Black Friday

So yesterday was Black Friday which is one of the biggest days of the year for good deals. However, I have seen so many videos and photos of people hurting each other to get hold of one of the cheap tvs, phones ect, it's crazy! It's just a day for shops to get rid of all their products that are not selling very well at an extremely cheap price. There were so many emails that these brands sent out and adverts shown about these amazing deals, but unless you wanted a tv and started queueing in the early hours of the morning, there wasn't even that many good deals which was disappointing. I went to the shopping centre and hmv had massive signs outside saying 'crazy deals! Up to 80% off!' So I went in there and there was only about 3 things that were even in the Black Friday offers, it's so over rated in the uk. I personally think that Black Friday should stay in America because I don't feel it's that good in the uk, and people just get hurt because many people just don't care who they injure just aslong as they get that 50 inch tv for £100! 

Siri VS Cortana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=trueview-instream&v=lrwBKK25LnE

This advert is such a funny advert because its an advert of Apple and Nokia just digging at each other about the phone being able to speak; Siri VS Cortana. Its a clever move by Nokia because they know iPhones are better than their phones so they use an iPhone in their advert to compare the both and to try and persuade everyone that their phone is better. This is not done in a horrible way but in a humorous way which really works because I find them so catchy. There is a series of adverts which all have the same agenda which shows how Nokia is better than iPhone, but will this actually persuade the consumer to go with Nokia? In my opinion I dont think it will because most people go with an iPhone because it will always be the latest trend. 

Holidays are coming!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=trueview-instream&v=-gMjPezr8TY

Its that time of year again, the time for Coke's famous Holidays are coming advert. I don't have a TV license so I don't watch live TV, so I have only just seen this advert and to me it marks the time when you can start going christmas shopping, listening to christmas songs and getting in the christmas mood. This advert just shows how iconic an advert can be, because Coke never change their advert from year to year and people still get excited when they see this advert for the first time. Everyone waits for it to come on because its like the start of celebrating christmas, and as soon as you hear the bells at the very beginning of the advert, everyone knows its the coke advert and gets excited to watch it.  Also they have moved on their advertising by doing a tour of the Coca Cola lorry so people can actually go round and get pictures and see it in real life, which is such a good way of advertising because people see this lorry as such an iconic part of christmas.

Disaronno Wears Versace

This is an advert that I have seen on a couple of social media platforms lately and the simplicity of it makes the bottle of Disaronno stand out so much against the background. The colourful and striking bottle against the dull background draws your eyes immediately to the bottle, and then to the text because there are no other distractions. The fact that Disaronno have teamed up with Versace to create a unique bottle is effective because Disaronno uses the colours of black and gold which is seemed quite sophisticated. So this links well with Versace's designs as their logo is gold and black. I personally love this bottle because the blue against the gold and black makes it bold and out there. Using the #Disaranno gets people talking about it, and this is a trend that I am seeing in most adverts now, because brands and companies know the power of social media so they use hashtags to their advantage. 

Costa Cups

This is a cup that one of my tutors walked in with today and I just found it really awesome. I love how places like Costa and Starbucks change their packaging and add some new flavours on the menu for occasions like Christmas, it's just so nice walking around the street and feeling in the festive mood. I find this design really cute because everyone loves building snowmen and applying this and other characters onto packaging gets everyone talking it. This also gets everyone wanting to collect all the different characters, which reflects in their sales. Using the bright colours makes the packaging fun as well, so children also point it out and can join in with the festivities. 

1 shisha = 200 cigarettes

This is a print advert that I saw online and its such a powerful image that I read into more details on the page. The message in the advert is not to smoke shisha's because its the equivalent of 200 cigarettes at once and the image reflects this in such a powerful way. 'Imagine smoking 200 cigarettes in one go!' makes you think that one cigarette is bad enough let alone 200 at once, so it will hopefully make people think twice about smoking shisha's in the future because of what its doing to your body. I didn't realise that people could get addicted to shisha but this advert clearly shows that you can. The lighting that they have used on this advert is very effective because the light draws your eye to the focus on the cigarette shisha   and nothing else on the page which is what they want your eyes to do. 

Victoria Secret Packaging

I saw this photo while scrolling down my Twitter and I thought it was a really easy way of advertising. The person who wrote with the picture that she had an interview and that this is what they gave her while she was waiting. This is a clever way of advertising because you don't normally see bottles of water from a specific brand with pink lids so they done this so people would share the photo and advertise their company; this clearly worked because this tweet had many favourites and retweets so more and more people were looking at it. I love this piece of packaging too as the brand is very famous around the world and the colours, type and images have represented this effectively. I can imagine Victoria Secret handing out everything with their brand on it because they are a proud company and like to show off their products and models in every way possible. 

Joe's Story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02bx5qv

I saw this short video while watching Children In Need on Friday which made me quite emotional. This is a video about a young boy called Joe who has got a condition called Barth Syndrome in which he spent 251 days being kept alive by an artificial heart as this syndrome causes muscle and heart problems. This was such a inspirational story because Joe is such a happy and funny child, and him talking about his condition and the people who help him made me really emotional because it just shows not to take life for granted and just be happy that your healthy because if Joe can be happy with this condition, everyone else should be happy as well. Children In Need is always a good way to make people aware of the massive range of medical problems out there that people don't know about, which is why I watch Children In Need every year because with the money your donating you know that people such as Joe and many others are getting the help they need. 

Controversial Kim

These are the most recent front covers for the magazine Paper which are such controversial pictures that everyone has been talking about. There is a series of photos that have been taken and these have been round all the social media platforms which has caused a lot of opinions and hate. Some people think this is just Kim being Kim and support her, but most people are giving her a lot of abuse for this saying things such as she is a bad mum for posing naked and that the images a fake and horrible. This has caused a lot of backlash for her as many people are editing the photos to make fun of her and attempt to humiliate her. However, I have personally never heard of the magazine Paper so for them to put such debatable and controversial photos of Kim on the front of their magazine has gave them a lot of media and social attention. This is why they have probably done this whole photoshoot because even without these pictures, Kim Kardashian has so much media attention that anything to do with her most people have positive and negative opinions on. 

'Melting Icebergs Lead To Sinking Skylines'

This is another Print Ad that I found on Pinterest which is a really simple way of promoting global warming and its effects. The icicles are art directed in a way that it creates iconic buildings such as the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower Of Pisa and the Statue Of Liberty showing that global warming is having an effect on cities too. This is because where the ice is melting everything is slowly going underwater, and this is put across really well in this advert as the skyline is going past and up the city buildings. The white against the blue is also striking because they are calm colours but also create a sharp enough contrast that you can see the outline of the buildings clearly. At one point global warming was the main topic in the news and a topic that people spoke about a lot, but I don't really here anything about it anymore, so seeing the advert was really nice that people are still making awareness about global warming and also creating really intriguing adverts about it. 

Obesity Advert

This is a print ad that really made me laugh, however, promoting obesity through humour could be quite controversial because people could see it in different ways. At first glance you think its just a strawberry ice cream but as you look closer its a persons stomach thats hanging over the cone. I really like this because its so simple but so effective because its just a simple picture of a plain background but the message is so strong. On the other hand, people could get really offended by this because some people have a weight problem not because they eat too much, they could have a medical problem so people could take this to heart and get angry over this. I like the colours they have used in this because there quite bright and they all clash against each other so it makes it a bit less serious so its more humorous than anything.

Ben & Jerry's Packaging

I was looking on Design Week and I came across the story about Ben & Jerrys changing the design of their packaging. The reason behind this is because the idea of the blue skies and green grass was being overlooked by the combination of flavours they are producing. The top picture is the old design and the bottom picture is the new design, I think changing the design has massively improved the packaging because it brings back the whole idea and morals that Ben & Jerrys brand has with being fair-trade and improving climate change ect. Sometimes changing the packaging is what a brand needs because as it grows the packaging and design can become out of date and not with the latest trend to sell their product anymore, and I feel in this case Ben & Jerrys have done this is an impressive way because they have stripped it back to what they started with which I really like. On the other hand people might think that all the products will look the same apart from the title but Ben & Jerrys have overcome this problem by creating 'flavour towers'. A flavour tower is a tower made up of all the flavours that are in that particular pot of ice cream, to easily show whats in that product so that it can be simply recognised around the world. This is a smart move by Ben & Jerrys because their target audience is pretty much everyone, so they have designed their new packaging to suit everyone. 

Lights Everywhere

While walking around London I saw a trend in lights, there was lights everywhere, different styles, colours and occasions. These were the lights that I was really drawn to look at, purely because of the colours, the design and the composition of the lights. Seeing these lights from a distance I first thought that it would be an alternative shop or a bar/club because of how random and bright these lights were, but as I got closer I realised it was Debenhams which was a real shock to me. This was because I see Debenhams as quite a sophisticated and classy shop, and I did not expect this type of design to be in Debenhams. As I looked around at the store these lights were everywhere so the theme went across the whole of the store which was really effective. This just shows that trying something different can sometimes pay off because this type of display is not like the usual christmas displays you see, its unique so people are more likely to remember it. Visual Display is so important when advertising nowadays because if something does not look visually appealing most people won't even look at it, so to draw people to your shop and products it needs to stand out and appeal to your target audience. 

Selfridges Christmas Windows

Visiting London is always an exciting experience for most people, but visiting London around christmas time is just magical. I personally love London at christmas because all the amazing window displays that you see, especially high end brands such as Selfridges and John Lewis. This is a photo I took of one of many of Selfridges windows, as this one was my favourite mainly because of the unicorn. As soon as I saw this window I couldn't take my eyes off of it because it was so stunning through the props they used and the use of the pink and white unicorn, it just brought the magic of christmas to the high street. This is one of the things Selfridges is most famous for because all year round their windows are always so effective and attract people to go into their shop which is what they want. I always ask myself if the windows are this exciting, what must it be like inside? Im sure many more people think this as well. Before I took this photo you literally had to battle the crowds to get a photo because there was so many people trying to take photos and see the windows. Shopping is one of my favourite things to do and walking down Oxford Street near christmas is always such a good shopping experience, not just because of Selfridges, but because of most of the high streets window displays, I just love the amount of effort that they put in to their windows and displays to make peoples shopping experience as fun as they can. 

'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red'

Today is Remembrance Sunday which reminded me of the sea of poppies at the Tower of London. I haven't been to this myself but everyone I know who has, has told me it is the most amazing sight. I think the idea of having a poppy for each British soldier that was in the war really touching because this shows that we haven't forgotten about a single one of them. 888,246 ceramic poppies were created and you could purchase one online, and once the instillation has been taken down you get the poppy sent to you. This was placed at the Tower of London because this is an iconic place, and the size of the instillation represents the importance of remembering them and what they did for Britain. The name of this instillation is 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red', I feel this is a really emotional name for this because it gives you a little insight of what the soldiers went through during World War 1, and this is created in a strong way by actually making a land and sea of blood through thousands and thousands of poppies. We are visiting London next week so maybe at some point it would be good to go and visit this beautiful instillation. 

Print Ad

I saw this advert while looking at the 100 best print ads, and this one really stood out for me. Its such a powerful photo asking you the question of which one has been banned in America, and most people would initially think the kinder egg is the simplest answer. This is the wrong answer. Kinder eggs have been banned in America due to health and safety reasons, so they are saying that a gun is not a safety issue? I found this advert so disturbing even looking at a child holding a gun, but this is the type of advert that you will remember and that you will tell people about. The art direction of this advert is so simple but so clever how they are just standing in a classroom holding two items but the message gets across so strongly. The text on it is also such a strong statement and by asking you a question its getting the viewer involved. The simple type also makes it easy to read so the text and the photo are the two main things you focus on. This is such a hard hitting photo and every time I look at it it makes me angry that they haven't banned guns yet, and I am sure many people will agree with my anger. 

Controversy over Victoria Secret

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/tickets-for-victorias-secret-2014-london-show-are-now-on-sale--and-you-can-get-your-seat-for-10k-9679182.html

This is a topic that I know many of my friends have been talking about lately, the latest Victoria Secret show in London. Not only because of how amazing it will be, but how much a seat at the show would cost.. £10,000! This is rumoured to be because they want high class people there because its going to be a well mannered, sophisticated event, but when can you ever believe the press. Even though this is one of the most glamorous fashion events of the year, £10,000 in my opinion is very extreme for a seat as its still only a fashion show at the end of the day. Maybe I feel like this because I would love to go to a Victoria Secret show myself. 

This story can't do much for their reputation either as they have already had a massive backlash about their 'Perfect Body' campaign which was about these very skinny girls having the 'perfect body'. This soon got changed because it caused so much controversy and is now called 'A Body For Every Body'. Both of these stories coming out within days of each other is not a good sign for Victoria Secret, but is this going to effect their brand and business? I doubt it. 

#MontyThePenguin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iccscUFY860

The wait is over. The TV advert that everyone has been looking forward to seeing. The John Lewis christmas advert has finally been released. After last years The Bear and The Hare, there was high expectations for this years christmas ad, and they have definitely been successful in making this years one even better. Its about a little boy having Monty the penguin as his friend which shows the story of their life together, and finding out what Monty really wanted for christmas. This was to be loved, it ended in the Monty getting a girlfriend for christmas, however, it turned out the be the little boys soft penguin toys all along. This was a really touching story because its about giving the gift that someones been dreaming of for christmas, and this happens in a really exciting and heart warming way in the video. 

This was one of my favourite scenes in the video because its near the end where Monty finally gets what he has been wanting and the look on his face just reminds you of christmas when people are really happy with their presents and you've got the present that you wanted. Also when there is a emotional story in an advert you can become quite attached to the story especially when there are animals involved, and knowing that he finally got what he was dreaming of makes you feel happy for him. 'Give someone the christmas they have been dreaming of' is the line that sticks in your head because its the last line of the advert and it inspires you to make christmas really special for everyone, and to do that John Lewis is the place to go to make christmas magical. This has been such a successful TV advert because it was only put on youtube 1 day ago and it has already had over 4 million views, which compared to Debenhams 209,000 views, is amazing. I feel this is because they produce such creative and interesting adverts that people just love watching them. 

Aussie Magazine Advert

This was an advert for Aussie hair products that I saw in another magazine that I have recently been reading. The massive hair was the first thing that drew my eye to looking at it more, and I soon discovered that I had used this product that they were advertising before. The background photo is the only thing that I feel is good about the advert because its a strong powerful photo that represents the brand well. However, the rest of the design and and text they have used don't really fit well together. The humour they have used in the text I don't think is very funny and is in my opinion a bit pointless. The layout of the advert is also all over the place, and they could have improved this by possibly placing the text and images of their products in a different way. Previously using this product too, the advert says it saves you time when if anything, it takes you longer because its such a terrible product for something that is expensive. Putting the advert in a womens magazine is a good thing because women are their target audience and always have the struggle of getting ready on time so seeing a good brand in a magazine will always promote products really successfully. Overall, I feel they could have used a better layout to compliment the striking photo more, and it would have been nice to see the Aussie logo on there, but it tells you everything you need to know. 

Truthful, Inspirational, Positive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

This is one of the most truthful, inspirational and positive videos I have ever seen. Its an Always advert and its about girls being judged and insulted for doing things like girls and this having an effect on them during puberty. I first saw this video when it popped up as an advert when I was trying to watch another video, I normally skip these adverts as soon as I can but for some reason the first 5 seconds of this video encouraged me to watch the rest. I made the right decision to watch this as something so simple as asking girls and boys to do simple actions 'like a girl' can create such an interesting and truthful 3 minutes. The whole point of this campaign was to show people that running like a girl, fighting like a girl, throwing like a girl ect, shouldn't be an insult because girls still win medals and achieve things in life just like boys do. So far 51 million people have viewed this video and I can imagine that most people at the end feel that they have learned something from watching it purely because of the message they are putting across. Its a shame because at the beginning of the video the girls are even insulting themselves because it has been drilled into every girls head that girls can't do things as good as boys and its bad to act like a girl. However, this campaign shows that being a girl is good thing and that knocking a girls confidence even lower when going through puberty can have a horrible effect on the rest of her life. The piece of text that really stood out for me during the video was 'lets make #likeagirl mean amazing things' which will hopefully encourage people to stop insulting girls when they are going through a hard time in their life. They are also getting social media involved in their advert to get people talking about it and raising more awareness of their campaign and story through twitter and their website by sharing and hash tagging; this obviously worked because of how many views the video has got. Always have created a really successful campaign here that I would say 90% of girls can relate to because of puberty and their period, and this video will give girls more confidence to not let people get to them. I would definitely advise everyone to watch this video!

Relating To Adverts

This was another advert that I saw in a magazine that really caught my eye because of the picture and text that Lenor have used. The picture was the first thing that made me look at it because of the connection that the mum and daughter have because of the way they look at each other and the smiles they have on their faces. This is because me and my mum are really close and are best friends and being at university makes me miss my family a lot so this made me feel a little bit emotional. The text on it 'Its more than a blanket. Its my secret power to make her smile.' also made me relate to the advert because having a cuddle under a blanket with your mum is always a nice comforting feeling. Lenor has created a really effective advert because a lot of people can relate to to it, and the type and photo they have used all links together really well because it makes you feel all warm and reminds you of whats important in life. 

#foundit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljo9OEkmzEQ

This years Debenhams christmas advert has recently been released and I feel they are taking inspiration from John Lewis' previous christmas advert because they have told a story in this one. Its about children searching in a Debenhams store and finding their perfect christmas present. I like this advert because I feel its telling a really festive and positive story, everyone being excited at christmas, and finding the 'perfect' present for friends and family. They have also included social media in their advert by having the #foundit at the end of the advert, this is included in the statement 'share your #foundit moment' to encourage people to share their moments and also share the advert so more and more people talk about it. The music in the background is so lovely because its really christmasy as it reminds me of walking around the shops and markets through all the lights and decorations which is really exciting. The end of the story where the girl finally finds her perfect present, the music gets really intense and makes you feel the relief and excitement that the girl has. Debenhams have taken a totally different view on their advert this year and I think its really successful. 

Magazine Advertising

I found this advert in the magazine Closer. This is a really clever way of advertising on Daz's behalf because putting half naked men in towels in a women's magazine is always going to attract their eyes to the message they are putting across. Also having the contrast in the off white towel man being a bit chubby and the 'Daz white' towel man being toned with a good body also helps the advert because its showing that having a pure white towel makes it more attractive. Another reason that putting a washing powder advert in a womans magazine is a good thing is because most women that read these magazines are the women that do the washing and cleaning ect, so this could influence them to buy a better product to make their whites whiter. The colours on the advert are quite dull and so that the two aspects that Daz wants you to take in are the main focus; the extremely white towel and the Daz logo. This is because they want to draw your eye to the towel and then to the logo to show that if you buy this product your whites are going to be as white as this mans towel and anything but that is not good enough.