Reflection

This class was, despite my preconceptions, a lot of fun. I learned a lot about how advertising actually works and how advertisers think in order to get their product across. Being in graphic design I find this class to be extremely helpful as the two are very closely related. Knowing how this field works, hopefully will help me in the future. I really enjoyed this class a lot and John, you were a great teacher. I still need a few upper division classes and if you have one that I can take I'd jump at the chance to take it.

Interruptive Advertising

Interruptive advertising is one of the most annoying types of advertising I have ever experienced.
I absolutely hate when commercials pop up in the middles of my music stream or while I am watching television. If anything it makes me less receptive to the product. Now that we have DVR though it is a lot easier to just bypass television commercials, but Pandora has commercials that get you when you least expect it. It's extremely frustrating that I can't skip it too. Does not make me very receptive to purchase. Generally I mute the speakers. 

Creativity in ads

Is creativity essential in advertising? Oh yes it is. The point of advertising is to get people to notice a brand or product, and what better way to do that then make a creative ad that catches the attention of the consumer. The more creative the ad the more memorable the ad. People tend to remember things that they like or are interested in, so why not make  an ad that will catch their attention in a fun or creative way. The ad I am posting is quite creative. Frontline flea treatment. This is a large ad placed on the floor and while people walk over they realize that they are in fact the flees the poor dog is trying so desperately to scratch off. Its ads like this that catch my attention and those are the ones that I tend to remember over any others. That is the point of creating creative advertisements.

Nostalgia Marketing?

Nostalgia is something quite interesting. It takes us back to a time in our lives where we remember the good times essentially. How great things were "back then." It's a good thing in some ways, especially advertising. If a company can grab what pulls at your heart strings or make you remember the good times as a child then they can essentially grab your eye to look at their products. There are a few good advantages to this, making your consumers feel happy because of their old memories is a very effective way of getting them to use the products. The best example I have found in the recent past was done by Nickelodeon. Now I am an 90s kid and I loved all the shows from the 90s. Nickelodeon has done something quite amazing in bringing back a lot of the cartoons from the 90s like: Doug, Rugrats, Angry Beavers, etc. The title of this little campaign is "The 90s are all that" playing off the title of the show All That. They did this by grabbing onto the nostalgia strings of 90s kids and playing these shows late at night when they know most of this generation is awake at.
Now, I actually watched some of these shows and I can't believe how dumb a lot of them are, but being a kid, they were simply amazing. Even still watching the trailer for this brings back a lot of old memories.

Some products may not be as effective for several different reason. The product just is not old enough to have any kind of real nostalgia, it may not have been a high selling item/product. The main problem with nostalgia marketing is that not everyone may share the same feelings. Some people may have had a bad experience and that would turn them off to the particular product. Not all companies can use nostalgia though. Let's take our beloved Apple for example. Yes, Apple has been around for generations, but nobody wants an Apple I or Apple II computer or anything that looks remotely like it. Apple relies on new sleek and fresh to market their products. They have to target the tech savvy world of today and that is a reason a company like apple would not be successful in using nostalgia marketing.

Funny Ads

I see these on YouTube because I'm too lazy to download an ad blocker and thought they were really funny. Enjoy.

Product Fail: Crystal Pepsi

Crystal Pepsi. I don't know what they were thinking when they made this. Crystal Pepsi was clear Pepsi... I think it was a new idea Pepsi had that people may want to drink more Pepsi if it looked more like water than sludge. People however had a different reaction to this, they wanted to drink the sludge looking soda over the clear. It tasted the same but its like when there was that green and purple ketchup. Some things just can't be changed. Soda has been around in its form for too long to be changed and people for the most part do not like change.

There are some people though that apparently liked Crystal Pepsi and want to see it back. I'm not sure why though.

Coke is better anyway.

Environmental Campaign: WWF

World Wildlife Federation or WWF (not wrestling haha) is known for tying to keep out rainforests alive and to stop people from cutting them down. This battle is a very difficult one with the population growth on this planet. Wood is always needed and the land is ever craved by developers. The main problem here is that rainforest soil is not good for farming. Plants can be planted for one season, two at most and then the ground is sucked of all its nutrients and the farmers move on to the next area. Rainforests supply the world with 20% of the oxygen we breathe and they are being cut down at one and a half acre per second, from 14% of the Earth's surface down to a mere 6%. WWF tries to raise awareness to prevent the rainforests from being wiped out completely. They do this by making very clever advertisements.

This ad is showing if we continue to chop down our rainforests then we won't have any oxygen left to breathe and we all know when that day comes, we are in for a big surprise. Oxygen being essential to, you know, OUR LIFE!

This ad was pretty clever too. Showing that we use so much paper on useless things in life like drying our hands when we can use air dryers or our pants. If we continue down this path of senseless usage of paper products that aren't necessary, then we are not going to have any rainforests or wonderful animals to enjoy for the future.

This last ad is pretty clever. Basically saying we only get one shot and there is no planet B. As far as we know there is nowhere else in the solar system we can colonize so as far as we know Earth is our only home and we really need to take care of it. If everyone works together then it can be saved but at the rate things are going we are in for a rude awakening.