Black Friday advertising

People go absolutely nuts shopping on Black Friday. I know this not because I go out to get those great deals but because I work at two retail stores and am always stuck working all day. This past Black Friday I worked at Kohl's. There was over an hour wait just to purchase your stuff and this was at 1PM. They were open at 4AM. The deals were ridiculously good and this is why advertising for those Black Friday sales is so important. It's all about competition between the stores. Who has the best prices? The most well stocked shelves? This is the biggest shopping day of the year and the most important to retail stores. The other retail store that I work at besides Kohl's is Target. I just recently seen their goofy 2 day Black Friday ads and they are hilarious. Here is a sum up of what the whole campaign is about:



Now here is one of their many TV ads:



The reason why this is so successful? Well besides being funny and memorable, it really shows Target's demographic. Like I said before, I work at Target so I see these energetic young mom-like women come in for great sales. This is a great example of the type of people that shop there. Not only that but this is Target's "image". This is what Target wants their employees to be like. They want us to be energetic, fast and friendly. Here is another one of their TV ads:



I think this new Target character is a great addition to their Black Friday campaign. It makes people remember not only her but the sale as well. I think she is a better icon for this particular sale event than the Target dog because she has personality and brings a little something extra for big events. I think Target should bring her back every year for the Black Friday advertising. It would give people something to look forward to every season. I think if Target had her year round as their character, it would get old but just once a year is more like a treat for the audience. Overall, I think Target is very successful with all of their advertising. Their TV ads are all short and to the point but they also reach the demographic well with a little bit of humor. What can I say? I'm a fan.

All videos found on youtube

Some cool things

I was looking through adsoftheworld and came across some really cool things. This weeks blog is about what I found that might interest and inspire you guys. This one is a campaign done for stationary. Usually stationary isn't very exciting but I think this will blow your mind.




The colorful design was made of all push pins and the black and white one was all staples. Amazing. What surprises me is that all this was done just for stationary, something not so cool. This next one is a cool optical illusion. From far away it looks like there is a stain on the shirt and close up it's gone.



I thought this was a good idea because it would make people do a double take, looking at the ad a couple times, making them remember the brand. This next one is a campaign for colorectal cancer.



This is like a dare for people to send in pictures of their butts. They can send the pics to their friends via facebook and it tells them facts about colorectal cancer. First of all this is eye catching and funny. It also delivers important and serious information in a fun way. This next outdoor ad is just ridiculous. I have no idea how they constructed it.



These are only a few of the awesome campaigns I found. I'm very interested in non traditional ads and seeing what you can do in the environment. A lot of the things you see on there make you think "why haven't I thought of that".

Meet the real Wendy

Dave Thomas was the founder of the fast food restaurant, Wendy's. He named the franchise after his daughter, Wendy. The family is now returning to Wendy's advertising by having the real Wendy in the new campaign for Dave's Hot 'N Juicy Cheeseburger, named after Dave Mr. Thomas himself. His face has been part of the brand since it was founded in 1969. This is the first time that Wendy actually appeared in any of the ads. The idea here was "who better to introduce the line than Wendy herself?". I think having the real Wendy is a good addition to the current campaign "You know when it's real" since she is the real version of the cartoon icon. Right now, they are only test marketing the new cheeseburger in Vegas. The reason why most products are tested in Vegas is because everything starts in Vegas and what happens in Vegas stays there so it's not a total flop if something goes wrong.

Anyway, I think the new real Wendy could be a good character for the brand. The cartoon Wendy icon was actually created to look like Wendy when she was a kid. I think it's clever to have her come back in advertising now and it makes the brand feel more family friendly. I know she's specifically coming into the advertising for the new campaign for the new burger but I wonder if that's gonna be it for her. I think it would be good for the brand to have her stick around for years like her father Dave did. That way the consumer can relate to the brand more and have a solid character in the campaign. If Wendy goes away after this one campaign, I don't think anyone will realize or remember who she is and it wouldn't make any difference if she made this one appearance or not.

They could of picked anyone to be the new spokesperson of Wendy's but it's so much more powerful that it's the real Wendy which is why I think it's so critical that she stays in the brand. I know when I first read this article I thought "wow that's the real Wendy!" We all know the icon but we've never seen the actual person and now she's all grown up. Anyway, I think this is a powerful boost for Wendy's marketing.

Here is a TV ad for he new campaign:



Find out more at adage and LasVegasSun

Weddings at McDonald's?

Hong Kong will be the first city in the world to have wedding services at the well known fast food restaurant, McDonald's starting January 1st. The package includes:

A baked apple pie wedding cake



Dress made out of party balloons



McDonald's catering



Couples will toast their marriage with soft drinks (since no alcohol is allowed in McDonald's)



Alright, you get the point. This just sounds and looks ridiculous. The idea came about when a couple held their wedding party at McDonald's. They met and dated at the fast food restaurant so this, in a way, made sense. I personally think it's a mixture of trashy and hilarious. I'm not sure if the whole McDonald's wedding will take off (especially without alcohol) nor do I think it would improve their sales. I don't know about other people but I don't think it's very cool. Running off to Vegas to get married=fun. Running off to McDonald's to get married=lame!

I really don't think this will help McDonald's whatsoever. Ideas?


Read the article

Photography in advertising

I was recently researching Annie Leibovitz, a contemporary photographer, for another class but found her work interesting. She always uses celebrities in her photos, starting off doing stuff for Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. Later she started doing photography for ads, her main point of focus still being celebrities. She would never concentrate on the product in the photographs so these ads are photographed to look more like portraits rather than ads. Of course in class we also try to do this. We want our ads to be so interesting and eye catching that you forget it's an ad.

Here are some ads she photographed for Disney that I thought were absolutely beautiful:









Check out the rest from this campaign

Another campaign she photographed for was American Express. Using celebrites, she showed them in personal environments. There's a certain "story" behind each one, like much of her other work. Here are some examples:






I found all of her work to be amazing and the ads are all beautifully designed. It definitely inspires me to create better visuals for my ads and it opens my eyes to all the different possibilities in advertising. A professional photographer can be helpful in some cases depending on the ad. I encourage the class to take a look at her work for some inspiration!

How the IPad can change advertising

You can now get magazine subscriptions on your IPad. Since not everyone owns an IPad yet, sales for magazines on the IPad weren't expected to be as high as they were. However, different genres have much different starts. For example, science and tech magazines do much better in the beginning. Popular Science was one of the first on the IPad and Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens won't even release until 2011. Popular Science averaged sales of 14,034 in the April, May, June and July issues. IPad sales were equivalent to 12% of it's newsstand sales. Wired, a techie magazine, beat everyones predictions. Wired sold 105,000 copies, way above newsstand sales. This was equivalent to 19% of newsstand sales. Beyond sci-tech titles, Men's Health made less than 1% of newsstand sales. Same thing goes with People and Glamour, both being major newsstand sellers. Overall, IPad magazine sales are doing well. The years 2010 and 2011 are exploratory years. This is the time that we learn as we go so since sales are doing well for IPad magazines, things will only improve.

This digital platform offers a wide scope of opportunities to interact with users. So what does this mean for digital advertising on the IPad? I think there are many creative things we can do in magazines on the IPad to get users involved like games or videos. It's pretty much endless on what we can do. Right now we still have tangible magazines and we will have them for awhile but I'm afraid of when all magazines become digital. This could change advertising history for the better and for the worst. I would still like to have traditional print ads as well. Any ideas on this?

Find out more

Walmart & new beauty product

Fat Foam is a hair color that is actually a foam so the color doesn't drip and stain any furniture and clothes, which is the main problem of hair color today. This is an innovating idea but it might come to a surprise as to how is marketing this new product in the US. Not a high-end beauty company but Walmart.



It's not unusual for ideas like this to come from Japan to the US, for example, Proctor and Gamble's first Swiffer mop. However, it is unusual for a retailer to do this, beating national brands to the punch. Fat Foam will be launched exclusively at Walmart stores for the first six months but after that, it will be released in other retail stores. But still, it's pretty ballsy of Walmart to lead product innovation with a new brand in hair color, a category that never had private label in the past. Because of the high risk of failure in hair color, there is a high consumer resistance to trying private label or new brands so Walmart launching this new hair product does not seem like a good idea.

I feel that Walmart is just trying to take over. I think John Frieda should have launched the new hair foam but Walmart kind of took over the idea. John Frieda is much more of a respected brand and no matter how cool of a product it is, consumers will always look at the brand first to make their purchasing decision. Me personally, I wouldn't trust a new Walmart hair product especially hair color. I don't think Walmart should come out with new beauty products at all.

Find out more

Major changes

Can anyone guess what this logo is for? Yeah, it says "Gap" and we all know what the Gap is but this new logo doesn't feel like the Gap brand we are so familiar with. If you forget what the Gap logo for the last 20+ years look like, here it is:



This new logo is the latest "evolution" for the brand. They are updating products, rolling out pop-up stores and getting new hot designers such as Patrick Robinson. They aren't just creating this new logo for no reason. They actually did think it through when they made their design decisions. The logo is in line with the label on Gap's popular 1969 jeans line. The new logo is supposed to reflect that "For the last two years we've been working on evolving the brand identity for Gap". "The new logo is more contemporary and current and honors the heritage of the Gap brand with the blue box but takes it forward".

The plan is to roll out the new logo on the North American Gap.com site, create momentum, and feature it in the upcoming holiday campaign. However, there were tons of negative responses online. With 1,500 stores worldwide, replacing signage, updating credit cars, and changing employee name badges will end up costing a ton of money. The change of the logo is a huge decision and the brand doesn't want to lose sales because of it, like Tropicana once did. Tropicana came out with a new package design and sales dropped 20% between January 1 and February 22 costing the company tens of thousands of dollars. The new packaging was only on the market for less than two months. Sometimes it could be beneficial to ask consumers before making major changes like new packaging or logo design.



When I first saw the new Gap logo I didn't even know what brand it was for. The font is completely different and I think that's what threw me off. I hate the new logo. But I thought there must be something good about it. They wouldn't just change the logo for no reason so I wondered if other people thought it was terrible like I do or if I was just over thinking it. Turns out, other consumers also hate the logo. Gap posted the new logo on Facebook and got tons of negative feedback. This created debates and the brand was getting a lot of buzz. Gap has now said that they would like some logo ideas from consumers even though they feel strongly about the logo they already designed.

I think it's important for a brand to ask consumers how they feel about major changes like in this case. I mean, you have to make the consumers happy or else sales will go down. Any thoughts on how Gap should deal with this or new logo ideas for Gap?

Advertising Age

Trees CAN talk!

A science magazine in Brussels (EOS) has a unique campaign out based on talking trees. What does this have to do with the magazine? The tree "talks" about its feelings and environmental issues. Want to know what a tree goes through from day to day? Check out twitter and facebook for daily updates, youtube for actual videos of a tree's point of view, or soundcloud (a music based site) for a soundtrack of a tree's life complete with passing cars, wind, birds and rain. To get the full tree experience, go to the main site for a combination of everything.

So how does anyone know what trees are really feeling? Well, the use of accessories like a co2 meter, a PH meter, a small wind turbine, a webcam, a decibel meter, an infrared camera, and a thermometer come in handy. With these tools, we get the experience of what a tree sees, hears and feels.

When you go to the main website, you get this whole experience. The facebook and twitter posts include things like "Busy doing osmosis to collect some of this tasty rain" and "Me and my friends are doing overtime filtering fine dust out of the air". These posts make you feel closer to the tree because of the humanistic nature of the posts. They are also funny and educational.

I spent my Saturday getting to know this tree. The posts, videos, pictures and soundtrack were fun and interesting. By the time I was ready to write this blog, however, I forgot what the campaign was for. There is very little branding throughout the websites. This could be a good thing as well as bad. Consumers don't want to be overloaded with branding but will they be able to connect the talking tree with EOS?

Can you find the polar bear?

Not only do I love animals but I love fun advertising. Especially advertising that's educational. I found this campaign for the Toronto Zoo on adsoftheworld . The campaign is emphasizing the polar bears and how they blend in with their environment. They have black skin and their fur is made of clear hollow tubes. They only look white because of the way their fur reflects the sunlight. Anyway, the campaign is saying "come to the Toronto Zoo and try to find the hidden polar bears". The whole campaign is some sort of game (geared more toward kids). Below is an example of a coloring/activity book which explains that polar bears blend in with their environments.

This book is completely white and comes with a selecti

on of crayons (Arctic white, Frost white, and Snowball white). This emphasized the fact that polar bears are white. Some of the activities in the book are "The polar bear is juggling snowballs, can you count them?" and "The polar bear is catching snowflakes. Circle them". The only thing is, you can't do these activities because the entire page is white and you can't see the polar bear or the snow. The book is filled with activities like this that you can't actually do and it makes you want to go to the zoo to actually see a polar bear. Another part of the campaign is a puzzle (shown below).

This is a similar concept as the previous one but instead of an activity book, it's a puzzle. The entire puzzle is white with the exception of the black polar bear eyes and noses. Obviously, this puzzle would be difficult to complete since most of the pieces are just white. On the container that the puzzle comes in it tells some facts about the polar bears and how they blend in with the environment. Again, the campaign is making you want to go to the zoo to see these polar bears since you can't see them in the campaign. It's like a mystery that you can't solve unless you go to the zoo.

There are also a couple TV ads that go along with this campaign. They are all fun and play at the fact that you can't see polar bears in their environment. Here is an example of one:

I loved this campaign. I think it really got people to want to go to the zoo to find these polar bears using a unique and creative technique for the ads. I know it worked on me. I have the urge to skip class tomorrow and head to the zoo!

Here is another ad for the polar bears at the Toronto Zoo that I found. It's an interesting ad saying that the Toronto Zoo is a place to see. Somewhere you have to stop on your travels.

Here is another campaign for the Toronto Zoo polar bears. This one is about how the icebergs are melting and the polar bears are in danger. It's telling people to tweet about an environmental issue and when you do, the polar bears iceberg will grow. If you don't, it will melt.

The power of interactive ads

I was on adsoftheworld and these two interactive ads looked pretty neat. I always like interactive ads because I stop and actually do them. It's like a game. These two ads are for lowering energy consumption and traffic emissions. It's brilliant and unique. These two topics are usually dry and boring. Yes, I know to turn off my lights when I don't need them on...blah blah blah.. In these two ads, there's big goofy characters and at the top it says "How to lower ___?" and then tells you directions on how to fold the paper. When you fold up the ad, the image changes and the copy at the bottom changes to a simple message telling you how to lower energy consumption/traffic emissions. For example, the copy in the ad for energy consumption changes to "Switch off unused lights". It's simple and to the point instead of lecturing us about our bad habbits.

The reason why I decided to talk about these two ads is because they give me inspiration to do somethig like that in the future. If I were given these topics to create ads for, I think I would have a hard time. It's like our don't text and drive assignment. We see ads for this all the time and they are either terrifying us, pointing out everything we are doing wrong that we hear over and over again, or listing boring facts. It's typical, we see ads all the time telling us not to do something or how to save the planet. They're all the same so we stop taking them seriously. When you take information so typical as turning off your unused lights, and add a twist or game to it, people are interested. It's the only way to get them to pay attention to these kinds of topics.

I would like to do something interactive for a future project so I looked up some more of these fun ideas. I found this ad for donating blood. It's the same type of ad as the previous two. It's trying to get you to do something. The one for donating blood is not in a magazine but I think it could easily be made for that as well. There are tons of cool things you can do in magazines alone.

Post-it Art

While I was searching through adsoftheworld, this campaign caught my eye. It's an awesome colorful mosaic. But wait, the campaign is for post-its. Theentire “mosaic” was made of post-its. I was simply amazed. The super-sticky notes were displayed in Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall. The artwork was picked through a student competition. They got to have their artwork displayed on the world's largest billboard made of Post-it Notes. Impressive.

However, this isn't the first time that art has been madeout of Post-it Notes. I remember seeing an episode of Extreme Makeover where they covered a wall with Post-its in a cool design. Now that was pretty cool but not as impressive as the Post-it campaign. Still, it has been done before and not in just these two examples.

I looked up Post-it art and found these two amazing pieces of artwork. The image with the hand isn't as artistic as the campaign, but it is more colorful which caught my eye. The car image is just awesome. I would never have thought of covering a car in Post-its.

I still think this is a great campaign but I can't help but wonder who came up with it first. Regardless, these other Post-it artworks are also advertising for Post-it. Everyone can recognize a Post-it Note from a mile away so these other pieces of art are just a benefit to Post-it.

Has anyone ever made Post-it art or ever thought about it?

Pepsi Refresh Project & Verde Styles

In class we talked about the Pepsi Refresh Project and how the campaign really benefitted Pepsi. Small companies are competing for grants to help them help the planet. I'm not just talking about the Pepsi refresh project in this blog, but also the company my cousin started and how it grew into something much bigger than expected.

My cousin and his friends started a company called “Breathe Green” (now known as Verde Styles). The company started small. They had a website that one of their friends created and a few T-shirts with “green” designs that they designed themselves. Every time someone bought a T-shirt, the money goes to planting trees. One tee = one tree. When I first saw the website and the T-shirts, I thought “wow, they are serious about this”. It was just so cool to me that they were doing all this without much money. No one knew who they were yet. How could they become big enough to seriously go through with their plans? Don't get me wrong, I thought it was awesome. But I didn't think it would get as big as it did.

All of a sudden, Breathe Green got big. They changed their name to Verde Styles, changed the look of their website, and came up with more T-shirt designs along with new bags. I think what really got them well known is their Facebook page. Right now, Verde Styles has 1,690 fans of the page. People that are close friends with the founders, like myself, sport the T-shirts and it gets people talking about the cool designs. They then look it up on Facebook, because Facebook is the new google, and find the company website and order shirts. The Facebook page lets fans know what's new in merchandise and what they are doing to help the environment. Along with the Pepsi Refresh Project updates.

Their Facebook page is what made them a finalist in the Pepsi Refresh Project. Because of their Facebook statuses, people actually voted.

The reason why I'm talking about all of this is because I watched Verde Styles start off and make their company grow. I love what they are doing. I love their shirts. I love the people doing all of this. These kids are only in college and they came together to make the world a better place.

Here is the video they submitted to the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Check out their shirts at verdestyles.com