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