Category Archives: Advertising and Marketing

The Power of Evocative Images in Ads

Posted on April 25, 2011 | 2 Comments

For my dad’s 60th birthday, my aunt converted old, family photos from screens to DVD. When my aunt and dad referred to the screen and carousel, they asked me if I knew what these terms meant? My only point of reference was the Mad Men Kodak carousel episode, in which ad man Donald Draper pitches a campaign to a toe-dipping Kodak Co. for their new line of “wheel projectors.”

His devastatingly poignant delivery showcases the evocative power of photographs. This scene coupled with the picture of my dad and his older brothers reminded me of the intense emotions an image can elicit.

Screen photo

From Left to Right: My Dad, Uncle Mike and Uncle David

The natural “awe” reaction made me think about advertising campaigns that use images to evoke a powerful emotion or reaction.

1) The “Seek Truth” Campaign

Created by Arnold Worldwide, these print ads urged kids to seek out the truth® behind what they’re being told by Big Tobacco. The gruesome images make me cringe.

Seek Truth campaign

2) Abercrombie & Fitch 

Sex sells. Abercrombie & Fitch is a testament this truism. The retail store uses party-loving jocks and barenaked ladies living fantasy lives to attract impressionable adolescents. You walk into the store and are immediately exposed to skin. These racy images scream sex.

Abercrombie & Fitch ad Abercrombie and Fitch

3) Benetton Pieta 

United Colors of Benetton ventured into controversial territory in 1991 with the publication of “Pieta”, a photographic expose of the reality of AIDS. The photo of AIDS activist David Kirby was taken in his room in the Ohio State University Hospital in May 1990, with his father, sister and niece at his bedside. Taken by Therese Frare,  this photo is filled with sorrow, pain and suffering. 

Benetton Pieta

4) Levi’s America “Go Forth” 

Created by Wieden + Kennedy, this commercial features the American poet Walt Whitman and lines from his 1888 poem “America.” The audio is the original recording of Whitman’s real voice used in the Levi‘s spot. The audio paired with the black and white images arouse a patriotic feeling.

5) Coke Creatures: Viral Summer 2009 Dance Party 

Created by Mother London, this entertaining viral video features a dance party inspired by gremlin-like creatures who love Coca Cola. When hearing the catchy beat and seeing the carefree dancers with odd yet cuddly creatures, you can’t help but smile.

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Skittles Savant

Posted on April 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

WARNING: I feel like I may soon experience hyperglycemic shock due to an excessive consumption of Crazy Core Skittles today. Therefore, I apologize in advance for the hyperactive nature of this post.

Now that you’ve received fair warning, I am INFATUATED with Skittles.

Skittles

I get absolutely giddy when delicately bursting into a package of fruity goodness. The colors, the aroma, the texture, the taste. I am overwhelmed by the aesthetically pleasing and appetizing treat! My roommates enjoy making fun of my childish exuberance for the hard, sugar-shelled candy, but I just can’t contain my excitement.

Imagine my reaction when I discovered the content-rich, eccentric Skittles.com. Holy double rainbow—authentic, engaging content created by one of my favorite brands.  I immediately fell into an interactive marketing-induced euphoria.

Once revived from my intense state of transcendent happiness, I explored the rainbow-themed site. Staying true to its friendly, quirky self, the Skittles’ brand invited me to “Taste the rainbow” by scrolling down. The site eschews typical navigation in favor of a single, endless website—similar to a rainbow.

As I explored, I found content ranging from an offbeat YouTube video to a picture of a clown in an astronaut suit. All the content can be shared through Facebook and Twitter. One of my favorite posts, “Sometimes I think peninsulas are just islands that aren’t trying hard enough” received 15,131 Facebook “likes” and generated 902 comments.

Skittles.com Facebook post

These stellar stats are a common occurrence for the site. A status stating, “Wouldn’t it be great if elevators replaced all their buttons with a single Surprise Me button?” garnered 16, 294 “likes” and 1,338 comments.

Skittles.com post
As my sugar coma approaches, I’ll conclude with a final, exclamatory thought: Bravo Big Spaceship for creating an interactive, innovative site that remains loyal to the brand’s essence. 

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Live from the Finish Line: The 2011 Boston Marathon

Posted on April 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

As a BU student, I view the Boston Marathon aka Marathon Monday as more of a social event than a 26-mile road race. Apparently, I am not the only 22-year old with these sentiments:

Hillary Babick Facebook status

photo credit: Facebook

Melissa Aldape's tweet

photo credit: Twitter

Whenever I hear the word “social,” I first think of chatter in the online world and then its offline definition.  Following this train of thought, I wondered if the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) worked to translate the marathon’s offline hype to an online conversation?

First, I checked out the race’s website. My social media-loving heart melted. I discovered an interactive site filled with real-time updates. The homepage featured:

Additionally, BAA used Facebook and Twitter to engage with its audience. 

With 9,598 followers, 36,632 fans, approximately 25,000 participants and 500,000 spectators, the Boston Marathon is definitely social online and off.

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BU Senior attends AdAge’s 2011 Digital Conference #winning

Posted on April 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last week, Advertising major Benji Michaels (COM ’11) attended AdAge’s 2011 Digital Conference. I had the opportunity to get an exclusive interview with the soon-to-be grad. He shared with me his experience at the event and the insights gained.

Benji Michaels

Benji with his Google water bottle, a free goodie from the conference

How did you end up winning tickets to AdAge’s Digital Conference?

They ran a contest on Twitter, and you had to submit a question to one of the panelist who would be at the conference. I happened to be on Twitter at the right time. So, I wrote one and they picked it.

Winning Tweets to AdAge Digital Conference

#winning tweets

So, tell me a little bit about the conference.

It’s a conference that brings together advertisers and marketers to talk about innovations, trends, insights in the digital space. It’s in its 6th year, I think. It was in NYC in a place called New World Stages at 50th and 9th. It was two nights—Wednesday and Thursday (April 6th-7th). Wednesday night, AdAge hosted a viral video awards show. The event awarded different campaigns or viral videos. I even met the BlendTec guy!

What sessions did you attend?

I went to everything I could. They had a few couple different tracks: social-based, video based or mobile based.  The founder of foursquare, Dennis Crowley, spoke. The founders of Boxee were also there. They talked about cutting the cord with interactive TV and personal, customized set-top boxes like an Apple or Google TV. I basically went to one presentation after the other:

Were there any other students at the conference?

Not that I knew of. It was an older crowd than expected. The CEOs were the youngest people there. Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, attended the conference. Also, the guy who invented the bump technologies was super young. There wasn’t as much networking as I had hoped, but it was totally worth it because of the content of the presentations.

How can you apply the insights learned in the presentation to your internship or your own brand?

The stuff people talk about is close to common sense. We are the first generation to inherently understand these platforms and technologies. All these people are learning how companies have been successful using Twitter, Facebook,  and Apps. But, these are things we know. We are the generation that has defined how Facebook and twitter are used.

The insights weren’t huge revelations. We take for granted how much we know about these things. There’s a gap between understanding how things work and relevant insights and strategies to apply. So, it takes savvy and experience to understand why a trending hash tag works as opposed to other marketing collateral.

Based on the information you learned at the conference, what is your advice for your peers?

We all use this stuff, but very few people know it as well as we do. Take your daily Facebook usage and make something of it. Stay trending on pop culture because so much of what drives strategy is culture and collective consciousness of society. No one is more tapped into it than we are.

Benji's tweet for AAdigital

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My (hypothetical) Google Job Experiment

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 3 Comments

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.

Jobs seem to be the trending topic around COM. Unlike finance majors who have known  their post-grad future since September, most COM students anxiously await the fateful day they hear the glorious words “You’re hired.”

In my interactive marketing class, our professor talked about Alec Brownstein’s creative approach to the job search.  He devised a strategy to gain the attention of advertising top Creative Directors at his “dream” agencies. The insight behind his self-promotional campaign was everyone “googles” themselves.  Using his SEM knowledge, he bid on the names of industry bigwigs like David Droga, Tony Granger and Ian Reichenthal.

When each CD did a “vanity google“of their own name, an ad appeared in which Brownstein asked each exec for a job. What’s the ROI? After investing a whopping $6, Brownstein now works for Y&R.

After hearing about Brownstein’s brilliant employment strategy, I thought to myself how would I consolidate my elevator speech into a 25-35-35 character ad?

First, I would need to customize each ad for the executive and agency I was targeting.

For example, I would love to work for the Third Act, Digitas’ brand content division. Based on the information I learned from a conversation with the Third Act’s Paul Kontonis, I would create this targeted, keyword-rich ad:

Keywords to bid on:

  • Paul Kontonis
  • Stephanie Sarofian
  • John McCarus
  • Eric Korsh
  • Teal Newland

As a Digitas fanatic, I would continue to confess my love and desire to work there with this ad:

Katelyn Stokes Digitas Ad

Keywords to bid on:

  • Nora Kassis Walker
  • Elliott Seaborn

As a Happy Socks-wearing, Stella Artois-drinking, Target-loving gal, I am obsessed with Mother New York. To gain Mother’s attention, I would say:

Mother New York

Keywords to bid on:

  • Angie Vieira Barocas
  • Pernilla Ammann

Although I haven’t invested in these PPC ads, I’m hoping that organic traffic to this blog post will lead to those magical words “You’re hired!”

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Google’s +1 Feature and Tim McGraw: I like it.

Posted on April 5, 2011 | 2 Comments

Last Wednesday, Google announced that it is adding a new feature to its search engine that lets you “like” search results— the “plus-one.”

When I first read about this feature, Tim McGraw’s song “I like it, I love it” instantly popped into my head. Instead of recording myself singing this chorus, I figured your eardrums would appreciate hearing Tim McGraw’s vocals as opposed to my melodious shrieks.

You may be wondering how my prefrontal cortex made the connection between Google’s +1 feature and Tim McGraw? I’m not really sure, but I can attempt to make sense of my stream of consciousness.

Thought #1: The “plus-one” feature is Google’s version of the Facebook “like” button.

With this plus-one (+1) feature, Google is attempting to compete against social networking sites like Facebook. According to AdAge, the first time a user clicks on a +1  button, he or she will be prompted to create a Google profile, as well as be given the opportunity to adjust privacy settings.

Thought #2: How does the +1 button affect SEO?

With this new functionality, the powerhouse of search has further delved into social search. This is the first time Google has added a direct social signal into search results. Eventually, Google will integrate the +1 into the search algorithm, so users’ votes will have an impact on search ranking.

Thought #3: How does this feature affect PPC?

My interactive marketing class will be happy to hear that Google is adding the ability to vote +1 on paid search ads.

Thought #4: If I start “plussing” who sees it?

According to AdAge, I can vote to +1 results I find useful and share that preference with my friends in Gchat, Gmail, Google Reader, Buzz and, soon, Twitter. If I “plus” a result, I will see the total number of +1 votes and the names and photos of my friends who have “plussed” the same search result or ad.

Thought #5: Google’s +1 really reminds me of Tim McGraw’s song “I like it, I love it.”

The web is turning into a virtual abyss for praise. With the “like” button popping up on various social networking sites, I feel like vehemently pressing the “like” or “plus-one” button on all results and pages for Chick-fil-A and yelling “I like it. I love it. I want some more of it.”

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“Because I’m Worth It:” Ilon Specht knows it

Posted on April 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

We’ve all seen the undeniably beautiful line up of  L’Oreal spokeswomen, including Milla Jovovich, Beyonce Knowles and Gwen Stefani. But, who was the original voice of the brand? Who demanded that she was “Worth It?”

Meredith Baxter Birney did mouth that famous phrase in the 1979 Preference by L’Oreal commercial.

However, she is not the mastermind behind this profound phrase. That title belongs to Ilon Specht.

In his essay True Colors, Malcolm Gladwell provides a descriptive history of the evocative slogan and its rebellious founder:

“In 1973, Ilon Specht was working as a copywriter at the McCann-Erickson advertising agency, in New York. She was a twenty-three-year-old college dropout from California. She was rebellious, unconventional, and independent, and she had come East to work on Madison Avenue, because that’s where people like that went to work back then.

…

Ilon Specht is now the executive creative director of Jordan, McGrath, Case & Partners, in the Flatiron district, with a big office overlooking Fifth Avenue. She has long, thick black hair, held in a loose knot at the top of her head, and lipstick the color of maraschino cherries. She talks fast and loud, and swivels in her chair as she speaks, and when people walk by her office they sometimes bang on her door, as if the best way to get her attention is to be as loud and emphatic as she is. Reminiscing not long ago about the seventies, she spoke about the strangeness of corporate clients in shiny suits who would say that all the women in the office looked like models. She spoke about what it meant to be young in a business dominated by older men, and about what it felt like to write a line of copy that used the word “woman” and have someone cross it out and write “girl.”

“I was a twenty-three-year-old girl-a woman,” she said. “What would my state of mind have been? I could just see that they had this traditional view of women, and my feeling was that I’m not writing an ad about looking good for men, which is what it seems to me that they were doing. I just thought, Fuck you. I sat down and did it, in five minutes. It was very personal. I can recite to you the whole commercial, because I was so angry when I wrote it.”

Specht sat stock still and lowered her voice: “I use the most expensive hair color in the world. Preference, by L’Oreal. It’s not that I care about money. It’s that I care about my hair. It’s not just the color. I expect great color. What’s worth more to me is the way my hair feels. Smooth and silky but with body. It feels good against my neck. Actually, I don’t mind spending more for L’Oreal. Because I’m” -and here Specht took her fist and struck her chest-”worth it.”

….

While the slogan has undergone a few makeovers since 1979, the message of female empowerment still resonates throughout the ads. If you have any doubt, just check out how fierce Beyonce is in this Feria by L’Oreal commercial:

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Digital Strategy Insights from Hill Holliday’s DJ Capobianco

Posted on March 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

BU alum @djcap aka DJ Capobianco visited AdLab yesterday to share his insights on digital strategy. As an Assistant Digital Strategist at one of Boston’s largest advertising agencies, Hill Holliday, DJ outlined the importance of digital strategy in a rapidly changing media landscape.

DJ Capobianco

To recap his presentation, let’s begin with the basics.

What does a digital strategist do?

  • Keeps the clients, the agency and its constituents smart about what’s going on in digital.
  • Informs clients on what they need to do to be successful in the digital realm as opposed to throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
  • Informs creatives about the appropriate digital platforms. In the way that a creative strategist makes sure the message is on brand, the digital strategist makes sure the platform and the idea work.
  • Works with analytics team to finish off monitoring and management.
  • Presents the final analysis to the client.

Why is digital strategy important?

Technologies have changed behaviors and expectations for consumers. Media has become increasingly pervasive, and the way people consume media within the digital channel is rapidly changing. Media consumption is growing. According to DJ, “It’s not really growing apart, it’s growing together and that’s where digital strategy comes into play.”

How to develop a digital strategy


Examples of companies using digital integration effectively

MTV

This visualization is from the 2009 VMAs. MTV worked with Radian6 to analyze the content and to aggregate what was being talked about. They would bring up the pictures of the celebrity or the topic as it got more popular.

DJ’s opinion: It’s an interesting way to ensure that people are still engaging with the MTV brand even when stuff isn’t on the air.

ABC

ABC and the Oscars developed an iPad app where you could go behind the scenes during the commercials and learn more about the Oscars. You could tweet about the Oscars, and you could post about the Oscars. Cameras were in the green rooms and make-up rooms.

Oscar Backstage App

DJ’s opinion: This year it was unbranded but imagine if Revlon were to be the main sponsor of this app next year. How can you make sure your audience knows that you understand what they are interested in? How can you align with what they want to talk about and be relevant? You can still have paid media and be authentic. You just have to make sure you aren’t misaligning.

ABC built this iPad app.  ABC is the one empowering consumers to throw up a wall in between their eyes and those tv spots during commercial breaks. ABC is the one encouraging people to look down during those broadcasts. That’s a pretty big leap of faith that they have content across their screens that is compelling enough that they won’t lose peoples’ attention, even though they are creating more places to experience it. Through this app, they got a lot of engagement.

Audi

Audi did a great job with branded integration through this Super Bowl commercial:

Notice the hashtag present with no URL:

Audi Super Bowl Commercial 2011

DJ’s opinion: Their whole brand positioning is “rebellious luxury”— luxury but for the youth. They thought, “We know that the people we are going after know how to get to audi.com. How can we make this spot work harder for us?” They had a social media campaign that backed up what they did on TV (a very expensive Super Bowl spot). The way they amortized that cost was to buy a promoted tweet with #ProgressIs. They pulled out paid support and it’s still going. People are talking about what progress means, and Audi is capitalizing on that conversation because all the Audi tweets are naturally at the top.

They figured out how to get people talking about their brand without talking about “I love that feature within the Audi.” They’ve gotten people into the funnel. They focused on getting in minds, becoming relevant and showing off the brand in really cool way and hopefully getting people to engage over time.

#TVNext: The Convergence of Mass Media with Social Media

Hill Holliday explored how TV got portable, connected and social with their TVNext Summit. Through this event, they show the best examples of media outlets and entertainment franchises doing these three things. Hill provides this compelling example of an entertainment franchise effectively integrating social media and television:

Thank you for an incredibly informative, engaging presentation DJ!

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12 BU Advertising Majors explore NYC Ad Agencies

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment

Spring Break 2011 WOO!

Although not the typical booze cruise most envision when I say the phrase “Senior Year Spring Break,” I, along with 11 other ad junkies, ventured to the big city to explore the glitz and glam of Madison Ave.*

BU Ad students at BBDO Boston University Advertising Professors, Tobe Berkovitz and Christopher Cakebread, organized visits to six leading agencies in NYC:

In an effort to spot a Don Draper look-a-like, I flip cammed most of the trip. After meticulously  reviewing the footage, I concluded that Don Draper flew to Punta Cana with the rest of BU for the week. Sad days.

Good news though! As a result of my quest, I stumbled upon some great advice from ad industry insiders as well as my classmates’ reactions to the agency visits. Take a look!

*Disclaimer: None of the agencies were actually located on Madison Ave, but the spaces were super swanky and creative. More on the decor in my next post.

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