This year’s Super Bowl commercial collection set all types of new records. Less hashtags and sex, with more celebrities and sobs. Most of the veteran brands toned down their messages, while the newcomers literally emptied accounts to make their name. Overall, I really enjoyed this year’s selections, but there were a few that silenced me for a minute. What was pretty lucky for me was that I watched the game at a local theater that shows the Super Bowl and the away Jaguar games for free. There were around 50-60 people watching, ranging in demographics, and most pretty vocal throughout the game (which kept it fun). This included their ratings for the commercials. I agreed with most of the room’s consensus, although unfortunately I missed a few of them at the concession stand. Below are my choices for the Good, the Bad, the Weird and the Ugly. Enjoy! Continue reading
advertising
Burro Bar Poster
ImageMy neighbor works with Burro Bar in Downtown Jacksonville with their marketing and promotions. She has been creating band posters for their upcoming shows for a while now, but wanted to change it up. Instead of creating an individual poster for each band, she wanted to make a weekly schedule poster that lists them all. She got off to a good start with the concept, but just needed help with the design.
Here is the final poster that was approved. This was created entirely in Photoshop using basic text and shapes, and Burro’s official logos.
Jowers Brewing
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My husband and I have close friends who recently began home brewing for a new hobby. My husband automatically offered his help with the brewing side of it, but I wanted to assist their project in some way too. That’s when our friend’s wife said she was thinking of creating labels for the beer and having them printed – that was it! Once I heard the name of the first beer, I had a grand idea in mind and got working. Continue reading
Original Skateboards Magazine Ads
StandardAs promised, I have finally provided the final draft magazine ads for Original Skateboards that my agency Wonder+ created last semester. In wanting to practice my skills of Photoshop and Indesign, I tried working on the ads first before sending it to my team for touch-ups. For example, this first, family-looking ad, I used Photoshop to insert the skateboards in to the image of the entry way. One of my team members, Adam Lankford, edited those changes and added the copy and logos.
As for the Businessman ad, our team member Courtney Boydston is an aspiring photographer and spent a good amount of time working with Ricky Horton, the actor, on getting the perfect shot. We chose this shot because of the great negative space to place copy and logos, as well as it being an interesting angle. Overall, we were pretty simple in the ads, but complex in the concept and branding for this campaign.
Original Skateboards Campaign
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Throughout my Principles of Advertising course, I have been working with my first ad agency – wonder+ advertising. This agency is my class group in which we came up with a agency name, type of agency, individual positions and titles, and it all culminated in a brand analysis and campaign.
Our agency fought a bit over which brand we would choose to represent, but eventually we came up with Original Skateboards. This product and brand was perfect because it allowed our already creative and experienced agency a chance to branch out.
Our agency created three different ads for this project. Not one person worked on them all. Every one of us contributed to each ad. The last two, titled Urban Savvy Businessman and Family Longboarders
were the two we used in our campaign. They will be uploaded to this post soon.
Our final presentation went better than I thought it would. We each chose to wear a piece of red clothing to represent the brand’s colors. We knew our parts well, we executed passing the clicker during the presentation and were under our time limit. We received A’s for the project as a whole! If you’d like to see the presentation, you can find it here.
We went the extra mile with wonder+. We not only created our own website, but also a twitter account and now have a portfolio! You can learn more about our agency by going to our site here. Take the Wave With YouUrban Savvy Businesman
“Curiouser and Curiouser”
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“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!'” – Lewis Carroll
Advertising is more than just creating a eye-catching print, or special effects commercial in order to sell a product. There are more complex tasks at stake when attempting to create an effective ad. The creator of that commercial or print ad must successfully appeal to the audience’s emotions. Emotional appeal, according to behavioral psychologist John B. Watson, is the most effective way to create an advertisement. More specifically, Watson states that appealing to the three emotions of love, fear and rage will influence consumer behavior the most (Watson 2000). The use of these appeals can be found in any advertisement, from commercial products to political ads. However, I feel there’s one key human emotion/feeling that is missing in these analyses. Continue reading
People Only Care for What They Know
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When was the last time you went to the grocery or typical drug store and decided on a particular brand for a product simply because you recognized the name? Consumers continuously go this route when shopping for different products, and psychology supports this action in a very simple way: People are more attracted (not just physically, but cognitively) to products, places, or people they are more familiar with. Continue reading
A Change in Direction
AsideWith my first semester of Communications classes under my belt, and the summer classes soon ending, I have learned so much about the journalism industry. Completing classes such as Law and Ethics in Communications, Advanced Writing for the Media, and Media Theories and Effects, I have experienced and tried my hand in many issues and styles of journalism. And that is just the beginning. The Law and Ethics course sparked my interest the most, as I played the part of a mock lawyer defending my “college newspaper” in a libel trial, which led to my final paper discussing libel laws for online uses, including the recent SOPA controversy. I became much more involved in local and national events these last few months, thanks mainly in part to my professors asking I read a newspaper every day (which I still try to do.) Another huge change in my communications career happened when I finally got off my high horse and signed up for a Twitter account. Since then, I don’t believe I have ever been more interested in news and stories, nor been slapped with so much information in one space at one time. Yes, these last two semesters have made me ever more sure of what I wish to do in my life and where I want my future to be: communications and media. Continue reading
C.K. 