Past Deadline - But Still a Good Ad

I know the journal was due this afternoon so I don't expect this to be considered in any of the marking, but I still think it is worth putting up after watching on TV this evening. I don't know whether it is because the ad has an exotic foreign appeal or a pretty girl in it which adds to the overall success I found in it, but I think the main reason it succeeds is because of the humour. It draws you in immediately and this could have something to do with being black and white?? (Black and white ads for me are associated with good quality - perhaps a result of Allan Gray campaigns) It is amusing and watching it makes me want smile and want to see what it is for.

April 12th - A Closing Collection

You could find cool adverts all day, on the hundreds of websites dedicated to them, but these are a few which stuck out to me.... They are all pretty self-explanatory. The first is bubblegum, second for Swiss Parachute School and the third is for the Dutch Football team.

Brandhouse Drive Dry Advert

I recently wrote an essay on this advert and why I think it is so wrong because it uses the plight of prisoners and prison rape as a threat to drunken drivers. I think that fear of going to prison is not what is used as the tactic here, but rather a fear of rape in prison, as an extra form of punishment. This only entrenches the problems of our country more. However, that being said, this is the first drive dry campaign that has actually reached me. Not that I used to drive over the limit, but now I am aware of exactly how much alcohol I am taking in if I am driving. The advert scared me a lot. So it was successful then? But is it morally right to advertise like this? I don't know the answer to that.

Sunday April 10th - Supersport

I was at the gym training today and watched the SuperSport channel on one of the TVs. I found it interesting and amusing that during an advert for SuperSport, they showed a shot of a woman's cleavage. It was one of those fast paced ads of quick moving action sport moments: from F1 to soccer goals, rugby tries, surfing, mountain biking, fans going wild, cleavage extreme close-up, Lewis Hamilton, Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, SuperSport logo. The way you only see that shot for a second subtly associates sport with sex appeal and ladies. Given the predominantly male viewership I was just interested by this predictable insert and wondered how many people noticed it and how many it  reached without them actually taking it in.

Wednesday April 6th - Plascon and Vodacom

I watched a tv show for the first time in a long time. It was at the 8:30pm slot, for one hour. During that one hour I saw two commercials which I actually enjoyed or took note of. One enjoyed was for Plascon, I can't find a video of it online, but basically there is a female bulldog walking down the street and a male jack russell jumping up against the wall of his backyard trying to see her. At the end of the wall the jack russell is posing like a model against the gate just in time for the bulldog to walk by. The ad is about how it is easy to wash the mud off the wall because it is Plascon. It was just amusing in the same way the Toyota talking dog can be.

The second advert was more of a series of adverts rather than just one. They are the 13 second Vodacom adverts announcing the change in colour for the brand. Vodacom is no longer blue and has changed to red. The series of about 8 adverts which we saw really annoyed my dad because, as a Vodacom client he couldn't believe they were wasting all of his money on prime time advertising for something which to him was irrelevant. It made me think how big of a deal a colour change for a big brand really is. All of the sponsorship colours change and possible associations with the brand. The fact that Vodacom were so intensely advertising this change must mean that it is very very important to them.

Tuesday April 5th - Hot Wheels

I was browsing The Cool Hunter today when I saw these really neat adverts done by Ogilvy and Mather for Hot Wheels. They speak for themselves and are pretty clever. The brand is trying to advertise to a much broader demographic than children these days.

Monday March 28th - Varsity Cup Sponsors

I was watching the Varsity Cup semi-final today on SuperSport and was interested by the way the commentators were very obviously advertising for the sponsors. UCT were winning and the commentators were already saying how fans could go and celebrate with an ice cold Carling Black Label at the Spur.

Sunday March 27th - Nikon

Pretty clever idea Nikon have going here. Pretty much forces you to take note and look at their advert. To launch the new D700 in Korea they set up this paparazzi billboard with motion sensors so that every time someone walks by it triggers the flashes. A pretty different take on the conventional camera adverts which show you what kind of pictures the camera can take and quote specifications. I like :)

Saturday March 26th - Surf Brands

I went into a surf shop today for the first time in ages. For me, surf brands such as Billabong and Quicksilver were an obsession of the early teens. After a while I started to realise that I was making my parents pay huge premiums on clothing that was no different to the same product retailing for half the price, other than that it displayed a huge logo across the back and chest. The cut or quality was no more superior to say, Mr. Price. I find it hard to believe that new age surf brands like Hurley will charge R300 for an unfitted cotton t-shirt which un-creatively displays their logo across the front.

The fact that so many people still support these brands goes to show that it is still viewed as cool. Cool by association because they sponsor all of the pro-surfers. If Jordy Smith wears Hurley and he is this ripped, tanned guy who gets paid to surf all day, then it is cool to wear Hurley? But usually the people our age who wear Hurley are either tanned, ripped surfers who win it in competitions or socially awkward people who still conform to high-school like ways in order to try and fit in... Hurley can't stop the latter from wearing the brand because they don't fit in with the Hurley picture, and no matter what they look like they are still doing the brand a favour, because they are advertising the brand name as they walk. It is something which has always annoyed me a lot, but hats off to them for making huge profits and getting paid to have other people do their advertising for them.

However, it is exclusive designers who have the most subtle labelling of all. You can see the superiority in the cut, design and quality and yet they still to do well. Perhaps with a different arsenal of ways to advertise...

Friday March 25th - VW: The Force

Really liking this advert at the moment. Also found it online. I find it interesting how much it relies on intertextuality. VW are expecting everyone to know about "the force" and that the child is wearing a Darth Vader outfit from Star Wars. Star Wars is a phenomenally successful film series and a solid enough thing for VW to rely on people's knowledge of in order for their advert to work.

I also just think that the whole ad was made well from a cinematography point of view, to the music chosen and the mise-en-scene. Every angle and shot were thought out and you can see this as it pays off really well.

Thursday March 24th - Heineken

I am really enjoying the latest Heineken advert "The Entrance". I think a lot of it has to do with the song, "Golden Age" by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. I didn't know the band before but have gone out of my way to download the song, which I really enjoy. The advert just makes you feel like if you drink a Heineken, you will look and feel like this guy, making such an entrance. There's not much more to it, other than its obvious appeal to men and its visually exciting and interesting direction. You want to see what he'll do next.

Wednesday March 23rd - Music Video Branding

In the last few years, it seems as though advertisers have been targeting music videos a lot more than ever before. I find this trend very interesting and effective. Whereas before, if a music video involved a cellphone it wouldn't be focused on much or branded, there is now clearly more attention given to these sorts of things. Nokia have advertised in music videos by getting stars like Beyonce and Rihanna to use their phones for texting in their videos. One recent one which stood out to me in particular was the video for Travie McCoy's song "Billionaire" in which he is driving around and giving away lots of stuff to people who need it. He is showing the world what he would do if he was a billionaire. However, instead of driving a Ferarri or a supercar, he is in a Mini-Cooper convertible, a car he ends up giving away. The official music video has had over 82 million hits on YouTube and would have been aired on MTV and other music channels around the world. This form of advertising by Mini is far reaching and these brands become cool by association.

Tuesday March 22nd - MTV Swtich

Watched MTV today and they are constantly playing all these MTV Switch adverts, to raise awareness for global warming and their campaign to fight it. The one I was watching was an animation showing deforestation and lumberjacks cutting down trees. What I found interesting was that the chainsaws in the animation were clearly branded as Ryobi and there was a close up shot where the viewer can identify this. The cutting down of trees in this context is negative, but Ryobi still chose to pay MTV to advertise like this. Perhaps it is because they simply want to advertise to a broader demographic and not the current target market, so that from early on, Ryobi becomes synonymous with chainsaws... Or because either way, you see a Ryobi chainsaw very effectively used to fell a tree...

Monday March 21st -Nutella

I stayed at home most of today and so didn't feel that targeted by any advertising, but while my sister was home from Stellenbosch she burst out laughing at a Nutella advert on TV. The advert basically sells Nutella as a nutritious spread for your children,  recommended for breakfast. That a chocolate-hazelnut spread on white bread could possibly be bought under the impression that it is really healthy for your children I find hard to believe.

However, the crucial point is when they show the Nutella being spread on to to bread, it made me go through to the kitchen, grab a spoon and eat Nutella. In food advertising, perhaps that is the strongest selling point: the actual display of the food in an ideal serving suggestion.

Sunday 20th March - Virgin Active

Today I worked at Virgin Active. My uniform is made up entirely of red and carries five logos and before you have entered the club you have seen their logo at least three times. Outside the club, in the entrance and in the training areas, along with the red colour scheme and branding, are all of the words the company wants you to associate with it:
Laughing, Positive, Challenging the Norm, Value for Money, Chilling, Lunging, Stepping, Running, Flexing, etc. While you train you can't help taking these in at a conscious or sub-conscious level. Virgins current advertising campaign is made up of three steps: fall in love, be in love and stay in love. This in-house advertising is only meant to enforce this.

Saturday March 19th - Human Billboards

The 19th was the first day I started taking notes of what I had been seeing in the way of adverts reaching me on a day to day basis.

There seems to be a big trend or campaign at the moment where cheap labour is being hired to wear posters, or human billboards and stand on a street corner or at a traffic light. Wow Patios is the most prominent product and Beds for Africa another. However, if I were ever to need either of these products I would most likely still find myself using the yellow pages or the closest store to home.

What annoys me about this form of advertising is how it almost seems cruel and insulting to the people, to make them stand at a traffic light doing nothing all day. Arguably it is better than being unemployed and at least they are making an income - but they are probably being paid next to nothing and I find it sad that people are being hired to stand and advertise like this. It might be because Cape Town road/public space laws prohibit simply leaving signs on street corners or putting them up on streetlamps??