklin Roosevelt on the ad itself, as well as displaying the message with verbally. The message they were trying to get across was so outright to where they didn’t need a fancy twist to it. They kept the message simple and easy to understand.

Know your audience: Camel was aiming towards the tobacco-user community. They knew tobacco users wanted something good, dependable, and high quality to smoke. Would you buy a convertible vehicle for two hundred dollars? Camel displayed President Roosevelt to convey their audience that Camel Cigarettes aren’t your typical, neighborhood cigarettes because the president is smoking one. Since when does someone as classy and powerful as the president go cheap?

Write your objective: Successfully persuade tobacco users that you can’t get any better than Camel Cigarettes.

EOC Week 2: Ethics in Commercials

I found the above commercial to be highly unethical for two reasons. The part that was mainly unethical was how the message of the product was delivered. It starts off with a little kid, around seven years of age, and he’s doing all of this obnoxious things for a kid his age. He’s getting a tattoo, trying to fly a jet, getting pulled over by the cops for driving a car, has a chainsaw in class and cuts a desk, etc. At the end of the commercial, he runs up to his mom’s bedroom door and asks his mom a question while the door was closed. He asked his mom if he could put the cat in the washing machine and she said “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and the little kid ran off happy that he’s able to put the cat in the washing machine.

I found this highly unethical because they shouldn’t have incorporated a little kid into a commercial like that; especially in that manner. The company could’ve got the same message out with a more appropriate approach. The second reason was the chainsaw scene. I feel as if the chainsaw scene was a little too much. I know they’re trying to make it seem like the kid is dangerous because his mom keeps telling him that he can do things, but there’s a certain line companies shouldn’t crossed and they crossed it! Having that young of a kid with a chainsaw cutting a desk in half is almost as bad as a gun but worst than a knife. If you ask me, they should have found a better scene to shoot than that.

In conclusion, I feel as if this company could’ve taken a more professional and appropriate approach to convey the message: “Hansaplast Condoms are pure pleasure.”

BOC Week 1: About Me

When you think of the word design, what comes to mind? There are various fields under the design concept. There’s graphic design, interior design, fashion design, web design, and much more. I attend The Art Institute of Las Vegas for Web Design and Interactive Media. My knowledge towards, both, web designing and scripting are phenomenal. Not only am I an excellent web designer, but an above-average graphic designer as well. I’m knowledgeable in creating business cards, letterheads, various forms of web layouts, and more. The whole world revolves around technology and the Internet. I plan to keep up with the technological environment and utilize design to reach various types of people. I want to interact with different designers and combine our knowledge, experience, and talent to construct a strong design business. On my spare time, I research script and graphic tutorials to expand my knowledge in the web field. Mark Twain quoted, "You can't depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus." I expand my imagination daily to achieve higher standards, which are usually higher than the previous one. As I was always taught, the most successful people are the best of people.

EOC Week 1: VW Lemon

Advertising a product wasn’t as broad and humorous back in the day as it is today. In early 1960’s, “ads were either information based on lacking in persuasiveness, more fantasy than reality, or relied on the medium’s ability to deliver a repeated exposure. Beetle ads, connected with consumers on an emotional level, also conveyed a product benefit in a way consumers could relate to.” (http://www.syl.com/bc/advertisingcampaignforvolkswagenbeetletheno1advertisingcampaignofthecentury.html). The Volkswagen Lemon Ad broke that trend in various ways. Americans refer to the word “lemon” as being ridiculously bad but they weren’t implying that the car was terrible; instead, they were saying the overall vehicle’s long-lasting value and the constructive engineering was phenomenal.

They had to break through the “big car” culture of Americans by issuing this smaller car that brings more benefits than the bigger cars. While conveying that message, they had to produce a unique way to get the point across through the advertisement. “The ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, successfully caught the viewer’s attention by using self-effacing humor. With any luck, these ads drew you into the joke, and you would read the rest of the copy looking for the punch line.” (http://designhistorylab.com/?p=1755). “The ad featured a black and white photo of the Volkswagen Beetle with the word 'Lemon' in bold san serif font…that this particular car was rejected…because of a blemish on the chrome piece of the glove box. The ad goes on to describe the rigorous inspection process…” (http://www.writingfordesigners.com/?p=1731).

They interpreted the words “thinking small” through their design by making the ad fairly small with a lot of dead space making the viewer more interested. They compared a Volkswagen to a lemon to represent how small the vehicle actually is. By doing so, this ad successfully became one of the most famous ads ever.