Monday Smile
This simply cannot wait until Friday...
So. Geoff came home with a minivan brochure last week. A MINIVAN BROCHURE. As in a BROCHURE about MINIVANS. And I did what every mature almost thirty year old mother would do... I threw a little hissy fit. Because there is just no way that I'm okay with driving a minivan. I know that other people do, and that's awesome for them, I just CAN'T. I take crap from my friends for my 'soccer mom car' - I can't even fathom the fallout from a MINIVAN.
Whew.
Shake it off, Lindsay.
Anyway.
My drama queen minivan-related emotions aside, we've been thoroughly enjoying
the Toyota Sienna campaign in the Wright household. I laugh at the commercials every single time. And when the campaign music video 'Swagger Wagon' launched, I laughed until my stomach hurt... Hopefully all my motherfather blog readers out there will enjoy it too :)
Labels: Advertising, Mommy Stuff, Stuff I Found Online, The Boy
Cutting Poster
A poster campaign that I worked on is being featured on several design and advertising blogs. This is one in a series of three, shot on a shoestring budget for a non-profit client - case in point, this picture was taken in my bathroom and, yes, that is the lovely and talented Kirsten who volunteered to try her hand at modelling for a day last summer (and did a fantastic job!).
Thought you might be interested in taking a peek, while I still have work (read: non-baby) stuff to post occasionally :)
HINT: You can click to make it larger.
Labels: Advertising, Cocoon
Branding and the Five Senses
A study released on Monday has found that kids prefer the taste of anything wrapped in a McDonald's wrapper. ANYTHING. They even bothered to test McDonald's-wrapped carrots and milk. Apparently, the power of branding is more powerful than the power of taste.
Contentious topic, that's for sure. It's being argued that marketers are targeting kids before they are able to make good choices. It's also being argued that parents who don't want their kids to end up fat and addicted to McD's should simply not take them to McD's as often. It's important to note that, in Canada, there are definite laws designed to restrict marketing to young children (a law that is much more relaxed in the US, where this story is creating a lot of buzz).
Still, it's all very interesting - especially because kids are unlikely to be the only ones susceptible. I'm sure that most of us would find ourselves subconsciously preferring the fit and style of a shirt or a pair of shoes with the *right* brand name on them. Science is beginning to pinpoint the exact areas and functions of our brains that make us prefer the brands we do - Pepsi vs Coke, for example.
Advertising and strategic brand positioning is no longer as simple as putting a product picture on an ad and listing off the five reasons why you should buy this product over that product. It's becoming incredibly emotional, and infinitely strategic. It's why I love my job :)
Labels: Advertising
Elect Susie Flynn
"If You Knew Susie"
by Stuart Flynn (New York Times)
Every two years, the word "campaign" takes on a double meaning as marketers sponsor advertising with election themes, making believe that they are running their brands, endorsers or mascots for Congress or president.
For instance, in 1996, Nike pretended to toss the baseball cap of Ken Griffey Jr. into the ring. The Miller Brewing Company urged voters in 2004 to select Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft as the "president of beers."
And last year, the Mayfield Dairy Farms division of Dean Foods held a "Flavor Decision '06" vote in four Southern states to select a new variety of ice cream. The winner was blueberry cream pie, which campaigned on a platform of "Making tomorrow sweeter."
Now, an organization with more on its mind than peddling a product is adopting the tactic. To generate support for a plan to make sure all American children are covered by health insurance, the Children's Defense Fund is sponsoring a "healthy child" campaign centered on a highly unlikely candidate for the nation's highest office: a 10-year-old girl.
The campaign - that is, the ad campaign - is called "Elect Susie," after its spokeswoman-cum-candidate, Susie Flynn. Television commercials, print ads, posters and a Web site (electsusie.com) adopt the trappings of a campaign - that is, an electoral campaign - complete with flags, bunting, slogans, messages of encouragement from supporters and disclaimers ("Paid for by Friends of Susie Flynn and the Children's Defense Fund").
-
Read More: The official website - and all the campaign commercials - are
here. The full NYT article is
here.
Labels: Advertising, Stuff I Found Online
In Times of War
So I receive, among other things, a weekly email with all the Advertising headlines from the New York Times. This week's email headline made me giggle: Any Fresher, and it Might be Banned in Boston.
Anyway. I thought one of this week's stories was interesting...
Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War
by Stewart Elliott
No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.
More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.
For instance, in a commercial for Bud Light beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, one man beat the other at a game of rock, paper, scissors by throwing a rock at his opponent’s head.
In another Bud Light spot, face-slapping replaced fist-bumping as the cool way for people to show affection for one another. In a FedEx commercial, set on the moon, an astronaut was wiped out by a meteor. In a spot for Snickers candy, sold by Mars, two co-workers sought to prove their masculinity by tearing off patches of chest hair.
There was also a bank robbery (E*Trade Financial), fierce battles among office workers trapped in a jungle (CareerBuilder), menacing hitchhikers (Bud Light again) and a clash between a monster and a superhero reminiscent of a horror movie (Garmin).
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Here's something fun - a look at
Super Bowl ads through the ages.
Labels: Advertising, Stuff I Found Online
Weekend Update
I ended up hanging out with my mom on Friday while I was off sick. She had an admin day (stupid people who work in education). We watched 'The Family Stone' again, sat in their hot tub, flipped through travel books for Greece, and I popped pills like a crazy person whose sole purpose in life is to get healthy again.
On Saturday, Geoff and I joined Aaron, Cait, and a few friends for the screening of the LIA winners at the Art Gallery. There's something brilliant about watching an hour and a half of great commercials. And there were some great ones... I was particularly amused by the spot for the International Panda Rescue Organization.
And yesterday afternoon, Alison hosted a shower for Mel and baby Malakai. It was fun to see some people I don't usually get a chance to hang out with, and - like any good girl party - there was a ton of great food.
Last night at young adults, Kris lead a discussion on the topic of love. I've been thinking about it all day... When you realize that your whole purpose on this earth is to love, everything kind of gets put into perspective, doesn't it? Overwhelming, because it doesn't feel like our world is full of love - just watching the news this morning got me sad again. I don't have any answers. But when I was walking to work this morning, a car braked at a green light to let me cross the street so that I didn't have to wait any extra time in the cold.
So maybe there's some love left after all. It's not extravagant or flashy or even very obvious. But sometimes that's what makes it so beautiful.
L
Labels: Advertising, My Life
To Err is Human, or Mooninites Attack!
From AdAge.com:
The fallout from yesterday's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" bomb scare in Boston continues, with Turner Broadcasting doing its best to apologize for a marketing stunt gone terribly awry.
Cartoon Network issued an apology during last night's Adult Swim lineup, when "Aqua Teen" airs in its 15-minute form. "We never intended or designed this to be a marketing stunt to create concern," said Shirley Powell, a spokeswoman for the channel's parent company, Turner Broadcasting. "It was simply a promotion for a TV show. If we had perceived this as threatening, it never would have been implemented."
Ms. Powell added that Turner is in discussions with Boston officials regarding reparations to the city, which are believed to amount to $750,000.
Two arrests have been made in the investigation: Boston residents Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28. Lawyers told the two not to discuss their involvement in the case in a press conference today, so they instead frustrated journalists with a three-minute discussion on the history of hair. A YouTube video surfaced today detailing their efforts to place the Lite-Brite-like panels depicting the show's Mooninite characters on the streets of Boston.
The campaign was discontinued by Cartoon Network and its agency, Interference, whose executives have not spoken to the press and were not believed to be in their New York offices today. A spokeswoman for the Boston attorney general's office said the police investigation is ongoing and no one else has been named in the criminal proceedings.
-This is just too bizarre. And a HOT topic of discussion in the office today, especially when we searched YouTube and found footage of the 'don't panic, but we're under attack' television appearance by Boston's mayor.
If anyone's interested, you can buy one of these LED tags of your very own (or at least a half-decent replication) on eBay today. Or a t-shirt that looks a little something like this. Incidentally, now tiled as my laptop wallpaper :)
Labels: Advertising, Current Events, Stuff I Found Online
