September 13, 2008

CALLING MODERN BRIDES BECAUSE...


If you’re flipping through the pages of women magazines this month, you may come across the new ads for Modern Bride magazine. The magazine’s new ad campaign features newly married celebrity women describing why they are modern brides. For every celebrity modern bride that participated in the advertising campaign, Modern Bride made a donation to the I Do Foundation. In addition, the magazine is looking for The Modern Bride of the Year who will be featured on a cover of the magazine and will also share with readers why she is a modern bride.

The celebrity in this particular ad is Guiliana Rancic, co-host of ENews!, who is coincidently celebrating her one year wedding anniversary with Bill Rancic, winner of “The Apprentice, Season One.” The ad’s black and white picture of Guiliana and Bill Rancic on their wedding day in Italy is graceful, eye-catchy and her quote couldn’t be better. Guiliana’s description of why she is a modern bride simply reads, “I AM A MODERN BRIDE BECAUSE..I chased my career instead of guys.”

Both engaged and single career-oriented women may relate to Guiliana, being that nowadays more women are focusing on their careers before heading to the altar and starting a family. The ad is effective, because engaged women will buy the magazine and while single women may remember the magazine when it comes time to plan their wedding. The ad is eloquently tasteful and may ring in successful for Modern Bride.

Converse and John Varvatos GET CHUCKED

John Varvatos sure has a way of revamping old establishments. First, he opened his New York City boutique in what used to be the mother of all punk clubs, CBGB. Now, he’s vamping up Chuck Taylor All Stars. The new ad campaign for the latest Converse® by John Varvatos has a rock star status that combines grungy and chic. This is the perfect description for the new sneakers, because they’re not like your dad’s old Chucks. Now his little rock star princess can “GET CHUCKED” too.

The Detroit native’s new design for Converse offers a fresh style to an old brand that is more and more attracting Generation Y consumers. These ads effectively captivate that audience, by its playful positioning of the models. The models are as playful as the bright red words on the ad. It’s clear that who ever doesn’t get the play on words is probably not going to be getting “CHUCKED.”

Aside from playful, these ads are enticing and offer a liberating allure. Lastly, this ad campaign is effectively appealing by showcasing the vintage sneakers in a contemporary setting. So go out and GET CHUCKED!

September 10, 2008

Hip to be nerdy

Technology has a new face. No longer are the big names in the computer world old men in boring jackets and dorky glasses. Computers have a new, hip mascot. The Apple Guy. By juxtaposing a stuffy old man who runs into numerous problems with a cool young techy who has everything running smoothly, Apple directly addresses issues that PC users have run into and offers a hip solution. This face of Apple is their target audience, a young, average looking guy who could fit into any crowd (an will buy the latest technology to stay on the edge). He’s easy going, laid back and friendly. Sounds like the type of computer you’d want, right?

So how does Apple keep this series fresh? They are quick to release new ads. The simple design of the ad allows them to be created quickly and inexpensively. When Window’s Vista launched amid much criticism, Apple was quick to respond with Yoga and PR. College students—and their stomachs—are directly targeted in Pizza Box. As tea houses have increasingly challenged the coffee houses, tea drinkers are targeted in Calming Teas.

The tune is fresh and upbeat, the images are crisp and clean, the dialogue is catchy. People can relate. Apple has found a successful campaign that they have been able to sustain and build on since 2006.

Visiting Cambodia

America and Cambodia are so far apart but to know about Cambodia is just a click away now. As this is the first posting for our blog assignment, I would like to introduce all of you to my country in Southeast Asia. Kingdom of Cambodia, one of the poor countries in the region, has seen many new developments in the last several years. She has been recognized as one of the great places in the region among international tourists.


I would now like to raise one fascinating advertising website created by Canby Publications Co., Ltd—http://www.canbypublications.com. The link devotes entirely to the promotion of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Its content diversity brings readers to almost all the important social and cultural aspects about the country, ranging from simple guest houses and resorts to five-star hotels and worldwide famous temples. The publication gives readers all the things that a tourist should know, including city guides, pocket maps and guide books. The three most famous publications are:


The Phnom Penh Visitors Guide
The Siem Reap Angkor Visitors Guide
The Sihanoukville Visitors Guide


I think this advertising website is very effective for the targeted audience, considering its diverse content, detailed information, simple language use and designs. However, as the publications deal with Cambodian society, I would suggest, there should be a Khmer version as well because not many Cambodians can read and write English well.

September 9, 2008

Smile, you just have been braincleaned


You might have seen Thank you for smoking movie which, by the way, did not have the country wide distribution in Kazakhstan. May be because the distributors were not sure people are going to come to watch movie where the main idea is to show how smokers are fooled by companies. No one likes to pay money for box office just for being mocked. The commercial, especially the one which is started as any other marketing video (not promising any horror with images of burnt lungs and without tendency to didactic) is great opportunity to catch smoker's attention when he does not expect to. This flash effect is better also because it makes the smoker feel horrified instead of feeling pleasant while watching funny commercial about any new beverage or smth else.
These three commercials are my favorite ones from the so called flash-effect ads group. It starts as funny video and in the end makes you feel very inconvenient. Especially if you smoke.

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHvZazd4IM

2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qds1b92wJTo&feature=related

3)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU97ktde_bg&feature=related

NBC Promo Monkeys

It was announced prior to the Olympic Games that NBC would make commercials to tie the Olympics to their regular programming. More or less, it was a ploy to get people to remember that after the Olympics are to continue to watch NBC for its wonderful shows.

Here's one commercial:



Now, for the casual viewer of the Olympics, they might watch the commercial and scratch their heads, thinking "Why are they slapping each other?" For the fans of "The Office," most would be excited to see "new" footage of their favorite characters, even if it was only for a commercial.

The commercial in itself is a double-edged sword. While it keep the regular "Office" fans happy, it might not be presentable to new viewers. There are so many underlying jokes within the commercial that it will go over those viewers' heads. Not exactly what the NBC Promo Monkeys might have been looking for.

Yes, it's a simple commercial of three guys slapping each other, and the concept itself is humorous but a new viewer isn't going to know that the first two guys are friends/enemies while the third stole the second guy's girlfriend and proposed to her in the last season's finale thus making the slapping, much more humorous, right?

So, did this commercial make the returning viewers of "The Office" happy? Yes. Did this commercial make non-viewers curious about the show? Maybe... but maybe not in a good way.

September 8, 2008

Slovakia or Lord of the Rings?

For this first posting I’ve decided to blog about something very dear to me, my home country Slovakia. Even though it’s been years since we separated from Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist anymore, there are still many people out there who don’t know about it. Many don’t know about Slovakia at all. So yes, there is a country called Slovakia and no, the horror movie Hostel is not really about Slovakia. In fact, Slovakia is an opposite of the image Hostel offered to the world. As this video says Slovakia is a Fairytale.


Slovakia - Little big country from nutiso on Vimeo.

30 seconds of impressive camera work, famous voice of Don LaFontaine and couple of popular tourist attractions meet in this well done commercial. When it was done so well, why are so many people making fun of it? Well, maybe because it rather looks like a Lord of The Rings movie trailer than a country promotional video. The voice, the camera shooting from the sky.. Doesn’t the font used throughout the video remind you of LOTR also? However neutral I try to be, it does look like a trailer for an upcoming blockbuster movie.

Slovak Tourist board website says that video was made in five language versions (English, German, Czech, Hungarian and Polish). They expected to air the video on CNN, BBC World News and other world television. I wasn’t lucky to see it on any of these channels. Production of the video and the whole project behind it was co-funded by European Union. So what if it wasn’t what they hoped for, it wasn’t only our money in it being wasted after all.

Some love it, some hate it, and some don’t care. Question remains, does this video work?
Slovak Tourist Board didn’t respond to my e-mail requesting statistics about where the video was aired and how successful it was. Who knows why?


For more information about movie Hostel www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278
(Please don’t take a single sentence in this movie seriously, we don’t kill Americans for fun, trust me!)
More about Little Big Country Slovakia www.slovakia.travel

Update on 09/14/08
Slovak Tourist Board responded to my e-mail saying that the video is currently aired on Eurosport channel and also was aired during the olympic games. It is aired in three different languages. E-mail did not include any statistics about its success. Well, at least they wrote back.