Lemme Upgrade ya

Beyonce is on everything. American express, Fragrances, House of Derion, Pepsi, Disney, and she even has her own phone. If Beyonce is the spokesperson for everything , what is going to set these brands apart. I feel likebeyonce is a great entertainer and should be promoting a few things, but she doesnt make me wanna buy anything, but her music. I also feel like this is taking beyonce's equity down , especially when she started doing commercials for Direct TV. REALLY BEYONCE ? REALLY? I am sure its not hurting her at all but it makes her seem less classy everytime i see her in an ad for something. She has "upgraded" a few to many brands for my liking.

Sampling

During thanksgiving break i was reading through a few Details magazines and looking at all the gragrance ads. I was thinking what sets any of these ads apart. They all position themselves as fragrances that will make you sexy. The only part of the ads that made me the little bit interested was the sampling. Just becuse Tom fords new fragrance has a bottle inbetween a ladies legs covering her "lady areas" does not make any one more attractive, it actually has a horrid smell. So i finally decided that "light blue" By D&G had the most pleasant smell. The ad itself was'nt appealing to me, even being a gay man, but i still feel like i am going to purchase the fragrance.

Holi-DUH? WHAT?

As part of Hyundai's new holiday sales event, they launched an ad campaign centered around the word "duh." The event is called the Big Duh Holiday Sales Event, and here's one of the tv advertisements for it:

Obviously, this ad is unique and quirky and catches your attention. But is it in a positive way? Cody and I first saw this commercial a few weeks ago when we were watching tv together, and actually got a completely different impression that what I think the marketers intended. Cody interpreted the "Duh" statement that they repeatedly emphasize to replace the "Dai" in Hyundai. Like Hyunduh, which, when said aloud sounds a lot like Honda, a rivaling car company. Once I watched this commercial several more times, I realized the "duh" has nothing to do with the brand of the car persay, but is more just a really annoying central idea for this ad campaign. The advertisements take our favorite Christmas songs and minimize them to a series of "duhs" in varying tones and keys, and then throws in some creepy, trippykaleidoscope-like shots of carolers spinning and singing in colorful robes. What does this have to do with this car company? The word "duh" does not make me want to buy anything. It makes me feel like I'm twelve. And I'm sure twelve year olds are not the target market for this product.

American Apparel: Brilliant Simplicity

So I was surfing around on YouTube a few weeks ago, searching for a tv advertisement that grabbed my attention enough for me to blog about it. Instead, as I clicked on various video clips, beside them, in the white margins of the page, I was encountered with ads for other companies, the most appealing of which was for American Apparel. So I promptly clicked on it and began an online shopping spree, completely distracting myself from my original task at hand.

American Apparel is a company specializing in men's and women's apparel aimed primarily at college-aged people and young adults, so choosing to buy ad space on a website like YouTube was a smart decision for them, seeing as it's most popular amongst this age group.

American Apparel's ad campaign could be described as raw, simplistic, bold, and sexually-charged. I personally find their ads to be brilliant. Without ever really saying much at all in text form, American Apparel ads consistently portray the image their brand is all about. Anyone who is familiar with the brand can instantly recognize an American Apparel ad when they see one. Their signature look of bold, basic garments hugging the bodies of hipster boys and girls standing against a white backdrop is one that has become synonimous with quirky trendy fashion and the American Apparel look.

I think many of its loyal customers also appreciate the brand's use of not always drop-dead gorgeous models with perfect bodies, but rather real-life models with flaws, untamed hair, and unconventional styles. American Apparel also will often use employees of the company in their advertisements.

Spice Up your holidays

The Spice girls have recently cashed in on promoting English hypermarket TESCO. The commercials are fun and nostalgic, the ads are remeniscient of their campy feature film Spice World. This is a great marketing tool for Tesco, becuase it brings some glamour to the brand. This move also is a great tool to market the Spice Girls and their upcoming world tour, which me and Kacie will be attending Feb.13th. Victoria Beckham(Posh Spice) also will be the new face Marc Jacobs, which also benifits Tesco in adding a bit of glamour to the brand. The question is how will Marc Jacobs be affected by this. In my opinion the two companies cater to different consumers, so Posh will still build on Marc Jacobs equity. Check out the commercials, they are hilarious!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BJfJOkRFZbo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtMHAxJR2XU

"piece of me"

If anyone payed attention to last weeks billboard top 100 albums chart they would know that Britney Spears, whom has had four consectutive number one studio albums, came in at the number two spot last week. She was beat out by the Eagles. Of course i am heartbroken, but i can only make sense out of this from the fundemental marketing principles that i have learned. I blame this misfortune soley on the different target markets that these two artist atttract. The Eagle's attract a more mature audience, porbably people that are baby boomers. This generation is clueless to the idea of dowloading music legally and illegally. So therefore the Eagles profited from their target market's inability to illegal download their music and lower their sales.Ms. Spears target market is much younger, mostly consisting of teenagers and young college students. This generation is highly savvy when it comes to illegally downloading music through fileshare programs like lime-wire. I had the album a week prior to its release, but i purchased Britney's Fifth Studio album "Blackout" the morning of it's release on itunes and plan on buying the bonus tack version at Target this week. So Ms. Spears streak has been broken by her target market illegally downloading her music. Not to mention the fact the the Eagles album was exclusively sold at wal-mart , which excludes the album from the billboard charts, but the people at billboard changed the rules after naming Britney number one , and changing the rules 11 hours before releasing the charts.

New York Times vs. BBC

The first thing I noticed about the BBC website in comparision to the New York Times one was that it offered the news in 33 different languages, whereas NYT provides their news strictly in English. This was really interesting to me and intrigued me into checking out the BBC News more, a news publication I had never even read before. I also thought their "Day In Pictures" feature was a unique touch that many readers could appreciate and enjoy. However, overall, I felt like the New York Times seemed like it had much more news to offer, especially on the main page. The New York Times covers every inch of their front page of the website with news stories of all types in an organizational manner. I also like that the NWT website looks more like a physical newspaper than the BBC News. BBC News also didn't have ANY advertisements at all on their main page, which was odd to me. Once you look at the individual categories such as News, Sports, etc. the ads begin to surface, but there still aren't that many. I wonder why that is? I think the New York Times does a better job of making their website look appealing to viewers and also makes better use of advertisements without going overboard.

SUPERBOWL

This weeks class we were discussing superbowl ads and how effective they are. My all time Favorite Superbowl is of course the Briteny Spears Pepesi commercial. When i used to drink soda i was loyal to Pepsi based on the fact that they used Britney in their ads, now that i have stopped consuming soft drinks i try and drink Aquafina, but its not always convienant.

Falling into trouble

Even thought the GAP is on its second year of running and suppoting Bono's RED campaign, that fights AIDS in Africa, the company has run into some ethical problems. It has been found that one of the productiong facilities that is contracted to the GAP has been using Slave-like child labor. Children in these factories are as young as ten and sold by their parents. They are forced to work up to 16 hour days and are paid nothing. Along with long hours the children are in distubing living and working areas. GAP does not personally own these production facilities and as soon as they became aware of this monsterious working ocnditions withdrew any products from these facilities off their shelves and stopped production with these facilities. With it being close to the holidays i believe this will negatively affect the GAP's imae among consumers, which is already low. Hopefully they can gain somoe ground and build their image by continuely pushing and supporting the RED campaign.

Now THAT'S Advertising.

In contrast to the assignment on an advertisement we hated, I wanted to share an advertisment that I love. A few weeks ago in class we watched a youtube video on the process of projecting an ad campaign, the one that had the series of humorous clips of ad agency employees trying to pitch ideas. The first clip in that video was the beginnings of this commercial I'm talking about.
A friend of mine showed me this commercial when I went to visit her at the Savannah College of Art and Design about three years ago and I instantly fell in love with it.



I just find this commercial to be absolutely beautiful in such a subtle, simple way. Sony took a product as basic as a television and thought completely outside of the box on how to market it. This commercial makes a connection with the viewer, luring them in with vibrant colors and picturesque images that stick in the consumer's mind. The song fits perfectly, and I love that the ad is a full 2:30 long. What better way to advertise a television that's supposed to bring you "colour like no other" than with an avalanche of rainbow bouncy balls flooding the streets on San Francisco? It's innovative, original, and absolutely brilliant.

Yahoo! Advatars: Problems and Solutions

As someone who didn't even have a Yahoo! email account prior to writing this blog, when it came time to explore the world of Yahoo! Avatars, I felt a little overwhelmed and perplexed as to where to begin. Yahoo! does a good job of providing categories as a guide to help users find the features they need to help customize their Avatars, with divisiions such as appearance, apparel, extras, and backgrounds.
I think these categories are a good start, but Yahoo! could probably develop the Avatars even further with categories like music, movies, and books. The more customization options that are provided, the more the users will have to opportunity to paint an individualistic canvas, like many college students do on their facebooks and myspaces. If Yahoo! wanted to target more college-aged users with this feature, I think they could benefit from keeping up on the trends and pop culture that our age group is concerned with. Many of the Avatar outfits were trendy, but some were either outdated, too mature, or too juvenile. Also, I think the career-themed accessories were a bit excessive and unnecessary for the college kid target audience. I do, however, like the causes/isesues feature as well as the branded one; those are smart ways to find out what the user is interested in and what brands he/she affiliates themselves with. Adding the music, movies, and books features would also help with this.
One other area I thought could use improvement was the backgrounds section. There were so many of them to choose from, probably hundreds I'm sure, and there were no categories dividing them up. A busy college student will probably not want to take the time to go through all of these to find one that suites them. Anything convenient and time-saving would be beneficial in making the Avatars more student friendly.
With so much on the internet to compete with for young adults' attention, Yahoo! should focus on doing whatever it can to set these Avatars apart as something unique and fun, an alternative to the addiction of logging into facebook or myspace.

It's myspace, Right?

When your filling in your "about me" section on your Myspace letting your cyberspace comrades know that you love Birtney Spears and have a Abercrombie and Fitch background you are no longer just informing your friends your music interest and personal style. You are now target for a tailored advertisements . Myspace is now sending information that is listed on your profile to companies and letting them directly market to people who are interested in a certain product or category of consumer products. Instead of mass marketing the same artist to every person that logs into Myspace, a person whom list Hip Hop or rap under their music interest will be bombarded with ads for Kayne West's Newest album. Myspace had done this earlier but on a smaller scale. I know fromm being a Myspace user and listing my orientation as gay, when i log off of my profile there is a gay.com advertisement preceding my logging off. Not only has Myspace taken this specific marketing one step further with tailored ads, but Myspace is also trying to use mobile web as a new outlet. They are trying to develop technology that understands where a mobile phone user, whom is logged onto Myspace, is located and market products and places that are in the vicinity of the user. Tom was our first friend in the myspace community, but he is starting to show that his intentions weren't as benevolent as they seemed.

The Death of the metrosexual

In class last week we had a discussion on how target markets are changing and how this is affecting the way products are presented to the consumer. The target market that has changed and countinues to diversify is the "metrosexual" market. I personally believe that the metrosexual does not exist any longer; instead it has been replaced by a general male youth market. I see that there is no longer a small group of men who are up to date on fashion and the perks of grooming. I feel that males have become or are as brand concious as women. Males in the GEN y market, whom consist of the majority of people I come in contact with, are becoming more and more aware of trends. They are willing to pay large sums of money for fashion based products like True Religion jeans, Gucci Eyewear, and Dolce and Gabana Cologne. These brands are being thrown around more and more everyday by males everywhere.This may also be an affect of a growing upper class and a huge demand for luxury goods. Designers are catching on to this demand for exclusive high trend apparel in the male market.
Marc Jacobs, in his Marc by Marc Jacobs spring fashion show, used very feminine details like a semi-empire waist in his mens collection.
Also D&G have been embelishing there clothing with very feminine and glammy beeds and studs in their ready-to-wear collection.Even Rappers are dropping their thug persona and cleaning up into fashion savvy celebs.

GO GREEN.

Over the past couple years or so, environmental awareness and general concern about climate change has increased drastically as we all become more conscious of the irreversible damage that has been occuring on our planet. Through several different mediums, most notably the striking 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the plea for us to "go green" has become an inescapable one.
As of very recently, I've noticed an increase in the amount of commercials urging consumers to reevaluate their stance on environmental awareness. In particular, I've taken note of these advertisements on networks and during programs very much aimed at and intended for my generation and young adults aged roughly 15-25.
I tried to locate on YouTube a commercial I considered to be a really good example, but I couldn't find it. It was an ad for Chevrolet that aired last night during the MTV Video Music Awards, which, as we all know is a major event for the network and a program that many young peoally ple tune in for every year. The Chevy commercials (I saw atleast two different ones) were simple, showing people engaging in environmentally conscious behavior: a girl playing a flute-like instrument made out of recycled bottles, a man not shaving for weeks to save water. But then at the end it gives simple suggestions of practical things we can do to help. I thought it was really smart to run this ad during an event like the VMAs and to portray conservation as such an easy and achievable action, because honestly, most young people would probably rather spend their time doing something else.

Here's a great ad for Live Earth 2007 that ran this summer that I find to be extremely influential.

Falling back in ...

The fall and winter seasons are coming up and I really enjoy this time of the year, because i feel shopping is more exciting and retailers really push their product and brand through amazing advertisements. One of my favorite places to shop during this time of the year used to be the gap. Their ads used to give me a warm feeling and rush me into stores. In the past few years their products have really gone hill and their advertisement has been mediocre, except for their RED campaign which was a brilliant idea, but its hype did not match up to its sales. Well, on a recent visit to south park mall in Charlotte I decided to stop into a GAP store. Surprisingly it looked as if the retailer is going back to its fundamentals, classics with a modern twist, and producing a highly marketable product that i want to buy. Their magazine ads and in-store ads also are giving me that desire to business with them again. I am just hoping to see amazing ads like this some time soon

First blog!

After the first day of class, Cody and I are both pretty excited about this class and the world of advertising we're going to be exposed to. Unlike most of the classes we have taken within this department, we feel like this one will be more speaking-intensive, hands on, and influential in giving us a real life grasp on where this major can take us. It's also exciting to have a professor with real life experience and advice to offer us from a leading agency in the advertising world. I loved how from the beginning we started making connections to the retail world and got to hear passionate opinions from multiple people in the class. It's so refreshing to be in a class where people care and know about the material and the brands we've discussed.