Competitive Analysis

After my research on different brands of condoms I came across something unique. Condom brands, such as Life Styles or any other branded of condoms, only advertise the pleasure and sensation you receive when using one of their condoms; they never clarified how protected and safe you are. Many Trojan condom commercials advertise pleasure as well as protection. If you ask me, not clarifying safety to your audience isn’t a bright thing to do. Wouldn’t you think safety comes before pleasure? That's a major factor that other companies are missing. Since other companies are ponging, I'm going to ping and "take the least traveled path" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 182).

Comparing Trojan condoms to other company products "can be a strong premise" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 79). By other companies displaying the pleasure side of the condoms and not the protection side, they draw more customers to buy their product. This is a great strategy to lure customers in but it’s also a flaw that can back fire against the company. Advertising the pleasure doesn’t assure safety and when consumers buy into that, they suffer the consequences.

There are a couple of similarities that companies use when advertising their product. All condom campaigns advertise the pleasure of having their brand of condoms. The ad agency either uses humor or a sexual emotion to reach out to their consumers. The way they put together the information about the product makes it easy to understand.

Trojan Condoms: Be Smart

I picked the slogan “be smart” because I wanted something that was straight, simple, to the point, and powerful. The slogan isn't lengthy because "...a few choice of words can be extremely effective"(Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 193).Everyone knows that Trojan condoms are to protect people from any forms of an STD and pregnancy. A lot of people, old and young, doesn’t use condoms and suffer from the consequences. I developed a positive message that everyone can relate to and instantly know the meaning of. There isn’t any twist or turns to the slogan.

When advertising a product, you must "know your audience" (Advertising by Design, page 142). I know my audience are people who are sexually active and are seeking to stay safe; as well as people who want to stay protected during sexual encounters. The message is preferably to young adults/teenagers because during that specific time in their life, they like to experiment. It's a proven fact that we, as humans, are anxious to perform the acts that people tell us not to do. If someone told you to not touch something, then you're going to feel the need to touch it. Many parents tell their children to not have sex until marriage or until they're grown. Parents also tell they're children, after a certain age, to always wear a condom. As clarified earlier, we, as humans, are anxious to perform the acts that people tell us we shouldn't do. Many teenagers and young adults go against their parents and have unprotected sex and because of their rebelliousness, they pay the price when they have an STD or pregnancy occurs.

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