AdNausea

Now, if you’ve ever been unemployed, had a lot of extra stuff to get rid of or wanted to make a little extra money (in numerous ways) you’ve no doubt stumbled onto craigslist.com. I’m on the site myself every day checking in the creative gigs (don’t you do it! They’re mine!) and looking at all the weird stuff you can find. I am very pleased with a post I found today. At first glance, there’s not much different about this ad, Y&R in San Fran is hiring for junior creatives. The ad was for a portfolio fair - you bring your portfolio into their office and they tell you (in an un-sugar-coated way) whether you’ve got what it takes or not. Nothing too weird. But I clicked on a link in the ad and was brought to this. It’s a game, a little like Galaga (which I never was a fan of) to see if you can shoot down other young creatives with portfolio in hand. I’m posting this on my blog, because not only is it fun, but it is a huge step in job postings. Something that used to be boring (like announcing a portfolio open house) is now taken in a new direction and anything that can entertain and interact with the target audience AND makes you want to try their service… well, that’s good in my book.

Visit the site and see what you find - if you live in the area, this is a great opportunity. If you don’t, at least the game is fun!

So… if you’ve been reading my past few blogs, you know about the gorilla drumming up a storm for Cadbury. The fun commercial was the first (as far as I know) in a supposed to be string of them for Glass and a Half Full Productions. They are meant to be like short films, just to bring a “glass and a half full of joy” to your day. Yes, it’s a bit quirky and doesn’t have much to do with chocolate, but it brings you the same joy that a bit of Cadbury chocolate would.

I viewed the gorilla commercial quite a while ago, and while some of the best versions have been taken down, you can still see it here. I was told to expect more in the future and for a couple of years, I was very disappointed. But… apparently, there is a new one. I can only find this on a single blog and I can’t find the video anywhere else. That may be because it will air during the season finale for Big Brother and since I won’t be watching that, the video on this website will serve perfectly in it’s place.

Click here to visit the blog I found it on and watch the video. You won’t be disappointed.

Also, since we waited for so long to find more, I’ve found another one! This one isn’t as good as the rest, but still very enjoyable.

Enjoy! Keep your eye out for more productions and “short movies” from Cadbury.

I love Cadbury. I love their chocolate and their eggs and their gorilla commercial. And now, I love their new campaign idea. It’s found at CMDGlobal as their Idea of the Week. I have to admit, it’s pretty brilliant.

What do you do when you sell candy, which is a hard food to push in January when people are getting back on their diets and making resolutions to eat better? You keep your brand fresh in their mind in ways that no other chocolate egg has done before! So their new campaign, Goo the Egg, is pretty cool. The basics are pretty, well, basic. A website with fun games, polls, pictures, contests and news (and a font that’s not terribly easy to read) but the cool part is what they’re doing outside of the interwebs.

They’ve taken advantage of digital screens, strategically placed in 20 different locations in the UK. On these screens, an interactive game encouraged people waiting for buses to tap the screen repeatedly (think Nintendo DS) to smash the eggs and release their goo. For each egg busted, you get a point and you have 20 seconds to get as many points as possible. It’s nice to see people doing interactive things, because we definitely have the technology to support this (and more) and just need exciting and innovative minds to come up with ideas to use that technology!

Well, we saw it coming, I’m sure. Back in 1987, a 30 second commercial during the most viewed event on television cost $600,000. That is still quite pricey, but do you know how much a 30 second commercial is going for this year? It’ll be approximately $3 million… RIDICULOUS! But… on the other hand, the big boys are the only ones who can afford to play the Superbowl commercial game and they can probably afford to pay the 3 million dollars. So… that’s why this is such an extremely awesome story.

Miller High Life has announced that they will only be buying a one second commercial this year. Why? Well, because they have prided themselves on being “common sense in a bottle” and place much emphasis on being smart and buying for the value. They said that spending a fortune on an ad just wasn’t that smart and that their customers would get the point. After all, Miller High Life isn’t the most expensive drink out there, but the value for that price is well worth it. So… buy an ad that isn’t the most expensive out there, but the value the brand will gain from this smart and innovative buy will be well worth it.

While the commercial will be awesome, it probably won’t air everywhere. Which sucks a little bit. But you can still go to a website they’ve started up to show other 1-sec ads that didn’t make the cut. So go and check them out, I’m excited to see how this turns out.

Also… Saatchi & Saatchi in New York are the creatives behind this.

I’ve updated one of my really exciting pages. If you look at the top of my blog you’ll see a few tabs - one of them includes information about myself. That’s pretty interesting. One of them includes a bunch of fun things to do that will waste your time. Why is this useful?

Well, simply put - if you’re like me, you need a few mindless fun things to do that don’t take much thought but will keep you busy for about 20 minutes or longer. On that page you will find fun links to a few games, places to view awesome advertising, other blogs I enjoy reading from time to time and few things I just added.

• My stepfather sent me a link to a page that you can create a “Pollock-ish” painting just by dragging your mouse on a blank screen and clicking to change the ink color. It’s pretty fun.
• Also, try Replica, which is a fun game where you play against yourself, in a way. Your every move is recorded and duplicated. Took me a few days to completely pass the 10 levels, but I enjoyed it alot.
• Also, for someone who hasn’t heard of Homestar Runner, visit that page. SB and I just started watching the StrongBad emails and I laugh so hard! Anyone have favorite emails or jokes from this page? Comment them, I’d love to hear them.

Enjoy the page!

If you are reading this blog, at 8:45 in the morning, chances are you’re at home hanging out (On a Tuesday? Yeah, me too.) or you’ve got a bit of downtime at work and you’re surfing around. Either way, you’re probably in the same boat as I am (as well as millions of other people) and that boat is called unemployment. Or underemployment. Or stuck-in-a-job-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-your-field-ment. And don’t feel bad, our boat is full. People are trying to get a job wherever they can and they’re often settling for things that are completely out of their field. I’m doing reception work because advertising agencies aren’t knocking down the door with job offers just now. And I think it’s for the best that someone take a job, any job, while they continue with different education or to continue to look for the job of their dreams.

But Monster.com has a different approach. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of the site, I don’t like the spam I get and I don’t like constant updates they send out, but I do like how they’re trying to get more business in this market. The following print ads (as well as a few ambient) were found from various sites and send the message - don’t settle for a job that isn’t completely you because Monster can find that perfect job for you. They were all done by JWT in Hong Kong. Take a look at these:

Many of them are ambient ones that I can find, but there are a few commercials that feature a construction worker clinging to a beam out of fear, panning out to find out that he’s only about 4 feet from the ground. Another nice print ones show an EMT fainting at the site of an accident. These are pretty creative for a company that I’ve never really seen as that way. Anyone have an opinion on Monster.com? Whether from a creative standpoint or if you find them useful in finding a job? Comment it!

“For many years, word of mouth has been thought to be almost irresistible.”
Johan Arndt

And I am of the belief that it still is. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this post.

A bit of history.
One of the first things written about viral marketing (aka word of mouth marketing or virtual marketing) was by Douglas Rushkoff in his 1994 book Media Virus. It says that if an advertisement reaches a “susceptible” user, that user will become “infected” and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As long as each infected user sends mail to more than one susceptible user on average, standard in epidemiology imply that the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential.

So, in simpler AdNausea terms - if a campaign, for example, is so packed full of awesomeness that someone sees it and has to pass it on to everyone in his address book, talk about it in class, etc. and he does this with more than one person and they each decide to sign up for an account or view the webpage or whatever the goal of the campaign is, the number of viewers will grow exponentially. Or… lots and lots of people will be looking at your awesomeness and you don’t have to pay to get it out there.

A few examples.
One of the best ones I can think of, and was also included in the glossary I posted a few days back, is Burger King’s Subservient Chicken. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of Burger King, but I am a huge fan of CP+B (If you guys are reading this - I love you so much! Hire me and make me your advertising slave!) which is the ad agency that put this together. I will do a full company profile of these amazing people, because they are genius. But basically - how many ads did you see saying “Go to Subservient Chicken.com and check us out?” None! No TV commercials. No flyers. No print ads. Nothing. It was handed off to a few select people who in turn told all their friends, who told all their friends, who told you. And you know you’ve seen it. And yes, he does the moondance, but he will not do dirty things. Although it’s fun to try. The idea of a chicken that would do whatever you wanted stemmed from the Burger King slogan, “Have it your way.” And I think it’s sheer genius considering millions of people viewed this and there was no formal advertising done, just word of mouth.

Another good one is for the Honda Element. I can’t find an active link to this campaign, which makes sense since it’s pretty old, but on the same token, makes me very sad that if you haven’t seen and played this, you may never get the chance to. Remember when these ads came out for the Element featuring this “mish-mash of a car” talking with animals in funny voices? Well, they made a game about it. You could control your Element with the arrow keys, speed up and brake and your mission was to cruise the environment and discover all your little animal friends and talk with them. While the campaign was advertised, this game wasn’t. I was shown in a class I was taking and of course, I passed it on to everyone I knew who had a cute sense of humor and like crabs. (”No Peench! No Peench!”) Sorry it’s no longer active though, what a bummer.

A few short ones:

• Cadbury’s Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advertising campaign was heavily popularised on YouTube and Facebook. It makes me full of glee on the insides of my happy glands. No advertising.

• The marketing campaign for the 2008 film The Dark Knight combined both online and real-life elements to make it resemble an alternate reality game. Techniques included mass gatherings of Joker fans, scavenger hunts around world, detailed and intricate websites that let fans actually participate in “voting” for political offices in Gotham City, and even a Gotham News Network that has links to other Gotham pages such as Gotham Rail, a Gotham travel agency, and political candidate’s pages.

• The release of the 2007 concept album Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails involved a viral marketing campaign, including the band leaving USB drives at concerts during NIN’s 2007 European Tour. This was followed up with a series of interlinked websites revealing clues and information about the dystopian future in which the album is set.

Word of mouth is a powerful tool and viral marketing is exactly what it says - a virus that spreads and infects as many people as is possible. Although… the gorilla video is a better type of virus than say… the common cold. So enjoy! And when you pass on that funny website with the game you can play to all of your friends - just know that you are advertising heavily for whatever product backs that game. It’s a good thing.

Pantone Matching System
A Pantone matching system is a color scale used to precisely match colors for printing. Each color has a coded number indicating instructions for mixing inks to achieve it. I love Pantone! Very much.

Point-of-Purchase (POP) Displays
Point-of-purchase displays are advertising display material located at the retail store, usually placed in an area where payment is made, such as a check-out counter.

Product Positioning
Product positioning is the consumer perception of a product or service as compared to it’s competition. This is due to branding and image advertising - Volvos are considered safer than Mercedes cars. McDonald’s is considered much more popular than Burger King. Pepsi is considered  to be of a younger generation that Coke.

Proof
A proof is normally the last pre-press operation, used to check for errors prior to printing an order.

Public Relations (PR)
Public relations is the business of generating goodwill toward an individual, cause, company, or product.

Publicity
Publicity is the dissemination of promotional material to draw interest or generate sales.

Resolution
Resolution refers to the number of pixels contained on a display monitor, like a television.

Rich Media
Rich media is a term used for advanced technology in Internet banner ads, such as streaming video, applets that allow user interaction, and special effects. Regular media isn’t going to do it much longer, so rich media is going to become much more prominent. Kind of like those stupid banners where you beat the president at arm wrestling or where the unseen lady speaks up about how you’ve won something.

Sans-Serif Type
Sans-serif type is a type style of lettering with no serifs, or cross strokes at the end of main strokes. This type of font can be awesome, but doesn’t make for the best legible font in large amounts.

Serif Type
Serif type is any type style that has cross strokes on the ends of the letters, such as Times, Baskerville, or Courier. Such as the one that is being used now. This is also much easier to read, hence a lot of novels (if not all) are typed out in this type of font. It’s more organic as opposed to geometric.

Spam
Spam is unwanted, unsolicited junk e-mail to a large number of recipients. Duh! We all get this.
Spread
Spread refers to a pair of facing pages in a periodical, or an advertisement which is printed across two such pages.

Target Audience
A target audience is a section of the population that is identified as likely to be most interested in buying or being associated with a product. This has a lot to do with demographics and sociographics.
Teaser Campaign
A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign aimed at arousing interest and curiosity for a product. These can be totally awesome. More and more now they’ve been directing you to a webpage where you can participate in some sort of discovering / fun thing to learn more about what the campaign is.

Trade Advertising
Trade advertising is advertising undertaken by the manufacturer and directed toward the wholesaler or retailer. So it’s whoever makes a certain type of food product (say, organic bean burgers) selling it to the restaurants (Chili’s, TGIF, etc.) who will later sell it to you.

Trademark
A trademark is a name or symbol secured by legal registration that identifies a manufacturer’s or trader’s product or service and distinguishes it from other products and services. Icons, company names, brand names, and packaging can all have trademark protection. Trademark owners have the right to prevent others from using the same, or a confusingly similar mark, but cannot prevent others from making or selling the same goods under a non-confusing mark.

Transit Advertising
Transit advertising on signs that are located outdoors in public places. Such as bus shelters, subway posters, bus wraps, etc.

Typeface
Typeface is the style and design of a particular alphabet.

Typography
Typography is the art of arrangement, style, appearance and printing of type and typefaces. This takes much skill to do correctly and was one of my toughest classes.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
A unique selling proposition is a unique feature of a product that a competitor cannot claim. For example, Dove is always going to be known as the soap that floats, because they said it first and no one could say, “Me too!”

Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that encourages email recipients to pass along messages to others in order to generate added exposure. A very good example of this is the Subservient Chicken. How many of you have seen this? And how did you find it? No commercials for it, no advertising, but word of mouth certainly got the awesome Burger King page out and about.

Voice over
A voice over is the voice of an unseen narrator or of an on screen character not seen speaking in a movie.

White Space
White space is the blank area on a page where text and illustrations aren’t printed, an important graphic element in page design. And, might I add, is VERY important to have in almost everything graphic. Gives the eye a place to rest.

I thought I’d break the monotony of looking at pictures by doing something a bit different. I ran across a few different sites with definitions of advertising terms (and related terms) and thought I’d compile the ones I think are really important - whether you love advertising, are in school studying it, read my blog and are unsure of definitions or just like to expand your book of definitions. So here you go! And if anyone has a specific example or term they’d like explained, email me at cre8.above.all.else@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to do it for you.

Advertising
Advertising is the business of drawing public attention to products and services. Also, the topic of this blog as well as a lot of conversations that take place in my life.

B2B
B2B is an abbreviation for business-to-business advertising. One business advertising to another instead of business-to-consumer advertising.

Body Copy
Body copy is the text of an advertisement, excluding the headline, logo, or subscript material, that makes up the bulk of the content and attempts to close the sale. This can become the art itself if done correctly - see the blog I wrote on it.

Brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. A brand - such as Kleenex, Whirlpool and Wonderbread. It can also be something intangible like… Scrubs the TV show, or Stephen King. He is a brand.

Clutter
Clutter refers to the other advertisements surrounding an ad, distracting consumers from it. Also… the mess around my house.

Creative Strategy
A creative strategy is an outline of the message to be communicated by an advertising campaign, the audience, and the tone. This is usually given to any creative team in a creative brief - which covers the TA (target audience) perception right now, what it should be after the new campaign, budget and criteria for this project, requirements and specifics.

Demographics
Demographics are characteristics that define a particular group of people, including age, education level, family size, household income, etc. Mine would be: 24 year old white woman with a BFA from a private art school. I am single with a household income of… very low. I am a non-orthodox Christian with no children and two chinchillas. Anything that is factual about the group you want to reach.

Direct Mail
Direct mail refers to any brochure, advertisement, or other printed marketing material delivered directly to the consumer through the mail or a private delivery company. Most of this is also called Junk Mail. Although a lot of places are making awesome direct mailers and actually make you want to read and keep it.

Font
A font is a complete set of type in a particular typeface and size.

House Agency
A house agency is an advertising agency owned and operated by an advertiser to manage its own account. These are looked down on a bit, because they are not known for having the top talent. People with top talent and fresh ideas move on to top agencies to get top pay. House agencies can have great talent, but also can have some of the worst quality of commercials.

Image Advertising
Image advertising promotes the positive perception of a product or service rather than its practical attributes. This helps build a brand. It helps place the company’s “file” in the desired spot in the “cabinet” in your mind.

Jingle
A jingle is a brief song used in a television or radio advertisement. I’m sure quite a few of you get these stuck in your head on a day to day basis. Five-eight-eight-two-three-hundred-Empire! Leave the flooring to us!

Kerning
Kerning refers to the spacing between characters in a line of text.

Layout
A layout is an outline indicating the positions of elements in a print ad.

Leading
Leading is the spacing between lines of text.

Leave-Behind
A leave-behind is a premium that salespeople leave with customers to remind them of the product. This can include swag like coffee mugs, gift boxes, paper sample booklets, pens, keychains and awesome stuff!

Logotype
A logotype is a stylized brand name or symbol used as a trademark.

Medium
A medium is a vehicle used to convey information, news, entertainment, and advertising messages to an audience. It’s whatever vehicle or channel is used to get the messages of a company’s product or service to the audience it has selected. Can include bus posters, print, web banners, radio and newspaper, street teams, booths, t-shirts, anything you can think of. The challenge these days is in finding new and exciting media to catch attention.

Newsprint
Newsprint is a soft, course wood pulp paper used in printing newspapers. I used this stuff to learn how to draw straight lines in my Drawing for Design class. Terrible class - I still can’t draw straight lines without a ruler.

Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising is any form of advertising visible in the outdoors, such as billboards, transit cards, and even sky writing by airplanes. This is usually thought of as billboards, but can be anything - as stated in the “medium” term.

Out-of-Home Advertising
Out-of-home advertising is exposure to advertising and mass media away from one’s home. Included are outdoor, point-of-purchase, and radio.

Okay, that’s it for today. Thanks guys!

This is going to be just a short follow-up post to yesterday’s “off topic ads.” I found this one on a website that had a list of amazing outdoor advertising. And yes, it is amazing. It’s getting very interesting to see what people are coming up with to catch your attention when it’s always divided between conversations, phone calls, texting, etc. The first picture is the original one, the second is an image of when the poster gets wet due to rain and whatnot.

Awesome idea… but here’s the problem.
Isn’t the mascara supposed to be waterproof? And even if it’s not an actual “waterproof” mascara… it shouldn’t run anyway. No one buys mascara that they know will run if they get rained on, end up sweaty, have a hot day, start crying… so this is an example of someone in the ad agency that handled this saying, “Everyone knows who you are, Max Factor. Everyone. We don’t need to tell them. So I say let’s just have fun. I have this idea about running and dripping in the rain… I think you’ll like it.” I think it achieves the opposite point - yes it looks cool, but doesn’t say much about their product.

What do you think?