carolina on my mind

ok i had to blog about this because it's promoting my home state! apparently this is big tourism campaign (by the bounce agency) from this past february encouraging frozen 'chicagoans' to visit south carolina (more specifically the coast where all the beaches and golf courses are). my favorite is the parking garage ambient golf tees. i do wish the whole campaign was somehow more visually consistent. the website is ok: www.timetothaw.com. it would probably be more interesting to someone who didn't grow up there for 18 years.

lol 4 idk my bff jill

ok now i'm just procrastinating because i don't want to do my homework. but this commercial popped into my head today when i was concepting with my partner at school.
i love how much pop culture is reflected in advertising. i mean, ron & pippa even changed the miami ad school tagline to "school of pop culture engineering."

sidenote: when i looked this up on youtube, there were so many parodies. that's probably the most reliable sign of a great ad, when people actually take the time to recreate it. i mean, the next commercial even spoofed it with the grandmother texting her bff rose.
possibly from bbdo atlanta.

coffee creativity

it's kinda old, but i think this ambient ad is pretty close to perfection. so simple. so clever. i guess the only way to make it better is if it actually smelled like coffee instead of [possibly] sewage. (which is possible now based on one of my older posts)
overall good work from saatchi & saatchi new york.
ambient has always been one of my favorite mediums because it usually makes me stop and think "hey, that's pretty cool." it's the most innovative and easier to stand out because you're not competing with a 1,000 similar ads surrounding it.

what was the funny commercial for again?

it's always a delicate balance between creating a memorable commercial and having people actually remember what it's for. the best example i can think of is this spot by fallon that aired during the superbowl a few years ago. i think it's my mom's favorite commercial of all time, but she has no idea what the brand is. and honestly, i don't really know either. i really liked the commercial, fantastic concept and execution, but it doesn't intrigue me enough to go google what eds is, and if i could benefit from its products/services. i think it would have been more effective paired with a better known brand.

ps3 con't

might as well post the other two ps3 commercials which are also bad-ass.


i think these were done by TBWA back when the ps3 was launched by sony in 2006.

retro recycling

i remember one of my sorority sisters in college was super-creeped out by this ps3 commercial.

i read some of the comments on youtube and found out that it is a parody of 2001: A space odyssey, a 1960's film by stanley kubrik.
according to gitcommand "I'm guessing that this is supposed to be a parody of 2001 A Space Odyssey, with the PS3 as the black monolith. In 2001ASO, the monolith appeared to make things evolve, so I guess the PS3 is supposed to be making the baby doll evolve. The white room is very similar to the final scene of 2001, with the old man in a white room with the black monolith in front of him. However, I doubt many gamers these days are into 1960's Stanley Kubrick films, and probably don't see the connection."
so i decided to investigate.

looks pretty similar to me at 1 1/2 minutes in. and, i didn't know that famous song/monkey discovery scene is from that movie. see what we can learn from advertising, kids?

smart and clever

ok i love these ads. and they are from someone i actually know! i was at MAS with marcus liwag for a quarter or two in miami. he actually helped convince me to go there. i interned at an ad agency in tampa with a girl he went to usf with.
i think these won art director's club awards this year. great concept, beautiful art direction and a fun product. i want the next car i get to be smart!
so, when marcus becomes super-famous (thanks to this and others he's already kind of reknown) i can say "hey, i know that kid."

blast from the past

talk about a ridiculously creative commercial for a relatively boring brand. i saw this commercial in class the other day and i was speechless. i don't know at what agency it originated (according to a possibly unreliable source it was abbot mead vickers bbdo), but i know it was directed by tony kaye in 1993. but i'm pretty sure the song "venus in furs" by velvet underground is much older than that. i love trippy 60s music!
it's not even really a commercial. it's a great short film. supposedly it is modeled after the mad max/thunder dome movies. i think i tried to watch one of those once, but flipped the channel after a few minutes. ADD.
anyways, whenever i have a brief for some generic product, this will serve as a positive example. or it will piss me off that i can't come up with something equally amazing.

another ad says 'screw advertising'

i'm sure pretty much everyone has seen the famous dove 'evolution' viral video by ogilvy a while back. their follow up, 'onslaught' is pretty good too, although admittedly 'evolution' is a hard act to follow. i really like the song too, 'LA breeze" by simian.

some cute fanta ads by psyop

love the art direction and design! so cute! i think they aired in japan. (why couldn't we see these in the us instead of those ridiculous fantanas?)

reflexcellence

they stole my idea. ok, not really. for an iwc commercial script for class i had the idea to have things reflected in the watchface. i typed in 'reflection' on youtube and discovered this little gem. created by PSYOP and directed by eben mears. i guess they operate in LA and NY.
from what i can tell, they only do tv, but they do it very well!
http://www.psyop.tv/main.php
persuade. change. influence.

i smell a success

i am the first person to endorse the idea of scent-infused advertising, especially for perfumes. (i am pretty much obsessed with perfumes and other pleasant aromas.) according to an article i read on ad age, they are actually testing these kinds of ads in cinemas here in germany.
"For the test, a specially made 60-second spot showed a typical sunny beach scene, with people lying around on deck chairs or sunbathing on towels while waves crashed and seagulls cried in the background.
As people wondered what the ad was for, the scent of Nivea sun cream permeated the cinema, and a Nivea logo appeared on screen along with the words "Nivea. The scent of summer."
the company responsible for this new technology is called Cinescent and exit polls of the test groups for the nivea ads had a 515% rise in recall compared to moviegoers who saw the spot sans scent. that makes sense, considering scent is like the strongest sense tied to memory.
this could even work for movies in general too. we have visual and sound effects so why not have scent effects?

and again

when i researched ifaw some more, i found this creative little print campaign also by springer & jacoby. so simple. you can understand it without knowing german, but the translation is: "You're throwing away more than just trash. Help us protect ocean habitat."

animal advocacy can be funny too

so here's a commercial i saw on tv last night for ifaw (international fund for animal welfare). hilarious. i'm so tired of seeing the over-dramatic, depressing, blood spattered campaigns for similar groups like peta and noah. i'm not saying all campaigns should be like this one, because then no one would take these causes seriously. but it's good to switch it up once in a while. kudos to springer & jacoby.

justin's endoresement: maybe its maybelline

my last post inspired me to write this one real quick.
i've always wondered if rappers get paid for product placement in their songs. we all know their favorite brands: cadillac, cristal, gucci, versaci, courvoisier, etc. mostly my inituition tells me they mention these brands as status symbols, but on justin timberlake's new album there are two songs that he talks about maybelline. i'm sure if i tried i could think of a lot more songs with potential product placement, but i have more important things to do.

musical insight

i'm not a huge fan of rap, but i am a huge fan of mike shinoda. musician, artist, designer, writer and half-asian hottie. he is pianist/guitarist/vocalist/emcee for linkin park, which used to be my favorite band, until their last album, minutes to midnight. i hate that they conformed.

anyways, fort minor was his one album side project. i think the lyrics/message in this song are fantastic. and it indirectly pertains to advertising. oh and i hate cigarettes too.
enjoy.



"cigarettes" by fort minor
lyrics:
Man I love this rap game
Mainly cuz its cool
To add a little spice to the life you've been through
Everyone exaggerates a tiny little bit
To make that shit sound more gangster than it really is
You cant appear weak man
We wanna hear street
Wanna hear you spit your thug over this here beat
Dont take it as sarcastic
I can't get enough
Im telling you
You can call my bluff
If it's not rough, then I really don't need it
I'm not even ashamed
I got too much reality thats filling up my brain
so sell me on that chronic, I'm addicted to the game
Suck it up like a cigarette, light it up

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled
I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Let me tell you something that I realized tonight
My hip hop radio is like marlboro lights
They're both selling stories and they sound about the same
Cigarettes say they're safe, rappers claim they really bang
We dont care if it's true when we lay the money down
We don't believe the words, we just love the way they sound
They're acting like we're idiots, They're lying to our face
Maybe we are idiots, we buy it anyway

I'm runnin out to get the next rapper's CD
Just suckin up the guns, drugs, and misogyny
The same way that I suck up all the stories
When I breathe that little bit of death supposedly cancer-free and
Everything they say's got the truth twisted up
But twisted up's what I want man, I can't get enough
Cuz even though we know it's all just a big bluff
We just light another up, what
We don't give a fuck

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled
I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Over and over but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled
I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Listen to the words, Listen for awhile
Lip Service radio, don't touch the dial
If you're in the car
Turn up the track man
Give the whole neighborhood some second hand rap

Matter of fact
Listen to the words, Listen for awhile
Lip Service radio, dont touch the dial
If you're in the car
Turn up the track man
Give the whole neighborhood some second hand rap

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled
I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Over and over but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled
>I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool< [^^^new tagline for the advertising industry^^^] http://www.mikeshinoda.com/

chaos!

here's an ad i've been seeing all over hamburg. it breaks pretty much every rule i've ever learned about advertising/design. they used every crayon in the box and everything is genrally the same size. not to mention the leading really irks me. i'm not sure what the message is b/c i don't speak much german, but i think it's something about fair trade. i don't understand the stern looking, hoe-wielding woman with the happy, rainbow colored message. it's just chaos.

hardly 'perfecto'

first of all, it reminds me of a cheezy soap opera with about 7 levels of cliche. yea so the woman lives in italy in a great house with two kids. umm, am i the only one wondering what happened to her husband, (or at least baby daddy)? i'm guessing she was a golddigger that got pregnant, got the rich guy to marry her, later divorced him for the hot neighbor guy and took half his estate.
are you trying to sell pasta based on the fact that its good for your kids or it's a good excuse to bring over the sexy neighbor guy. i think he'd be even sexier if he was doing the cooking (drool). and he was wearing a blindfold in the beginning...hmmm
anyways, when i first saw this commercial, i wanted to throw up. and vomit is not something a company generally wants to associate with its food products.

tampax pearl is a diamond in the rough

here's a great commercial i noticed recently...

pretty much the best feminine hygiene product ad i can remember seeing. ever. i mean i'm pretty sure a brief for tampons or pads is one of those most creatives dread. it had to be conceived by a woman, or a man with damn good insight. i can totally relate to it and i love the ending line "oh, newlyweds."
so next time i attempt to enjoy the beach/pool and my 'monthly gift' simultaneously, i'll be sure to pack my pearls.
bravo.
[mission: 1. find out what agency/creatives created this 2.possibly beg for job]

introduction

welcome to my blog.
disclaimers: i don't like capital letters. i say what i think. i may be clinically obsessed with advertising.
i like to combine words. too bad i'm not a copywriter. good thing i'm not a copywriter.
about me: i am an ad school student becoming an art director. then creative director. then co-empress of the universe (brittany and i decided in college that this was our goal in life).
i think art directors can write, copywriters can at least doodle, and really great ideas are hard to come by.
so this blog is my subjective (like the entire advertising industry) opinion on what i think is good and bad. what is effective and what is ineffective. what is cool and what sucks.
that is all.
almost forgot, ads + ideas = adeas