Christmas Noise

I saw this insert in USA Today earlier this month. Thanks to the reading program on campus, the residence halls receive free copies of the New York Times, USA Today and three local newspapers. The ad isn't entirely relevant anymore, because December 25th has come and gone, but this is a crazy idea.

In the ad, Sony is advertising noise-canceling headphones. They suggest you peel off the stickers and place them on a remote and luggage to show loved ones what you really want for Christmas. How will they know it's from you? There's no clarification on that. Maybe they're supposed to get everyone the same gift.

I would personally be pretty bothered if someone stuck something to my remote. When I want to take a sticker off -- and I'm going to want to -- I have to peel and pry at the thing for minutes. Then there's the paper that tore off and is super hard to get at. Lastly, the sticky grime that's left afterwards. That's going to make me want to get a gift for my friend alright.

The product isn't bad at all, but Sony is taking the wrong approach. I get why they are placing your ad for noise canceling headphones. Are they targeting the wrong person though? If Sony is advising you to put stickers where they would use the headphones, wouldn't that make them want the product more than to give it to you? Maybe it's a full-circle thing. You get one for me, I get one for you. I think it's a little bogus.

The art direction is nice. I like how they incorporate Sony's HDNA graphics into the print and into the stickers. They kind of look like snowflakes too. It makes some sense to put the graphics in, because it follows the design of Sony's other recent ads, but these headphones aren't HD. I'm not entirely sure about the copy, specifically, "From our studios to your ears, only Sony is true to music." Everything else must be a lie.

Everyone's Invited to Swim

Only the great will make it to the other side.

The annual D&AD Student Awards competition is in full-swing. The British Design and Art Design Award is one of the most coveted and challenging student awards across the pond and around the world.

There's no limit of entries, but they had better be incredible. The best of the best will be grading them. Each entry needs to be signed by your tutor/professor, or you can't enter. Can a 30 year-old grad student enter? You betcha. (Coincidentally, that's the same age as this award.)

Winners receive an oversize pencil whose tree's growth must have been stunted due to the greenhouse effect. But this little stump can be used as a pedestal to reach the next level, or a doorstop to save yourself from having a crushed foot.

The categories are: Advertising, Animation, Furniture Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Integrated Communication, Music Videos, Open Briefs, Photography, Product Design, Social Design, and What Else Do You Do? Description for the last onereads, "Having already entered one of more of the briefs this year, you are now entitled to now submit an additional piece of work that has nothing to do with this or any other competition..."

Because this blog is about advertising, I will only list the endless possibilities for the Advertising category.

Postcard
Breastfeeding, Sponsored by Best Beginnings
Press Advertising
Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Sponsored by Breakthrough Breast Cancer
Outdoor
HSBC, Sponsored by ClearChannel
Viral
Nando's, Sponsored by Nando's
Ambient
London Fashion Week, Sponsored by Grazia
Writing
If Only I'd Listened More Carefully, Sponsored by Ogilvy
Direct and Online
The Army, Sponsored by TEQUILA\
Poster
The Royal Opera House, Sponsored by This Is Real Art
TV
Belu, Sponsored by Weilands

You can't literally drown if you don't win; you only fill your metaphorical lungs up with water and have to be resuscitated by determination. Or you could change majors (quitter). Before you enter, read this. Did you read it? Okay, the briefs are here.

D&AD will accept entries from students from Jan. 14 – March 20, 2008. The grading takes place in May, and the awards ceremony is in June. All of the 'A' work is accessible in June.

Good luck!

All Dressed Up, Nowhere to Go

While visiting a friend two days ago, I saw a Seventeen Magazine in her room and asked to borrow it.

Why look in a girl's magazine? For one, I like ads. Secondly, research. The KSU Ad Club has volunteered to work with a student who is a Senior in Apparel and Textile Design; she will be opening a lingerie boutique in Rochester, New York sometime next year and has asked for some assistance developing a marketing strategy. We're privileged to work with her and have this opportunity.

Browsing through page after page of the publication and evaluating the effectiveness of the ads, I saw part of JCPenney's "Every Day Matters" campaign. The spread shows some teen girls at a dance posing for the camera in dresses that JCPenney is selling. I'm a guy, but I know when someone's hairstyle looks terrible. Theirs does, especially the girls on the far left and right. This is an important detail that JCPenney or its agency has missed. The lighting is also very poor. The copy is okay.


Going through some more pages, landing on a Dillard's ad, I saw a face that looked familiar. I had to do a double-take and go back to the JCPenney ad. She has the same facial structure. Yep, the caucasian brunette is the same model for JCPenney and Dillard's. (You may compare and contrast below.) Is this a bad thing for either company, or is it irrelevant?

JCPenney



















Dillard's



















The Dillard's ad has much better dramatic lighting for the occasion. The modeling and hairstyles are also better.

Are both concepts too similar? The ads are only 29 pages away from each other, in a magazine that has 173 pages. JCPenney is feeling free and having fun. Dillard's is intimate and elegant. Both spreads are scenarios headed to the same place.

Learn How To Speak Teen

OMG AT&T TCHING RENTS 2 SPK LYKE ME

Communications company AT&T has put an insert in today's edition (Oct. 4) of the USA Today and previously on Sept. 25, part of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The insert features a cell phone with an indecipherable message. (I sometimes use text messaging, and the ‘teen lingo’ makes no sense to me, even after reading the supposed translation.) On the side of it reads, "Do You Speak Teen?" in a large, eye-catching font. The backside has information and a small quiz to see if you know your teen. Attached to the insert is a tear-off with more information. All but one side has links to either TheAntiDrug.com or TheAntiDrug.com/ParentChronicles.

Both days the insert has run, it has caught my attention. Both times I have seen them on the floor, dropped and disregarded by students getting their daily dose of headlines. The first time I picked the ad up, it was pretty dirty, so I threw it away. Once again, and in the same location (dining center), it was on the tile floor.

Is this really necessary? I don't mean is this necessary for the advertisement to run, but is our society so disconnected that parents need to be taught by a corporation how to talk to their kids? All of the 'Action Items For Parents of Teens' disturbs me, except for the third, which is only a little troubling.

“• Pick up your teen's mp3 player and go to the "Top 25 Most Played" section. Listen for references to alcohol, drugs or other risky behaviors. Then talk with your teen about what you heard.

• Visit social networking sites like MySpace.com, and browse the profiles of teens your child's age to see what they say, what their interests are and what they are doing online.

• Can you name your teen's favorite TV show? Watch it with him or her and discuss story lines.

• Go to a video sharing Web site and type in "smoking weed." Watch some of the videos. Did you know that your teen might be exposed to these images?”

Let's start at the top and work our way down.

1) My mp3 player does not have a “Top 25 Most Played” list. How do you know if listening to a song is harmful? We all know “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver, and “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul & Mary are references to smoking a blunt. I don’t know anyone who has said John Denver or Puff and Little Jackie Paper introduced them to pot. Bob Marley can be an exception. "Chronic-what-cles of Narnia" is from a skit on Saturday Night Live. It's a popular skit with teens and young adults, but it doesn't make me want to roll a doobie.

2) Stalk or lurk other children’s online communal space to build a stereotype of how your child is. Why not talk to them up front instead of peering over their shoulder?

3) This is good, for the most part. Spending quality time with your child is very important. Discuss story lines, right. How about this? Be genuinely interested and talk with whatever you want to talk about with your child, and whatever your child wants to talk about with you.

4) Parents have to go to a Web site to understand what “smoking weed” is? Doubt that. I’m pretty sure that teens have been exposed to images of marijuana. But does it make them go out and smoke it? That’s really subject to your child's moral values and susceptibility to peer pressure.

It is important to talk with your child/pre-teen/teen/whatever about drugs. Drug usage can destroy families and future generations. I’m glad to see support for the livelihood of teens and my peers working to be motivators.

Part of the tear-off insert reads, “Teens may be a hard study, but knowing more about their world and the influences around them will help you connect better with your teen.” Your kids should not be research projects but should be an individual masterpiece ‘in progress’. The tenor of the advertisement reads as if teens are just a statistic. And that’s especially what your son(s)/daughter(s) don’t want to be labeled today.

I’m a little confused as to who the demographic for this campaign is, because it’s parental advice from a company that may run your cable and is in the pages of a national newspaper. The idea people have of USA Today readers is subjective, so that doesn’t count. Maybe it’s toward the businessmen and women who wake up at 5 a.m. to commute two hours to work and hardly get to see their kids. Suggestion: I would rather have my parents spend an hour with me than spending an hour searching for profanity, connotations, etc. Don’t be anything but yourself, mom or dad.

Happy Trails to You

That's not the image I first pictured when I read the name of Kashi's TLC cookies at Target two nights ago. My mind wandered further down south, and immediately was turned off from the product. Why would something like this be overlooked? Even if it weren't "the stairway to heaven", how does "happy" help a product sell? The cookies aren't really happy. They probably wouldn't make me any happier; chocolate chip cookies put me in a good mood. The box of cookies was stored on the top shelf, so surely it wasn't directed at the younger demographic. Is this just creative laziness?

(Do It) For the Glory of Love

In the latest issue of Communication Arts magazine, Ernie Shenck encourages us to appreciate every day, whether it's the day you get laid off or the day your agency lands an account with your favorite brand. The article is called 'Is There a Shoeless Joe in You?', referencing the baseball player, Shoeless Joe Jackson. Do what you do because you love it unconditionally.

Here's an excerpt of the motivational column. I encourage you to subscribe to CA. If you don't, at least get this issue for Ernie's uplifting words.

"I hope you love it all. Embrace it all. Suck it all in and let it shape and form you into something amazing, something with depth and breadth and subtle variations in texture and color, the likes of which we've never seen. Love what you do. Love the highs and the lows and weave it all into what you are to become. Be blindly in love. Be Shoeless Joe. Hold the bat up to your face. Look at the grain. Feel it on your cheek. Smell the varnish. You'll be better for it. We all will."

Here's a great example.

Philips Seduces Viewers

Philips has begun an international campaign for the Aurea, a Flat LCD HDTV that projects ROY G BIV onto your wall. It's much more than that, though. The Aurea is endless visual pleasure. The experience is like tripping on acid -- without the acid. The sad news: currently, it's only available in Europe.

DDB concepted the idea of a short film, directed by Wong Kar Wai, which can be seen on the Web and in stores. You are given the option to keep the "Ambilight On" or "Ambilight Off" to compare and contrast. A beautiful musical score, by Mark Slater and members of the London Symphony orchestra, labeled as the "Aurea Soundtrack", may also be downloaded on the Web site, created by Tribal DDB.

Most of the advertising will be television-based, by DDB Amsterdam, showing the brilliant, upgraded feature with a 60-second spot. Vincent Peters, fashion photographer, shot the print.

Philips is also staying ahead by partnering with Swarovski, a world-famous crystal and jewelry company. They're launching the Philips-Swarovski Active Crystals collection.

Rudy Provoost, Philips CEO, says it's a "fusion of function and fashion." Philips is targeting the female touch. "It's kind of bringing Philips 'sense and simplicity' with style and seduction" (Shiny).

Something to chew on.

That's the new tagline for the KSU Ad Club this year. I am priviliged to be the Vice President with the voluntary duties of maintaining a blog, inviting guest speakers, and creating a campaign. We're all really looking forward to what the future holds. Below are the posters created for the ad lovers on campus.

How To: Prevent Gun Violence

The copy flows very nicely, and the execution of these ads are great. They also display important and powerful stories to get the message across.
(via AotW)

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Recently there has been a campaign by McCann-Erickson for the Nikon D40, an entry-level digital SLR camera. The camera was introduced to the market in November 2006. The recent TV commercials, which first aired two weeks ago from today, were filmed in March of 2007 in the town of Georgetown, South Carolina. The cameras were given to ordinary people - fire fighters, police officers, retirees, high school students, moms and dads - to document their everday lives. Nikon states that Georgetown, dubbed Picturetown, is "a place where ordinary people take extraordinary pictures."



Viewers can visit stunningnikon.com/picturetown to view over 300 pictures in the gallery and learn about some of their experiences using the camera. Visitors can enter in a chance to win the camera if they spot it on the site, within the 40 days of the sweepstakes. The site also gives the time in Picturetown, USA, but it is the wrong time. The time zone here is Central Standard Time, and the time zone for Picturetown is shown as one hour earlier, not later. When I changed the time on my computer, the Picturetown time went back one hour. You can see the screen shot below.



Nikon has also been doing print ads for Picturetown, but I really like the actual size cutout of the camera that you can peel off the ad and take with you. You can open it up and read the camera's main features. If a photography lover wanted to bring this to someone's attention (as a gift, to ask for financial assistance, etc.), it's much easier and a better presentation than tearing out an ad in a magazine.

But a camera doesn't take a great picture; the photographer does. It does not state anywhere (that I could find) if the Georgetown participants were all given cameras with the same lens. Because the price given for the Nikon D40 is $599 (w/kit), we can assume they were all given the camera with the 18-55mm lens. If they used a better, more expensive Nikkor lens, I'm sure their pictures would look even better. It's not so much the body of the camera that matters, but it is in the lens. Unless of course, you want better durability, more fps (frames per second), more megapixels, and more professional features. But again, the camera does not set up the composition for the shot or have an alarm to let you know when the best lighting situation is. It is the photographer who makes the image.

Digital SLR cameras are not point-and-shoot cameras. With an SLR (Single-lens reflex) camera, what you see in the viewfinder - and a little bit of what you don't see - is your picture. The LCD screen on a DSLR will not show you the picture before you take it; you are required to look in the viewfinder, take the picture, and then you will see it on the LCD display. Most point-and-shoot digital cameras show you what you are seeing through the digital display screen.

The Nikon D40 (w/kit 18-55mm lens) retails at $525. Nikon's biggest competition is Canon. The D40 competes with the Canon Digital Rebel XT (w/kit 18-55 lens), which retails at $599. The Nikon has 6.1-megapixels, and the Canon comes with 8.2-megapixels. There are other things to compare as well, and you can find them at photography review Web sites like Digital Photography Review, Steve's Digicams, and Camera Labs.

Stunningnikon.com also features the Nikon D80 and the Coolpix point-and-shoot cameras. The site labels the Coolpix as beautiful and the D80 as vision. The D40 is labeled as Picturetown.

The D80 is a step up from the D40. It is a 10.1-megapixel camera that can come with a 18-135mm kit lens and a retail price of $1,179. Nikon gave experienced photographers the camera, and their work is shown at stunningnikon.com/d80. I like this gallery a lot more than Picturetown's because you can zoom in with the entire gallery. And then you can zoom in to the picture itself. All of the participants for the D80 have a Flickr gallery where you can see all of their pictures. There is also a widget you can download that will display their pictures as your background. Great ideas to keep it going even after they visit the Stunningnikon site.

The Coolpix series ranges in price from $110-$350, with various features and sizes. The cameras were given to celebrities to document certain celebrity events. Basic information is given about the limited edition Zac Posen case on the Web site, but the case is no longer available. But if you want to learn more about their promotions, Nikon says to sign up. This is the least involving and least personal.

Nikon released the D40 in November of last year, and four months later, released the D40X, a camera with the same body but more features and $200 more. I believe this is a good move by Nikon, and I thought that maybe it should have been done earlier, in sync with the release of the camera and before the holiday season. But I see that the campaign is about the every day, and this works better with a wider audience, which Nikon is aiming to reach. Though I do believe that their claim of everyone being able to take extraordinary pictures with the Nikon D40 to be false. But with that said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially when you get a free camera.