AdNausea

As I was trolling Digg the other day, I came across an interesting post. My earlier blog about subliminal advertising gave readers a background about subconscious messages used in entertainment and advertising. And here is some more recent news about it.

Posted on 9/28/09,  BBC News reports that yes, in fact, subliminal messages do work. Most effectively, negative messages it seems. Three experiments were conducted at the University College in London where entrants were briefly shown hidden words and asked to classify these words as different emotions (good or bad) or as neutral.

Where does this come from? It seems that being able to pick up on and react to small cues that we sense subconsciously help us to avoid danger. This might be, obviously,  useful in marketing.

The actual experiment was conducted as such: 50 participants (which seems like a small number, to me) were shown a series of words on a computer screen. These words only appeared for a fraction of a second (way too fast for someone to actually see and read the word) and they were either positive words (like peace and flower) or negative words (like agony and murder) or they were neutral (like box and kettle). After each word, they had to choose whether the word was emotional or neutral and how sure they were of their answer. Most people categorized the word (without consciously seeing it) correctly when it was negative, even when they thought they were guessing at it. They accurately categorized 66% of the negative words and only 50% of the positive ones.

Don’t get too excited now. Critics of this experiment are saying that there is no grounded evidence that this same thing would happen outside a labratory. And I have to agree. This experiment was done on a rather small scale (only three runs of 50 people?) and was done with the participants knowledge of being tested for these. Anyone can guess something correctly 50% of the time, it’s just math. I’m excited to see where further experiments will take this study and what this may mean for subliminal messages in advertising. In all honesty, the world of advertising will be evolving to places we never thought imaginable and this may be a small step toward those bigger leaps.

What do you think?

So… recently I read an interesting article regarding subliminal advertising. I’m sure everyone has heard this term before, but just for verification, this is what my trusty (although not always reliable) source says:

 ”A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, belief systems and value systems.”

In terms of advertising,  in 1957 James Vicary said that flashing a message quick enough on a movie screen that it couldn’t be conciously seen could still persuade the subconcious. He “proved” this in movie theaters over a 6 week period by flashing the words “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Hungry? Eat Popcorn” and said that sales in a New Jersey theater of these two products increased by up to 57%.

These claims were promoted in various books and, of course, led to a public panic. “OMG, if people can TELL us stuff without us knowing, who knows what we’ll do? Companies will urge you to buy their product without you knowing it, they’ll urge you to buy a gun and shoot your neighbor without you knowing it, and they’ll encourage our young angels to have sex all the time, all without us knowing it.” It was a very understandable concern at the time. However… 5 years later Vicary confessed that his test results were false and the whole thing was a marketing scheme. This has since been re-tried and comes back with no hint of success.

Despite multiple studies and reports of this not being an actual concern since it doesn’t actually work… it has been repeatedly tried and used in various forms:

1978 - Kansas TV Station ran a subliminal message with permission of the local police trying to encourage a killer in the area to turn himself in -no increase in leads resulted.

2000 - US Presidential TV campaign for George W. showed words going from the foreground of the screen to the background. During the word “BUREAUCRATS” one frame only flashed “RATS” - no penalties were ever assessed by the FCC.

In a mocking manner, in British comedy “The Young Ones” a number of images were repeated during various episodes as a response to the outcry of subliminal messages in television. These included a gull landing and a tree frog jumping. These are included on the US Boxset.

2007 - An image of the McDonald’s logo flashed for one frame during an episode of Iron Chef America - sales did not rise and Food Network says it was a glitch.

2007 - Sprite started a campaign cashing in on this “phenomenon” when they did Sublymonal Advertising.

In “Cloverfield”, three pictures are seen during various parts of the film and are flashed very quickly. They are frams from classic monster films such as “Them!”, “The Best from 20,000 Fathoms” and “King Kong.”

As far as advertising goes in print, I’ve included a few examples of hidden images that are meant to be “sensed subconsciously” and, in a worst case scenario, encourage you to feel certain things. I tend to think, however, that it was someone’s last day on the job and they just wanted to eff the company over in a small way. Take a look:

Hidden within the ice cubes could be a number of images, the most realistic and probably intentional highlighted.

This appears to be a clip from a KFC commercial introducing their snackers. Not sure what the message is or how real this is as I can not verify it with any sources.

This one has a hidden message in the ice cubes as well. This type of message (”SEX” in the ice cubes”) has been done over and over again by many different products and companies.

This same type of thing, sexual messages trying to fly “under the radar” has also happened in movies such as Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladin” and many others. Which ones have you, the readers, seen, heard about or heard rumors of?

My next post will be about exciting developments in the world of subliminal messages, although not related to advertising, it’s still very big news and will have implications toward advertising if found true.

Now… I am usually against animals used to sell things. I hate the Taco Bell dog, don’t like the Cottonelle puppy, or the bears for that other brand either. But when I saw that R&R Partners put chinchillas as the main attraction in this new advertisement for Las Vegas… I had to give it a chance. You see, I have two chinchillas at home and I really love them (kung-fu training and spear sharpening included), so I thought this may be the one to change my mind.

How wrong I was. Watch it and see…

Part 1

Part 2

Here are my problems with this:

1. Unless I’m mistaken, part 1 celebrates this day because the Chinchillas were defeated. Part 2 celebrates because Chinchillas saved the village from bad guys. Isn’t this contradictory? Am I missing the point?

2. They couldn’t get better looking fake chinchillas? They look more like a cross between a groundhog and a mouse than they do chinchillas.

3. I don’t like that it’s called Chinchilli Day. It annoys me, I think.

4. Yes, I get it. Vegas is making the point that even if you make up a fake holiday, you should take some extra time off to go visit the City of Sin, but therein lies the problem - Something cute and fuzzy should not be associated with Vegas. Vegas should go back to the adults only entertainment.

Remember the days of “What happens in Vegas…”?

or…

These aren’t even the best ones. I can’t find them. But what happened to the day of “go to Vegas, do things you wouldn’t normally do.” I don’t like the direction this is going in.

On the other hand, after looking up R&R Partners, looks like they do a lot of work for Las Vegas and tourism. And the work is very good. They do a bunch of non-traditional stuff (like joining up with dry cleaners to sell Utah Opera seats) and turns out, they also did a few of those commercials that I know and love (look at their website for more - they’re great). Also, my favorite of favorites! They did this huge image of a Maxim cover, actually seen from outer space, in the Nevada deserts somewhere. See that little thing down there at the bottom? That’s a car.

So why the sudden downturn in commercial creativity? Chinchilla muppets? Really? Or am I the only one turned off by this. Those commercials don’t make me want to go to Vegas, because I know it’s making hundreds of children want to go, too. They’ll all be screaming “Chinchillis mommy! Chinchillis!” Yuck.

So today is a big day (as far as I’m hearing) for some big companies. Not only does Marvel now belong to Disney, for the sharp price tag of $4 billion (in cash and stocks) but IKEA has made the grave misstep of doing the most horrible, unthinkable thing ever - no. They didn’t fire the little children that make their furniture. No, they didn’t get rid of their meatballs. They… changed their font. <Gasp!>

Now, when I heard this news this morning (I do not have the catalog delivered) at first, my thought was “Woop-tee-do!” But now, after reading some blogs and news articles, I’m wondering if maybe the hoop-la is justified.

For over 60 years, Swedish company IKEA has used (in it’s catalogs, billboards, web, print and signage) a custom made version of the font Futura. They have recently switched fonts and the latest catalog, that arrived for most, last night, shows the new changes. People couldn’t believe their eyes! A new font? Now, I would understand this uproar a bit more if the fonts were completely different. Yes, IKEA furniture is based on clean, simple and well-structured lines, functional and geometric. And it made sense that their font choice reflects the same. So yes, if they had switched to Times New Roman, Georgia or Curlz, I would have understood more. But they didn’t. They didn’t even step outside the realm of sans-serif. They chose Verdana. Samples of each font are below, I’ll let you guess which is which.

Here are both sides of the story. First, the outraged people: (Like one gentleman who started a petition with already 700 signatures, but with twitter blowing up on this, shown below, it will rise fast, I guess). People who respect IKEA for their sense of design are usually some kind of designer themselves - creative, detail oriented and most importantly - most know their fonts. So to switch from a pretty classy font, custom made and used for 60 years to a font that is free from Microsoft - that any schmuck with a rich text email box or Word can access… well, that seems like a slap in the face.

Another argument is the fact that Verdana was designed for web use. It is meant to be viewed at book print size, in black and white and lots of it. If this gets blown up to the size of a headline (or god forbid, the famous IKEA billboards) you start to see the imperfections - the ample amount of space, the lack of rhythm. It just wasn’t meant to be viewed at that large of a scale.

Now, IKEA has yet to release an offical press statement, but of course, the people in charge of this decision probably had no idea the backlash they would get. Supposedly, they chose this font because it’s more effecient and economically smarter. Read: cheaper. Which is funny, because most of the stuff at the store is hella expensive. Why cheapen your brand, I say?

Another reason they changed is that this font was extensively developed - which means they can print materials with this font in multiple different languages and keep the same font. This point I understand.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it’s just a frickin’ font - and a very similar one at that. On the other… I really hate Verdana.

Here’s what others are saying (via source):

“Ikea, stop the Verdana madness!” - Tokyo’s Oliver Reichenstein

“Words can’t describe my disgust,” - Ben Cristensen of Melbourne.

“Horrific,” - Christian Hughes in Dublin.

Typophile, an online forum dedicated to the magical world of fonts, ended its first post on this subject with the words, “It’s a sad day.”

Now, I don’t follow sports much. And I don’t really follow celebrity gossip. But I know lots of people do and this is a perfect example of something that most people don’t think has anything to do with advertising.

Michael Vick, former quarterback for the Atlanta so-and-so’s. He had endorsements that netted him $4 million + a year (including AirTran Airways and Nike) but is probably more famous now for his conviction of being a key person involved with a dogfighting ring. Which did, in fact, take place on his Atlanta property. He, of course, left the team he played for and has since served some prison time (not nearly enough, if you have seen the pictures of the poor puppies involved). And recently he has been restated into the NFL, although no one is sure where, exactly, he’ll play. Understandably he’s kind of a leper to a team’s public image right now. As well as for endorsements.

So how does this tie in with advertising and marketing? Easy. Michael Vick is a brand. Yes, exactly like those brands you see in the grocery store, on the car dealer lot, in television commercials. Tylenol, Jiffy, Saab, Fed-Ex, Re/Max, you name it. Brand names. Just because Vick is a person does not mean he isn’t a brand. Before this scandal, his brand, his name, was associated with amazing football skills, ambition, victory, etc. And his stint in dog-fighting has greatly damaged that brand – because now he’s more associated with prison sentences, lawbreaking, animal abuse and basically, being a criminal. This is hard for a lot of teams (and potential endorsing companies) to swallow – who wants to be linked to someone who is looked down on or who is the subject of quite a bit of controversy?

Interestingly (I hadn’t hear this), Vick has made statements hinting that he might do work on behalf of PETA (animal rights group) and has aligned himself with this group to make up for his wrongs. This might not be such a smart move, as it is pretty transparent. But it is an example of how he’s trying to fix his brand image. Marc Bluestein, president, Aquarius Sports Group says that “Critics will say, “The only reason he’s doing this is because people told him he should do this.”

It may not all be bad news, though, because his image might possibly be able to be saved. Here are what a few sports marketing experts had to say about Vick’s image: (more here )

Ben Sturner, CEO, Leverage Agency: It’s not a lost cause. I mean, look at Kobe Bryant. Kobe comes to mind right away as someone who’s had a tarnished image and is resurrected. A lot of it depends on what happens on the field.

David Schwab, vp, Octagon Sports Marketing’s First Call and managing director of athletes and personalities: It’s a two-part answer: There’s a consumer and a brand answer. I think for the majority of consumers it can be rehabilitated over time. I think there is a hardcore pet lover for whom the issue will never be won over.

Patrick McGee, CEO, ProVentures Group and one of Vick’s former reps at Octagon: I don’t think his image can go further down, so it certainly will be rehabilitated to some degree if he has the right road going forward. As far as sponsors, I think it’s unlikely for major brands, but it’s not impossible that he’ll get an endorsement again.

Who do you think would be interested in sponsoring him now? And why? Dog food companies? Humane Societies? Prison programs? What are your thoughts?

Just as I’m getting ready to go to a movie, I discover that one of my favorite movie time snacks – Raisinets – (made by Nestle) is getting an awesome new extension! Raisins are all good for you, everyone knows, but what’s better? Cranberries, that’s right. And what tastes better on everything? Chocolate, that’s right. Hence – Cranberry Raisinets! Now, here are few interesting things about this new Nestle product and it’s debut:

• First, these are targeting healthy women on the go. Women who want something that tastes good and is good for them (Cranberries for a long time now, have been harked as a superfruit for all the health benefits they provide). That makes sense.

• Apparently there are web-isdoes (Done by OgilvyInteractive; Dailey does the rest of the campaign) at Raisinets.com that chronicles the arrival of the new snack. Bitchy raisin snacks come up with snarky comments about the newcomer “Raisinet with a juicy walk” and say that “I heard through

  the grapevine that she hits the chocolate hard.” I look forward to watching these.

• Print ads will run in Woman’s Day (starting with September’s issue) that will feature advice from busy women, about how to juggle the priorities of your day, etc. Feel like that fits in pretty well.

• Nestle is also running “The Crandulgence Life-in-Balance” sweepstakes, offering a three-night getaway for two to somewhere in Arizona.

 Original article here.

Sells?

So, remember the post on Gossip Girl and they’re (in)famous OMFG advertising? Well, those guys are at it again, this time promoting the show The Beautiful Life which is supposed to be about runway models (who, obviously, are all about the clothes) but the advertisements feature women wearing pretty much nothing. Except for the always strategic and teasing headline bar over the naughty bits.

I’m not sure how I feel about these. On one hand – sex sells. It’s been said over and over and it will continue to work and will continue to drum up controversy and attention, both of which will work for the advantage of the client. But on the other, this specific brand of sex (the over-the-top with young people naked to piss off parents and therefore cement themselves with the youth of today kind) has been done before – by this same company and for the same network (CW) so is it really new anymore? If they’ve already done something extremely similar (and to me, more creative, since the OMFG ads featured REAL reviews (negative) from real critics and made it work for them) they’re not putting much thought into it, just following a formula that has been proven to work.

Although, with these ads, I do appreciate that there are some men baring it as well. Apparently, it’s the four main actors/actresses in the show and while women are usually the ones who get naked for these things, the two gentlemen stepped up to the plate as well. Thank you for that.

And on this same note, a show that I have fallen out of love with, Heroes, has… kind of (?) jumped on this same sexy bandwagon with the Season 4 poster. Here, you see Hayden Pantierre (Panties, as I call her) showing a bit of cleavage – although at my first glance, I didn’t see the cleavage… I thought it was part of her clothing. The lighting and the angle are terrible… her “cleavage” looks badly Photoshopped or badly photographed… whichever. It’s not working for me. Although I do love how Hiro is just staring at her goodies… lol.

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I… Love… These… Commercials. It’s a normal car commercial, yes, but it’s spruced up. People dressed in costumes mimic nature – everything from grass swaying, palm trees and waves to the sun and the clouds – all people. It sounds weird, but if you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean. The music is very catchy as well, I like to sing along to it. I’m thinking that one of the songs sounds like it’s sung by Beyonce, which would make sense since lots of people (actors and musicians alike) are taking more jobs with commercials than they used to.

Two commercials, titled “Harmony” and “MPG” are currently airing and the tagline is “Harmong Between Man, Nature and Machine” is very fitting for the commercial. Definitely YouTube these commercials if you haven’t seen them yet and go here (http://priuschat.com/news/video-behind-scenes-harmony-2010-prius-commercial) to learn about a behind the scenes video released and posted by Toyota that shows how the commercial was put together.

This being said, my boyfriend thinks these commercials are “creepy as hell.” Anyone else agree?

I am definitely one for advertisements that break through boundaries and bring the message they hark to people in a way that is innovative, creative and unexpected. So of course, the joint effort between CBS and PepsiCo would strike my fancy – and probably yours, too.

First the background information: CBS (the television network) has joined with PepsiCo for a one-off collaboration (although an upfront collaboration is in the works between the two for future projects, including the next Super Bowl which CBS will air) to promote CBS’s fall line-up (Including How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, CSI: Los Angeles, Accidentally on Purpose… etc) and Pepsi Max for men. A normal television commercial will probably be seen as will a normal print ad in magazines. But for the lucky Entertainment Weekly subscribers in Los Angeles and New York City, something new is in the works.

A video ad that will run in a print magazine. Yes, CBS is inserting paper-thin video players (interactive, by touch) into copies of the Sept. 18^th issue of Entertainment Weekly to promote the “Monday to the Max” comedies on Sept. 21^st. When people flip through the pages of this magazine, they’ll come across the ad with a small screen that will flicker and load a video. You can select which segments you want to watch – montages from Big Bang, Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother. There’ll be an ad for Pepsi Max and sneak previews of CBS dramas.

This interesting promotion (the first I’ve heard of – a video player in a magzine?) is a great experiment and a step out of the box – and this isn’t CBS’s first step into creative and clever ways to reach viewers where they least expect it.

In 2006 CBS printed promotional messages for shows on eggs in grocery stores (Asking buyers to “Crack the case on CBS” for CSI) as well as ads on meat wrappers at the butcher counter in delis and supermarkets. One of my favorites, though, is for the now-canceled vampire show Moonlight – Ads placed on the frozen food aisle doors that appeared when the door fogged over.

I am really glad to see a company this mainstream stepping outside of it’s normal boundaries and hopefully will continue to see more, because companies are going to need it. Traditional advertising no longer gets the job done.

Original story and more info Here.

So, after yesterday’s post that included a confusing Orangina print advertisement, I did some research. And lo and behold, it’s a drink invented by a Spanish dude, it’s famous for it’s uniquely shaped and textured bottles and it’s controversial advertising.

Now, here’s where the problem lies, these drinks are made and sold mostly for kids. It’s a bubbly, citrus drink in a fun bottle. And the ads are primarily animated commercials and cartoon characters on print. That being said… they’re very raunchy and even a bit dark.

When Orangina Sanguine came out, it was made of blood oranges and to promote the blood part of the drink, they made an animated commercial where the Orangina Rogue hunts down a family in a car and the child asks, “But why is it so evil?” And the family yells, “Because!” In French, of course. Creepy.

And the following are the prints ads - which are a bit risque on their own, but when combined with commercials where female deer are grinding on poles, squirting the drink on fellow female animals’ breasts and riding a big bottle of the drink, which proceeds to explode… one’s gotta wonder who these drinks are really aimed at. Either way… I enjoyed looking at these and thought you might as well.

 A Still from the commercials:

and another…

 Anyone ever drink these, by the way?