Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Looking Towards the Future

As a kid thinking about the future, I could say with confidence that it would involve hover cars and holographic teachers or that gum from Willy Wonka that's a full course meal in one stick, but now I can't be too certain. Maybe all of those things are in store for us yet, but I understand that progress is slow and I may never see those things become mainstream in my lifetime.

That's not to say that i don't think they could happen, however. A holographic advertisement would be exceedingly cool, but I can see it going one of two ways. For well executed ads, it could be an interactive experience for the consumers to engage in when they're on the go- very similar to the advertising events that some companies hold today, just more on-the-go accessible. Now, if the advertising is poorly executed, then I'm glad I won't be around to see it because it would be exactly like old DSL internet pop ups just in the real world directly in front of you.

And holograms aren't the only thing ads could tap into- up to this point, ads have grown closer and closer to their audiences up to the point in which today the consumers have full interaction and plenty of control over the message in ads. The future probably holds advertisements that feature interactive sensory activities, things not just to see or hear but to smell and touch. I've got to say, I'm excited to see how ad companies can possibly top the greatest stuff seen today.

Friday, November 30, 2012

In Class Radio Commercial: Trish is living the dream!


Traveling Party Host

SFX: (Disruptive jubilant chatter in the background- "Nicole walks up", sound of heels)

NICOLE: Hey Bob, does Trish need help with the drinks?

BOB: (Confused) Uhhmm.... (Sounds as if looking around room for Trish)

SFX:  (Crisp crack of a seal breaking from a bottle of liqueur. Silence falls upon the room.) 

TRISH: (Chipper- loudly exclaims) Who's ready for a drink?!

BOB: Count me in!

NICOLE: (Sound of heels, then speaks in disbelief) Is that a drink belt?

SFX: (Shots being poured while speaking)

TRISH: Oh yeah, it's amazing! I've got easy access to shot glasses and whole bottles at my fingertips  so I don't need to worry about walking back and forth between the kitchen.

SFX: (Continuing sounds of cheering, chatter, and booze pouring)

MVO: You too can be the perfect host this holiday season with the Booze Belt available at a Target near you.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Advertinnovation

Getting the younger generation to stop and look at something for more than a split second is a challenge in and of itself, but with new gadgets that allow consumers to skip advertising in most mediums, it's even harder. The world of advertising is one shape shifting tango, and we're constantly having to shift the way we present our products if we want to entice the attention of consumers.

Maybe back in the yester years of advertising people could get away with large blocks of text and minimal imagery, but nowadays if there's no interesting pictures of nifty typography, an ad is doomed to be ignored. But even images can be ignored, and thusly there are two paths that an advertiser can take:

  1. Shock imagery.
  2. Innovation.
Shock and sexual imagery is used an inexcusable amount- especially in printed mediums. The qualm I have with those isn't so much the sexualization- although that is a problem, just for another time- but the  fact that advertisers are lazy enough to use the method over and over again instead of being creative and using their heads to produce good work. Hm.

Here's what a I mean when I ask for innovative ads:


 This is an ad for solar energy- and it's extremely effective because it gets the consumers involved with the product before they even buy it. Interactive methods are the best cream of the crop for an ad campaign in this day and age because let's face it- our generation is a pretty self-involved one and we spend most of our time waddle dooin' around the internet. It takes some seriously creative minds to get us to pay attention anymore, and advertisers are just going to have to tap into that.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Nostalgia Advertising

Nostalgia marketing is, in my opinion, one of the most effective kinds of marketing for established brands. Not only can it be used as a reboot for a company- a way to get something that used to be good back in the game- but it's an effective way to reengage an older demographic. Companies will always be thinking of new ways to get younger people to buy their brand, but that only includes some of the population, and marketing mongers should be on the prowl for more. This is where nostalgia kicks in.

To get an older generation involved with a product that's being revamped for future generations, advertisers need to reconnect with their roots. Day to day products like shampoo or toothbrushes probably wouldn't benefit from nostalgia advertising because no one has nostalgia for those things. No one group of people has a collective memory of their first toothbrush. For other kinds of products like toys or clothing, advertisers have tapped into nostalgia because they realize that "consumers view the past through rose-tinted glasses and are ready to spend on any product or service that can help them recreate the feelings of warmth and security they felt during happier times" (source). And nowadays, "retro" products are highly desirable to young people, so nostalgia marketing actually sells to both generations in one go. The only real problem with it that I can think of is that it can be a slippery slope if the advertisers don't do the old product justice.

Take, for instance, video games. Video games that have been around for a while have desperately loyal fanbases that would do pretty much anything to get their favorite games back- I should know, I've been there. So if you consider games like Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, or Banjo Kazooie, every time they revamp their games to bring it into the new generation of video games, their old supporters follow. If we look at Banjo Kazooie, we can see the strategy being used blatantly in their advertisements for the new generation. The old games were great, filled with adventure and good game design, and when the time came to bring back the Banjo, the designers knew to feed off of the old games' success.

The commercial stirs up all kinds of emotions for faithful fans, and caused a lot of buzz and excitement for the new game to come out. However, the new game was literally aimed to "broaden the demographic," and broke the fourth wall in the game in order to tell the audience. The thing is, even though the final product was hardly like the original and strayed from the idea given to the fans in the preview, that trailer did get people excited for the return of Banjo. The nostalgia kicked in and devoted fans bought the game left and right, but most of the were disappointed by the results.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Harley Brand Community

Brand communities are the ultimate test of loyalty for fans, but they aren't suited to every brand. A community such as the Harley Davidson posse works because Harley Davidson has always advertised itself not just as a motorcycle company, but a way of life. It establishes itself solidly in the lifestyle of rebellion and carefree thinking, which Harley riders can all connect with. Brands like Coach could never hope to achieve that kind of connection with their buyers because that's all they are- buyers. The people who wear Coach don't eat sleep and breathe it, it isn't a lifestyle that they fit into. Sure, the Coach brand might be associated with wealth and status, but that doesn't mean they parade around loudly with the message "I am high class" in the way harley riders zoom around saying "I'm a free spirit".

The Harley-Davidson brand community has the annual Posse Ride which brings the fans together. Every person who participates in the posse ride has a minimum of 1 thing in common (ownership of a harley), and through that, it can be assumed that they probably have more in common on a deeper level because Harley identifies with the characteristics of its consumers, not their wealth. The posse ride is all about the fans showing off the brand rather than the brand showing off the brand. It's about pride in being an individual that's a part of something, and that's what makes it so appealing. Other brands can only dream of reaching this level of connection with their consumers.

Although I think Harley does an unmatchable job of consumer inclusion, they could potentially do more. Not every Harley rider can make it to the posse ride, so Harley could turn the experience into something of a video log- recording snippets of the main events at each pit stop, highlighting the individual people and their stories which would make the experience longer lasting and even more about the people who ride the Harleys than the Harleys themselves. What people will buy into even above good products are good people behind the products.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Badvertising

Coke Zero- which I have to admit I am a fan of- used a campaign in Australia that differed from the campaigns elsewhere by making it more about the everyday person trying to live a carefree lifestyle. Now, the idea behind the campaign is a solid one: consumers respond well to campaigns that are tailored personally to them, but Coke's method was something of a misstep in my book. The Australia campaign was based solely on deception- fooling the average person into thinking that other average people were being positively backed up by Coke Zero, which in reality turned out to be just flat out lies. Coke faked the situation, and in North America or Europe, I doubt the campaign would be received well. Sure, it worked in Australia because, let's face it, there's a lot of backwards thinking in their advertising, but blatant deception doesn't sit well with North America and Europe (at least in advertising).

Whereas I understand where Coke Zero is coming from- word of mouth via the blogosphere and the general public is always the best way for publicity to travel fast- but I think that they were slightly unethical to make the hubbub themselves. The fuel of the advertising industry runs on word of mouth, and it's up to the agencies to make a good enough campaign that people do spread the word. If advertising agencies and brands resort to creating their own synthetic "word of mouth", what's even the point? It seems to me as if their rendering their own jobs obsolete.

Other companies have had their fair share of blunders, but one that stands out to me is Burger King, who has had so many bad marketing campaigns since 2008 we can almost feel bad for them. A notable strategy they've used on multiple occasions (bafflingly enough) was the "king" campaign in which they used their "mascot" as the poster boy for their products, which turned out to be bad decision upon bad decision. The "king" was included in a number of commercials run in bad taste such as "wake up with the king" or more notoriously, "Square Butts," which was a music video involving the king, spongebob squarepants, and butts set to Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Big Butts." It only takes a second to be horrified by the whole ordeal.
Sales were down roughly 6% in 2011's first quarter because of the negative press Burger King was getting, and even those who weren't offended by their variety of advertisements were generally creeped out by the mascot. The "king" campaign was finally put to rest in August of 2011, and we can all be grateful for it.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

General Redundancy

As time progresses, students are weaseled into spending more and more years in school- years that they could be spending starting careers and earning money to secure a comfortable future. When you look at the current system, our college age students are spending a minimum of two years completing general education, which are essentially repeats of high school classes. Why delegate extra years and extra money into learning the same subjects twice when we can focus our time more efficiently?

Actual photo of student bound by general education preparing to explode. Protect your families from combustion. Note how he is studying from phonebooks: how does that make any sense? WHAT HAS OUR COUNTRY COME TO?

I propose that we change the focus of our current school system. High school courses should function more like the general education courses required of college students- a general basis on which to decide general interests. College should be spent broadening our horizons to discover more specific career paths within general subjects of our choosing, not repeating courses that we have already determined our level of interest in. Students should be able to experiment with more career oriented courses in that first year or so when they would normally have taken general education courses.

Make college a place for American students to pursue their goals and leave the GEs to high school.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Overzealous Use of Race in Advertising Today

Race has always been something of a hot button topic in society perpetuated by its representation in media. The overzealous use of race, whether in a good or bad light, has been prevalent for essentially all of America's history. We can briefly look back on one of America's fondest memories which started off our, dare I say, colorful past with racism- slavery. There it was, tainting our relations with any non-white person who happens upon our path for years to come. Even after slavery was abolished, we still had folks of separate races in positions of weakness as servants and maids.
An article on NBC news' website explains that "minorities were either invisible in mainstream media, or handed negative roles that generally had them in a subservient position" (source). It's no wonder that the stereotypes lasted as long as they did because advertising never could seem to let go of such easily recognizable symbols. Such demeaning ads towards other races continued far into the 20th century, and then other races finally started fighting back. Those people in the past caused riots and general hubbub about racial equality so that people in the future wouldn't have to; so that those of us living today could look around and not give a single hoot about the color of anyone's skin because it's not important. Things like race shouldn't be a big deal anymore, but with the old stereotypes hanging over our heads like the sun in a desert, the misrepresentation of race still weighs heavily on our society.

The good news is that the world is a much wiser place nowadays thanks to those race riots, however, advertisements still often rely on race; maybe not in the same way that they used to, but they do. Because the world is so conscious of the moves we make regarding race, a lot of companies have decided to make race the central focus of their ads. You can find countless examples of advertisements that feature a systematic line-up of every race you can think of just for the sake of looking progressive.





The same NBC article from before worded it nicely, saying, "ads like these are part of a subtle, yet increasingly visible strategy that marketers refer to as 'visual diversity' — commercials that enable advertisers to connect with wider audiences while conveying a message that corporate America is not just "in touch," racially speaking, but inclusive." 

Now, this isn't to say that I'm not appreciative of the general idea being presented- I'm all for the representation of diversity in mainstream society- but something about this kind of advertising ripples my harmonious bells. More than anything, they feel more like haphazard justification of their products than promoting the normalization of race into society. It's one thing to be proud of your heritage and another thing completely to say that you stand out from society because of your heritage. That misses the point altogether; we should strive to incorporate race like it's no big deal and make use of it in an ad where you don't need to pay attention to the race of the people because it's not the focus of the ad. I suppose advertising is still just stuck in the transition period, and it is certainly moving forward, but I look forward to the day when I can see an ad without noticing the race of the people in it.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

What's to Come: Gender Neutral Mirroring

Stereotypes are something that we've all fallen prey to, considering that it's impossible to avoid it unless you choose the life of a misanthrope and hide in your log cabin to wait for the day people stop using that technology fad. We'll ignore the hermits, though, and focus on the reality of our society: stereotypes get our attention. As a society, we create stereotypes on our own accord, but advertisers always had a way to tap into that knowledge and use it for ulterior motives. Stereotypes are easy to work with because they get a point across quickly, and who on earth has time to work out encrypted messages anymore?

Advertising in the mid-century not only played off of the gender discriminatory mindset, but it also perpetuated the stereotypes so that they would stick, and so would the products. People genuinely thought it was okay to demean women because that was their decided role in society.
Relax gentlemen, your lady can putt around the house doing chores all day and look good doing it as long as you stuff her full of vitamins! Its the answer to all of our prayers!

But granted, it takes two to tango, and there's misandry littered throughout advertising as well. Once society figured out that ads such as the above weren't appropriate anymore and people were feeling more radical, ads with harsh messages about men were more prevalent. Some ads are more about good looking, muscular men representing the only kind of man who's "worth" something, and then there's the other side where men are subservient to women. 

Thusly, it's not difficult to see that gender stereotypes in advertisements apply to both sides.

The thing is, advertising has so long relied on those radical stereotypes and that there's a wide demographic of advertisers who don't even feel the need to think or be innovative with their techniques.    Michelle Wilkinson of Helium.com puts it nicely: "such stereotypes make it possible for them to reach their specified audience without having to expend much energy on thinking of new ways to appeal to people" (source). Stereotypes are a cop out nowadays, and the general public is starting to get that. Families aren't "traditional" anymore, and both men and women contribute to the family. 

Above are two advertisements for an adoption agency. Neither image shows two parents, nor any gender holding power over another with the decision of having a family. It's a neutral ad, and a lovely one at that. There are also ad campaigns that promote the idea of men fitting into what once was a female job: housework. Pinesol has done a seamless job making no big deal of the fact that all the "test subjects" in the commercial below are men.
Advertising has owned the reputation of holding a stereotyped mirror up to society, but it's steadily moving forward with normalizing gender roles because that's where society is heading. A+ work, Pinesol.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Paranoia vs. Semiotics

I have met my fair share of paranoid folk, and most of them look too deeply into everyday items and activities for secret meanings or messages directed at them from some power on high. It's a sad state of affairs, and for the most part we can look at them and wave it off, but there is something that they've got right, and that's hidden messages in advertisements.

Now, I'm not talking about those ads from the 1950s that flashed messages at you in a split second like "eat our popcorn" or "soda makes you a babe magnet" or whatever. Those were banned, and you can't really blame the paranoid folks in that time for being paranoid about that, but I'm talking about semiotics. A fancy word, I know, but it's essentially the legal art form of subliminal messaging. Advertisers want to take a product and present imagery and symbols that won't necessarily do the thinking for you, but make you as a consumer interpret in the desired fashion.

Take the "I'm a Mac" ads from 2007-08 as an example. The only imagery we're provided with is two guys standing against a white background, and yet the commercials were a huge hit.
The set is simple, and the dialogue is straight forward. It's 1000% "what you see is what you get", and you would actually have to try to not understand the message here. From first glance, we can tell that PC is an older gentleman wearing an outdated brown suit (it's all about the grey, PC, get it together) and, because the internet is no place for coddling, is something of a dumpy loser. Mac is a young, casual, hip, and handsome guy. Already we see what the ad is getting at, and we didn't even need the dialogue to get it. But add it into the equation, and you get one flawless ad campaign.

Short, funny, and to the point. PC bumbles about and can't get his act together while Mac is cool, collected, and humble- everything we want in a perfect human, and therefore everything we want in a perfect computer. These ads don't need frills to get the semiotics out there- Macs are for young, cool people and PCs are a thing of the past. Cruel to be kind, PC.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Branding Wars and Social Apocalypse

People with products have always been at each other's throats trying to best one another in any way possible, and it sets the stage for society. We're all so aggressive about the brands we use, like stuffing your favorite brand of jeans in someone's face is going to make them like you. No, stop it, all you're doing is getting fibers up my nose and I am mildly irate now.

But in all seriousness, branding didn't even used to be a thing: it was just products trying to get themselves out there to the public. Back in the day, an advertisement could be an entire page in a newspaper or a matter or minutes on the radio, and both were just products stacking the deck with all the wonderful reasons why their product is a real winner, like the shpeal you hear when you're on hold with a university's admission office. Who knew winning took so many words? But with the evolution of products to brands, you see the brands with that extra pizazz moving forward: the brands that could narrow down why they exceed beyond the other brands. Time kept moving forward and attention spans kept getting shorter until eventually long winded advertisements became more like capital punishment than consumer jubilance. We're lazy, and we want companies to come to our doorsteps and make us want them rather than us as the consumer bullying companies into making our lives better.

What's that? Your slogan is 5 words long? Life is too short to have time to read all of that, slim.
Oh that's nice, you're trying to relate to me? Hand over some free samples and then we'll talk.

Back up fools, the war is on.


Now, branding wars are a fun topic, especially considering how they've essentially created the platform for complete social annihilation. Whether you sport one brand of shampoo over another, or drink Pepsi instead of Coke, it's the same shotgun you're holding, my friend. Brands are social ammunition, and I'm not going to kid around and say that I don't participate in the battle. I openly scorn those who drink Pepsi, shuffling about with complaints every time I see that Pepsi truck parked outside the library. Of course, the kicker is that I know how little sense it makes- it's absolute nincompoopery, but that's part of the fun I suppose. I mean, any idle member of society who's got nothing on their hands might as well indulge in some intense head to head soda competition because there's clearly nothing better to do with our time.

Note also: it's said that idle hands are the Devil's playthings, so I guess this means that branding wars are doing us a favor. What a courteous bunch of folk!

Sunday, September 9, 2012