362

RCS 362 has been one of my favorite CRS classes i have taken so far. I feel confident that i will be able to actually apply what i have learned in class. I really enjoyed the class discussions which helped illustrate how what we learned can be used in the real world. Most teacher just read off of power points and want us to memorize terms, it was a relief to get a change in teachering styles. This class really kept my attention and i always wanted to come to class. Unlike many of my other classes i actually shared what i learned with my friends and family. Many of them have seen almost every ad we watched in class. Over all i thoroughly enjoyed this class.

Commercials

In class we talked about how some companies save all of their money and only air commercials during holidays. I never really noticed this until after we talked about it. In the past week i have seen probably a dozen Big Lots commercials, i do not remember seeing these any other time. I have also seen a ton of Kmart commercials. Both of these commercial talk about the holidays and buying your gifts there. I think this is good because i never think to shop at either of these two stores. I have also seen the same Lindtt commercial at least twice an hour. I Have also seen several other chocolate and perfume commercials.

PR

I was watching a show last night that was nomitating celebrties for their Train Wreck of the yeah award. This made me think of the class where we talked about if all PR is good PR. I think this depends on the person. Yes all PR is good in the sense that it gets your name out. Sometimes I wonder if celebrities only act out to get their name out. Maybe if Brittany moved out of the spotlight of the news and paparazzi she might be able to turn things around. Or would she even be this bad of a mother if she wasnt famous. Sometimes i think that "All PR is good PR" just encourges celebrities to act out. ALthought i was surprised that on the show they pointed out and congraulated the celebrties that were working to turn their lives around.

Political Campaigns

The ad featured above was taken from You-Tube. It is a political commercial that parodies the Apple 1984 "think smarter" super-bowl commercial with Hilary Clinton in the place of the "Big Brother". The 1984 commercial is one that we talked about in class because of the groundbreaking way they used advertising strategy. This is relevant because the you-tube commercial is a new and groundbreaking development in political campaigning. A man who worked for the ad company that is handling Obama’s campaign did this Commercial not for the campaign but on his own for you-tube. You-tube has changed the way we look at many things in our lives today, one of the major things that you-tube has effected is the upcoming Presidential election. CNN took questions from people who sent them in on you-tube. And now that the election is getting closer the candidates with large followings and very rabid fans are having un-official commercials put up on you-tube. I think that this election is going to be by far the most personal and close election in US history mostly because we now have you-tube where we can interact with the candidates through questions and get to know them in an entertaining way with you-tube commercials like this one that pull no punches and have no since of respect for the other candidates to hold them back. When candidates have commercials they sponsor they are very aware of how mud-slinging will make them look, but now they can have commercials made by fans that do not effect how the candidate looks because they did not approve of the ad, so the commercials can be attacks on other candidates.

~Rachel Dillard

NEWS New York Times and BBC

Normally i do not watch the news or read it. When i do read the news i go to the site for the news channel i grew up on WRAL. Even then the only news i read is under the strange news section. One thing that i noticed that both the New York Times and BBC have in common is the news on the front pant. The majority of their news is focused on the war and other tragic events. People say that young people today do not care about whats going on it the world. I think it is more that people are getting tired of hearing about everything bad. After all this is only going to make people depressed and no one wants that. I think if news channels and papers talked about positive things as much as they did the negative more people would read and watch it.

http://waitless.org/

Here is the website to an advertising campaign that I think it brilliant. We live in a time where everyone feels rushed and like they don't have enough hours in the day. Sprint comes up with this whole start calling for free at 7pm instead of 9pm and it will save however many hours from your life. Then to increase the interest level and make this more relevant they create Waitless.org which shows you in funny instructional videos clever ways to say time doing things you may or may not do everyday. This is an interactive way to get people thinking positively about your product. They are offering a service instead of just asking you to buy their product.

~Rachel Dillard

I know that this post might bother some of the Victoria's secret fans that are in this class, however I feel the need to say "really?" The amount of time and effort that goes into creating any commercial is significant. And with all of that time and effort the best VS could come up with is this annoying commercial?! I had to watch this commercial every fifteen minutes while I was watching my favorite TV show online. I had seen it before and been stuck by the fact that it was badly done but after having to hear it repeatedly over an hour I feel like this is the worst commercial I have ever seen. The commercial looks fine, but the fact that they had to try and make a cute little rhyme ruins it because they try and rhyme air with air. it sounds awful and makes them look stupid and like they think we are also. With all of the talented writers and creative minds that work in advertising today you really have to work to make people pay attention to your commercials. This could have been done a lot better if they had taken the time to write a dialogue about the bra and why it is different from other bras so that you would want to buy them. If I am going to take the time to watch your commercial (or be forced to) shouldn't you take the time to make sure that it is not incredibly annoying?

~Rachel Dillard

Growing Up

In class we talk about how the industry is offering children miniature version of adult items such as thongs and cell phone. This then forces children to grow up faster. In a catalogue I got they advertised a piggy bank. It was not your normal animal with a hole in it to place money it was an ATM. It has a screen on it that displays your name and how much money is in it. You also withdraw money from it the same way you do with a real ATM. Fisher Price also makes laptops and digital cameras for five year olds. I know that the world is becoming more technically advance but what happened to kids being kids. When I grew up we did not have these and there were very few toys that talked. This is not allowing children to use their imagination they it way we did growing up. I think the industry should make fewer items that talk and are mini version of adult’s items and allow kids to be kids.

Today in 362 we talked about how many commercials are stepping away from the old way of advertising, which focused on what the product does, and offers. The idea was brought up that because peoples values are changing and centering on self and hedonism and independence more that commercials are trying to show what your life would be like if you use the product. One of the girls in the class brought up the new JcPenney's commercial as not actually being related to the store/product and just using random things and then splashing up the logo.



I think that this commercial has plenty to do with the product and the store. The women are wearing clothes from JcPenneys and that is drawing attention from the men/ other people in the background and these clothes are adding a little magic into their lives. It's not that commercials don't have anything to do with the product as much as it is that advertisers are trying to be creative. In our textbook this week I read that creativity is one of two main factors that make the difference between a successful advertising campaign and one that fails is creativity. I feel like advertisers are trying so hard to look at things from a different angle in order to be more creative. However if most people don't look at things that way it goes from being a creative commercial to being something that people cannot relate to the product or advertising.

~Rachel Dillard

Yahoo Avataars

Until tonight I personally had no idea what an avataar was. Mainly because I do not normally use anything is related to Yahoo. When I first saw these avataars they reminded me of the little paper dress up dolls I had a child. I believe that avataars are a cute idea but just not something I would use. I think this is to due to how I relate them to paper dolls an item that a child would play with. I think yahoo could do something to disconnect the avataars with a childlike image. One thing I did like was how you how the options to dress your avataar in clothing featuring MTV and Pepsi. One thing I found to be annoying was navigating through the apparel. Although it was broken down into categories, looking through 20 pages of shirts was not appealing. I feel as though yahoo could divide these broad categories even more. Perhaps into categories to include long of short sleeve shits, or tank tops. This would help avoid the frustration of clicking through 20 pages. With only six items on a page they could feature more items to help shrink the amount of pages.

Links appear in the order in which they are talked about.





http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/business/media/28adco.html?_r=1&ref=media&oref=slogin

In class we have talked about the new Axe commercials in reference to what is and is not appropriate material to have in a TV ad. I personally think that anyone who is going to find a problem with the Old Navy ads' background music should also find it inappropriate to have commercials with young men being "abused" like they have in the Axe commercials. To not find it offensive as well would be a double standard of men versus women's rights.
However I do not have an issue with either of these things. I do have an issue with the stunt in the above-mentioned NYT article. I think that to do something so gross and disgusting and then go take a shower while people are filming and then going to watch it is demeaning and just plan sad. I know that the idea of the "Stunt' is to get attention but there has to be a better way. It says in the article that "promotions that focus more on entertaining viewers than on delivering product messages” how is that anyway to sell more of your product? Yes it can be entertaining and that will draw people's attention to your brand or product but if you are not really selling the product, if you are not differentiating it from any other men's shower gel, then you have given people no reason to buy your product over another when another can and does smell better or have a lower price.
I do find the new trend of having user generated interactive ads very interesting, for years people have done nothing but complain about commercials and how they try to sell us things and shove stuff down our throats. Now companies expect us to not only take an interest in commercials but to make them ourselves? I recently read an article that had a media executive saying that eventually he wanted to make it so that people would pay to see commercials and advertisements. Are people really that stupid? Are we going to one-day pay people to sell us something else? Will there be advertisements for commercials. Ads advertising for commercials that we have to pay for? Where will it end? So ask yourself if you would pay to see commercials and advertisements? Is this really a far stretch of the imagination?

~Rachel Dillard

advertisements on roofs

As I was flying to California this weekend I was doing what most people in the window seat do look out the window. On the decent to the airport in Houston Texas I saw many buildings and could even make out what retailers they where. All of these buildings had one thing in common blank roofs, which were bland and not very interesting. This made me think why do companies not place advertisements on their roofs. Advertising on roofs would be a great idea, especially if the retailer is located near an airport. Many airports have over 50 flights departing a day. Most commercial planes have 25-35 rows, which would make 50-70 window seats. Then you have the people in the next seat over looking over their shoulder. The retailer could put something as simple as their logo on their roof and hundreds of people a day could see it. Business people who travel on a regular basis would see the image the majority of the time the travel. If the retailer did it across the continental US they could be known as the company that advertises on the roof. If you can advertise on cars, planes, and sides of buildings then why not on the idle space on your roof.

Simply Vera

http://www2.oprah.com/beauty/fashion/200709/beauty_fashion_20070914_vera_101.jhtml?promocode=HP22


While sitting at my desk struggling over what to write about in this weeks blog I happened across an episode of Oprah featuring none other than Mrs. Vera Wang herself. For those of you not in the know our class (that this blog is for) has decided to track the success of Vera's line for Kohl's "Simply Vera" that just launched. So I stopped and watched the show, in which Vera and Oprah discussed her new line and there was even a mini runway show of the simply Vera line. When we first talked about the line in class I was pretty much convinced that it was going to fail because who really wants to spend 100+ dollars on clothes that come from kohl's? However I have been rethinking my stance lately. I want Vera to be successful, really I do, she is a wonderful designer and very talented with an eye for style (aside of course for those awful leggings she always wears). And now that the line has been features on Oprah I think it has a much greater chance for success because lets face it Oprah has a often frightening power over the women of America, remember whenshe almost single handedly destroyed the texes cattle industry? Well Oprah's aduince is exactly the audience that Kohl's is targeting with this line. Women who already shop at kohl's for their family's and their homes can now go to Kohl's and buy a coat that Oprah loves. And we know that Oprah loves it because she wears the coat in the November issue of O! magazine.
On the show Oprah asks Vera the questions that we really want to know, like why did she decide to do a line for Kohl's and what she wants to accomplish with it. Vera says that she wants to provide everyone with clothes that have good design and quality and that means people with less money than her usual clients. That the detail and style in these clothes are above and beyond what you would normally find for these prices. Oprah says she love it and it has its benefits over Vera's past lines because not only is it affordable but it is available to the masses, the line carries more sizes and more versatile pieces that can be worn many ways. I really think that Vera has a greater possibility for success with this line now that she has been on Oprah's show and I know that I am now rooting for her to do well with this.

~Rachel dillard

Online Dating Services Ads

While working on a project for one of our classes a pop up for an online dating service appeared. It featured a young woman with long flowing brown hair with a flower in it. She was also probably no larger then a size 4. The only other items on this pop up other then the girl was the name of the service and the sign up form. I think this ad is only encouraging young males to sign up for the service. The ad reminded me of those late night dateline/hot singles ads that you see on TV then an ad for a dating service. I feel like advertising that featured happy couples would be more effective. This ad is only sending the message that if you sign up then you will meet a tiny female that is not much bigger then a stick.

NYT Google attempts to make YouTube worth it's price tag.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/technology/22google.html?ex=1188705600&en=961c377c222656af&ei=5070

I found this article really interesting because it brings up the important point that no matter how popular and successful a website is it doesn't matter if I doesn't make money. Google paid over billion dollars to buy YouTube and now they are struggling to make it profitable and a worthwhile purchase. Even though YouTube was visited buy over 50 million people in one month alone it doesn't generate any real revenue except for that paid buy advertisers, however because of the nature of the website google has to be careful to not annoy, put off, or beat its visitors over the head with advertisements. YouTube depends on the interest of the people not only for traffic and hits but for content. Google hopes that these "new" ads will not be intrusive and allow site viewers maximum control over what they are trying to be sold. Advertising is so incredibly powerful that it will decide if YouTube will be profitable for Google. So if you want to check out the ads and see what you think head over to http://www.youtube.com/. I think that this will work maybe not to a extent that will make what google paid back but to help cover the cost. It will also usher in a new age of advertising where like in media viewers have more power and control over what ad's they see.

~Rachel Dillard

Hilary Duff in Michael's

When I walked into Michael’s arts and crafts today with my mom I saw an ad that I did not expect to see. It was a roughly 7ft tall Hilary Duff. With the exception of maybe some Martha Steward items I have never seen any item in this store that has been endorsed by a celebrity. I think that this can be a good thing for Michaels though. Now customers will be coming in to get items they can make to wear or compliment their Hilary Duff clothing or accessories. I think Hilary Duff was a good celebrity to go with too. Unlike some of the other celebrities in the media she has a good reputation. I also liked the design of the ad. It had Hilary on one side and some of the items you can make on the other side. It was also not busy or overbearing.