Superbowl Adverts 2012 – My personal favourites

So I’ve checked out all the Superbowl ads.

The favourite for me is Suzuki. It doesn’t tell me much about the car (what I got was good for all weather conditions and an upgrade people will know about), but the execution is cute, clever and relatable (“I traded it in”). Therefore I love Suzuki that little bit more and am actually a little curious to what this car delivers. A true Superbowl advert there to entertain and lightly inform. Also I love Huskies and these are more like wolves…which I love more.

 

 

Worst ad by far was the TaxAct advert. What the hell? This has nothing to do with tax and at the end they have poorly tried to tie the message and service together, which is so noticeable to anyone, let alone professionals. Fair enough, it’s a service, not a physical product, but this is NO excuse to give such little thought into what can represent your message. Also the art direction is terrible. The scenarios are weak, unentertaining and too ‘familiar’ to keep you drawn. This is such a waste and I’m so so angry at them!

 

 

1st runner up is Chevrolet’s Happy Grad. Very entertaining for me and stays strong until the very end. The personalities and emotions of the characters are portrayed very well to enable the ‘over the top’ execution to be accepted. Everyone loves this type of scenario, you can’t go wrong!

 

 

2nd runner up is Bridgestone tyres. This series of advert gives a lot of information about the products yet manages to do it in a captivating form. The dry humour of the interview style also gives it a little seperation from other Superbowl ads.

 

 

3rd runner up is the Budweiser ‘Wego’ dog. What guy doesn’t love a dog that fetches you beer? Little cheeky spot of women targeting too. It doesn’t really have much of a strategy behind except brand awareness but is anyone complaining really? Also at the end it has a URL to help rescue dogs. A giving brand it seems!

 

 

I’m just babbling really and am being hypocritical. These are my first impressions of the adverts but that is how I am keeping it because afterall everybody is bombarded by 50 odd adverts! However Coke’s idea of putting the polar bears in our situation needs bigging up, and the speed dating baby is pretty memorable.

Also the strategy behind the Samsung note advert is really really simple yet unbelievably effective. It speaks the truth that nobody dares speak to such a wide audience about such a loved brand (and I’m the owner of an iPhone and Macbook Pro…)

Basically I love the Superbowl.

 

Before I leave, I’ve just read an article on the ads and poor pepsi is being slated for their unoriginal advert? It’s not unoriginal because it’s going for the ‘obvious’. It is executed very well and gives the viewers good old fashioned rivalry. Surely any second place brand that gets the upper hand on their first place competitor would be accepted, entertaining and not slated for being ‘unoriginal’? Jeeez!

“Without a creative strategy…

…your print advertising would just be expensive wallpaper” Think, then do – England agency, Leeds. 

My motivational (and slightly egotistical) speech

So, I answer the office door and bring in a Parcel (a bloody heavy one at that). Then, I say hi to my colleague Brian, where he continues the conversation (being the very friendly chap he is) onto how I’m enjoying my time at DNA. This chat turned into some epic motivational conversation about how I should aim for the top agencies I want to work within. A couple of minutes in and another colleague joins in the talk. This guy has contacts within AMV BBDO. I think the sounds I made when he mentioned it were a little disturbing but MY GOD. Also I blogged about Brian a couple of weeks ago about the agencies he has worked within, but yeah, he’s prettyyyy impressive too!

So. I’ve got this huge motivational mindset at the moment that I must share!

I can do it. I genuinely can do it. I have a mindset that I believe a lot of people do not have. The way I think seems to stretch what people around me think. I’d love to see how they feel about what I say, but I genuinely feel I add things that wouldn’t be discovered if I weren’t part of it. I’m not arrogant either, incase you were wondering after that!

The sad thing is at University, my grades do not reflect the passion, dedications and brain I have for planning. It’s quite nice to see my grades within planning units are significantly higher than others, but this isn’t good enough to be noticed for interviews. I need something other than grades to let people know I can actually do this.

SO this brings me to my point. I WILL get into agencies I want to get into. They just need to see me work. They need to see my personality and dedication to discovering insights that would have never been discovered without me, or propositions that would have never been developed without my help! (Note the exclamation mark there. I definitely mean business here).

I will be drafting a letter to send out. I have my little black book. Things will get started from here. No more nice Chloe.

My last year at University will give me the chance to develop the knowledge I have learned these past 3 years, work with some very special clients and thrive under pressure. I will blossom from an advertising student to a planner and will finally be released into the hungry world!

Seriously, watch this space. If you would like to offer this clearly dedicated student a placement in an agency or client position, please let me know via Twitter. Or if you just want a chat! @ChloeJHarvey

Carling – Please be relative again!

So, this post was originally for the rants revolving around my thoughts on the new Carling advert. However, I have just taken another look at it to refresh my memory and it seems to have grown on me, but I guarantee once I start ranting, I will revert to stage one.

I will let you know firstly why I didn’t feel much for the advert to start with.

Carling for me, is a brand based on humour and male friendship, especially with their strapline of ‘belong’. Their adverts were liked, clever, creative and extremely relative to their target audience. Not only that, but I believe it gave the audience the opportunity to feel good about themselves, because in reality you would do the things (proposed in the ads) for your best pals but it’s not something you usually think about!

Perhaps the campaign/brand was becoming a little old and too familiar, but a brand refresh doesn’t mean taking away the most important values of the brand and creating new ones to replace it.

The art direction of the advert is really well done, which is probably why it’s grown on me since I last watched it. I guess I’ve come to accept it a little more. To me, it is too similar to (and poorly comparable too) the iconic powerful guinness adverts, along with other metaphorical fancy drink brands that decide to send people flying through the air or trap people in bubbles.

I do understand the brand is heading towards the ‘look at us we do actually taste great’ due to the ‘Brilliantly refreshing’ strap-line, which is fine, and to be honest, hardcore research and planning will probably blow my theory out of the water (I hope!) in that sales will rise due to the brand reposition and new campaign. However, this is just a moan about how a campaign I loved has been replaced with a fancy beer advert that just doesn’t do enough for me I’m afraid! Also, as a last point, I haven’t seen any other media related to this change? No internet banners, no print ads, no competitions. Uh oh.

Advertising and society – Harvey Nichols

This is quite a random post from one thought I’ve had, so bare with me!

Everyone (at least my age) is talking about the new Harvey Nichols Christmas advert. If you haven’t seen it, here it is.

So, is it controversial? It’s showing many women going out, spontaneously staying the night at someone’s who they probably don’t know that well, if at all,  have sex or something very similar (or pass out), then leave the next day without the pleasure of the males (or females) company.

From above, you can see the advert is very much breaking the boundaries of a typical clothing, or christmas advert for that matter (to perfume ad’s it seems quote tame, but that’s for another time). It’s making one night stands a perfectly feasible activity within society, and so far I haven’t heard a serious bad word about it. I’ve heard a few moans here and there, but there is no denying it is a beautifully crafted advert that says what it needs to say about Harvey Nichols clothing so so well, whilst relating to a real life situation, making people spread the word like no other. A proper advert in my opinion.

The main reason behind this post, however, is the fact that one night stands weren’t something that came up in the radar of wide conversation (as far as I’m aware). If I went back to someone’s I didn’t know, only my close friends would know about it. I wouldn’t be defending myself in the comments of a blog because I openly shared it with everyone. However this is now happening and it’s all because of this advertisement. Something as simple as a brand justifying the behaviour can change the way society shares their personal behaviour. I for one, feel much more comfortable telling tales around this topic, and I feel like I wouldn’t be  judged in the same way as before the advert. Hell I could even go as far to say it glorifies it.

Advertising in this manner gets people talking. It taps into a part of the brain that hasn’t been subjected to the ‘same shit different day’ syndrome. No hypodermic needles, just an advert that truly entertains and,  for the target audience, is true to the last second.

I can’t wait to see how their sales have increased. Bravo to DDB London for the creation and Harvey Nichols for bravely signing it off!

Undermining Competition?

So i’ve been looking at quite a few adverts lately in my down time, and i’ve come across brands which use advertising to undermine other brands.

Now, i’m not condemning this. I personally love adverts that tastefully gain the upper hand than their counterparts and I’ve scrubbed up a couple for you to take a look at.

This pepsi advert is obviously showing the personality of…the straw…not wanting to go inside a coke can, but would happily enter a pepsi can. This advert, although being creative, doesn’t tick the box for me. What I find ironic about this ad (and i’m not sure if this applies to everyone or just people who are observant within branding) is that the coke can isn’t a coke can, but the colour and style is enough for people to recognise it is, which kind of backlashes a little on saying pepsi is better.. but we are adding value to Coke by subcontiously knowing it is Coca Cola without even being told! The most important thing that I notice, and believe it ruins the strategy behind the advert, is that I have a love for Coke as a brand (as im sure most others do) and I think that Pepsi made a mistake in slating one of the most popular and loved brands. Who lets us know it’s Christmas first? Where can we open happiness? I find myself sticking up for Coke undoubtedly and therefore prefer the brand. Whoops!

I found another on my internet travels:

This. Is. AMAZING. All this takes is a bit of communication and a smart loyal BMW worker (or insider info on where Audi will have billboards!) and, well, it speaks for itself really.

Audi, (as much as I love them) is a tad screwed by BMW (even though I love to hate them*). Fair enough, thy decided to undermine their competition, but they didn’t think of the consequences, let alone have a strong enough advert in order to face upto any challenges! I know it isn’t very common to get adverts like this, but every corner should be covered, especially when you are within a highly competitive market.

The copy in the BMW ad is brilliant. It sums up “We’ve got the best car and you simply cannot beat it”, whilst adding creativity everybody relates to and a touch of witty intelligence from the brand. Audi deserve this bit of a bashing as they know they are within top competition…it’s not like it hadn’t happened before.

Pedigree Adoption Drive

A new online campaign has been launched by Pedigree to increase awareness of dogs which aren’t being adopted, and as a result, “will now have their last walk”.

We all know about the options of being able to adopt a pet, especially dogs or cats, but the reality is that this option just isn’t considered enough when a family decides to get a new addition. It’s a high involvement process and without much information or reassurance it can be easily overlooked. Pedigree have teamed up with certain outdoor/walking websites (specifically ‘nationalparks.gov’, ‘discovercarmarthenshire.com’, ‘bournemouth.co.uk’ and ‘merseyforest.org’, although the websites change per walk) in order to create an interactive engaging activity which allows you to take a dog for a walk across these 4 websites (seeing the home-pages and features of the websites) whilst giving awareness messages in between each page e.g. “The number of abandoned dogs in the UK has reached an 11 year high” and “over 126,000 dogs are being abandoned every year”.

What makes this an even better campaign is that Pedigree will donate £1 per dog walk, and as far as I know the walks per IP address are unlimited! I think everyone may love pedigree that little bit more, although us who are a little clued up on sponsorship will know it’s really an all round success with the websites paying for their exposure on the dog walks.

Within half an hour, over 200 walks have taken place. I will expect this to rise greatly within the coming days through quickly prompting to share the activity on social networking sites after the walk has finished. furthermore, what have we got to lose? We are a nation that loves animals, especially dogs, and donating free money? Well that will give us all a little boost towards filling our ‘good deeds of the day’ bar!

Do your bit and check it out here:

http://uk.pedigree.com/pedigreeadoptiondrive/

Should you stay in a job that’s not satisfying?

So, whilst being here at my placement, so far I have discovered that I love getting up early, I love going to bed early and I love going to work. I love it even more when I know I have a busy day ahead of me.

I’m kind of just saying this to reassure myself, because in all honesty a few weeks ago I had a bit of a ‘relapse’ shall we say, in that I wanted to work with animals (I’m quite the caring person, believe it or not!). There’s quite a big contrast between animals and advertising…but I discovered all I needed to do was to stick my head in a good old advertising orientated piece (‘Confessions of an advertising man’, to be precise. good old Ogilvy) and I was reminded of the amazing things I had been learning for the past 2 years, flooding it all back!

I honestly think the problem was that being in an agency which is very creative design focussed, the strategic thinking was very closed between certain people and all I was seeing were random creative outcomes. Now, the thing that really gets me going about advertising is planning, and for a moment I thought I would get a job, and it would no longer be seen.

Truth is that it won’t be. It won’t be because I wont let it! If i’m in an advertising agency that has minimal planning, surely I can offer my skills to change this? Planning is absolutely invaluable and something that I’m proud to say I get, and any fool to turn this down (never mind within an agency) is well, a fool.

I spoke to the heads here at dna and i’m happy to say I am getting stuck into two new projects, working with Brian (who i mentioned in a previous blog) to come up with some awesome concepts which quite frankly are going to blow the client away. Just you wait and see! It’s exciting to be working on planning for a brochure suite for Princess Yachts, rather than it’s advertising (which is later in the year, don’t worry I’m not letting that get away either) as it really helps to stretch your mind into thinking behind different pieces and their purposes.

So, this blog is completely spontaneous, but the answer to my question which is “Should you be in a job you hate?” is no, of course not. You can risk losing the passion that you once had, hence the reason you are in that industry. How lost would you be to go to a job that is purely to make money so you can have a good weekend? A job is there to contribute to society, to make people proud, but mostly to satisfy yourself. Take it upon yourself to challenge what you and the company you work for has done and think you can go just that little bit further. You are a valuable asset and if you can give more, do it! If you don’t think you can, just give it a go. Even if it is something which isn’t considered, it gives such an amazing impression to want to help and show you have skills that are there to be used!

Inspirational rant over.

The post of freedom

Finally, I can use this blog to express my ‘advertisingness’ within the boundaries of myself rather than what my lecturers like to see.

An update is in order.

I am now on my placement year (woohoo). I started at DNA advertising on the 4th of July and haven’t looked back since (other than to order some books online to increase my academic knowledge, of course).

I am loving it here. Everybody is really friendly, intelligent and right up my street. I’m not only learning the fundamentals of advertising (especially account planning), but I get to see the creative process due to tight communication and in-house projects.

Brian McCabe, a previous employer of Saatchi & Saatchi NY, BBDO NZ and Ogilvy NZ, is an employer here and I must say I’m rather proud to be on lateral thinking levels with him. I just hope one day I will be receiving a blog post written by an ambitious advertising student with my name written as the main focus! Watch this space…

Also, welcome to my Brain…(sorry that sounds quite gross)

digital Privacy, how far can it go?

This will be my last blog for Digital Communication Strategies, and although I have already blogged on this subject, there is much more to talk about and touch upon, particularly observation and its application to advertising.

So, lets define Privacy as: the quality or state of being apart from company or observation. (Merriam Webster 2011) which can be applied to the digital world, especially in the case of observation. Types of observation on the Internet can be broad, from people seeing what you write to your Facebook friends, history showing other computer users what websites you last visited and cookies recording information you enter on certain websites. We can thank the controlling of privacy in general due to article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Council of Europe (1950). Privacy, when applied digitally it is said “the UK’s independent public body is set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals” (ICO, 2010).

When looking further into this, information is protected, but this mentions nothing about not handling private data altogether. One process of this act is ‘Not keeping information for longer than is necessary’. This means nothing to us in the digital world. It provides no privacy for the public. How do we know what they need the information for in order to judge how long they will need it for? Legislation for the digital age has limited experience and is definitely not a top priority for governments when publics are concerned. The passing of information to companies can target advertising to specific individuals, which could be an example of the mysterious ‘third parties’. We get specific adverts on social media (like I mentioned in my previous blog) and emails about offers and deals we didn’t sign up to or agree to receive.

Developing this further leads us onto cookies. Cookies were developed to maintain continuity on the web. In short, they contain text-character strings that encode relevant information about the user, which is then retrieved when they visit cookie-using websites. The web server can then retrieve that information, finding out information such as common Internet habits, which may not be seen as too much of a problem (Park & Sandhu, 2000). This use of cookies is found in over 50% of a common website sample. I have come across some websites that warn me because a cookie will be placed within my computer, but if I do not agree to this then I cannot proceed further to what I was doing. Therefore, we all know we would accept this cookie to be placed into the computer. They have warned us, therefore what harm can it do? They wouldn’t tell us about something really damaging would they, because then we wouldn’t accept it, would we? Well, the majority does accept it, because we think we know about them but really we have no idea of the dangers or risks.

When applying cookies to advertising, they are becoming a huge threat to online advertising. 30% of users are deleting cookies at least once a month (Soltani et al, 2009). This invasion of privacy can be deleted however, so is it really worth worrying about if you remember to clean up your computer? No. But the new ‘Persistent Identification Element’, developed by an online advertising agency, creates a storage unit within your browser that cannot be deleted by the typical anti cookie/virus software, never mind just deleting cookies from your computer. Surely this is the type of digital privacy breech we should be talking about.

This existence of all types of cookies creates opportunities for Identity theft and inputting information into websites can result in

1. Phishing.

2. Online/physical stalking

3. Embarrassment

4. Blackmailing

5. Reputational damage

Identity theft, you can assume, happens easily on the Internet due to the amount of information you input online, which can include your mothers maiden name and other security questions that are used (Guard privacy & Online Security, 2010). It is easier than physically stealing information as everything is on one platform and if somebody can access one piece of information, the chances are that they can access the rest.

Online stalking/physical stalking can be related back to the previous blog where I focus on Facebook and other social media. Looking at your profile can show where you live, what school/college/university/workplace you visit everyday, what you look like, what your interests are etc. which can create strange bonds to people and result in stalking. Advertisements online can also do this.

Phishing symptoms are finally one of the most popular ways of invasion of privacy from information from cookies. They can find out things, which are important and personal to you, and claim to be them in order to find out further information e.g. your bank asking for confirmation of banking details, Hotmail/Facebook threatening to delete or suspend your account unless certain action is taken. An experiment to test how effective phishing websites were showed 90% were fooled by ‘good’ phishing websites and overall participants made mistakes 40% of the time (Dhamija 2006). This type of privacy breach creates threat and worry amongst the person, as this is something that is an integral part of their lives. The disturbance of this would cause huge disruption for their lives if the ‘problem’ isn’t resolved, so there is a much better chance of falling for the scam due to an overriding panic or worry which occurs before rational thinking.

All of the mentioned above are all huge invasions of privacy as a result of you using the digital world for things as simple as eBay and Facebook. It also shows how advertising can take advantage of this breech. I would say we need to be aware of them, but is aware enough? Can we stop it from happening by being aware or ignoring? My answer is no, and I can honestly admit I have given up worrying about it. I know to check the address bar and other signs for phishing sites, I know only to disclose personal information to trusted websites (with Facebook not being a trusted site for my address) and that is probably all we can do in order to stay as digitally private as possible.