Where is the wallah Wella?

So for those of you who are not into the world of hair, Wella is a professional hair product company that specializes in dye. And for those of you who know me and of my platinum hair, this is the brand of toner is use to keep my hair as ad-fagtastic as possible. Now when I usually see their in store ads and they are done very nicely. The hair, color choice, and style of photography is always modern and high-fashion. This is a screenshot from their online site of one of the ads that appears in professional stores.

Now when I was on Ads of the World today, I came across these new Wella ads:

Now visually form a graphic design and illustration standpoint, I love them as art work alone. They are very trendy are in the "now" in movements where graphic design and illustration merge. However, from a advertising standpoint, quite frankly, I think these are awful. First of all, the logo and the copy is so small that you are left wondering from the illustrations what this advertisement is for. And above all this does not want to make me buy the product because it doesn't show me that I am going to have beautiful hair that is seen in all the magazines. I think there are some things in the world of fashion and beauty where advertising should stay the same. The only reason I say this is because fashion and beauty advertising has never changed, but is still is one the largest markets out there. And that is one of the reasons I want to be in this world of fashion and beauty. It represents timeless beauty, and I hope Wella recaptures that in their next ads. 

More Companies Pull Ads from Skins

So the new television series Skins, which is just a remake of the British television series, has been getting a lot of controversy since its premier. It has cause so much controversy that the Parents Television as been asking people to boycott this show, and in so doing launched an advertising campaign against it. Now I looked on their site and everywhere else, and cannot seem to find the ad campaign against it. Skins is so scandalous and controversial to most people that many companies are pulling their commercials and sponsorship form the television show. The companies that have pulled their commercial so far are : H&R Block, Subway, Taco Bell, Wrigley, and GM. Mtv has no current plans of toning down the show. I had never watched the series, so to form an opinion, I watched the first episode yesterday, and I must say it was ridiculous. The whole episode was about sex, and trying to get a guys “v card” taken away. It was degrading to women, and to teenagers and young adults. It sheds a bad light on the life of teenagers, and personifies it in a false light. I can see why advertisers have pulled from the show. If your going to make a show about crazy teenagers, at least make it somewhat realistic.   

Audi's "Goodnight" Commercial

So many of you have been seeing all the new Super Bowl commercials that have been coming out in the past couple of days. As usual some of them are outstanding, but some leave you in your seat saying to yourself,"I don't get it." After looking through a few of these commercials the one that stood out to me from a visual stand point, as well as the writing, was the commercial for the new Audi A8. The copy and the the style of the commercial is based of the children's story "Goodnight Moon". The copy gives you the message of  how luxury has progressed. The spot says "goodnight gluttony,” “expected," "outdated” definitions of “old luxury”  and says hello, or good morning with the new  Audi parked outside. Now again i think the luxurious feel of the commercial is brilliant and the copy. I loved watching it over to see all the small details of every scene. However, most things are never perfect. The only thing I did not care for with this commercial was the ending. It seemed rather corny and visually unappealing to just show the new Audi in the sunrise. But other than that loved the commercial for its visual components and copy.  

Space Invaders and Fashion

According to the news in London, 80's fashion and retro games are what is in right now, two companies Kaywa and Office Lendorff teamed up to create a one of a kind QR scarf. The scarf has little space invader creatures on it. When you scan one side a message comes up that say "Game Over", but when you scan the QR on the other side of the scarf a message pops up that says "Insert Coin For Extra Life". That is the only thing the scarf does. You may ask why does it not do more? "You could go further and make a space invaders game which could be downloaded via the scarf, but what we did was more of a fun, simple project". They said what they did is more fun, but I would like a downloadable game where you have to scan the other side of the scarf to get a new life when you loose, but that is just my opinion since retro games are not my forte. 

The company does not plan to come out with any more of these products because they are too expensive to make, but there is one company that does: Emma Cott. The shirts and sweatshirts she designs are made to be used as self-advertising. When someone scans the QR code on from the apparel it takes you directly to that persons Facebook, which is very cool and makes "Facebook lurking" even easier now.  

I Would Like To Not Have A Concept... Just Once.

So in our classes we are always taught to have a strong concept or a "big idea", but to me it seems that the majority of advertising now for our audience has no point. For example the skittles campaigns. Pretty much the majority of them make absolutely no sense, but that is the sort of material that the audience these days love. 

Now I am not going to disagree, these ads are hilarious, and I see more people using this type of advertising. The one example I keep on seeing in Tampa are for Racetrack a gas comapany. Now it is quite odd for a gas station to use this method for these billboards, since this type of humor has nothing to do with the brand identity. These billboards are very humerous and make absolutely no sense, but you remeber them. So I guess my question is do we need a concept all the time? I mean if everyone remembers your ads and thinks they are funny isn't that enough? I would like to be able to test this out one day in a class project and be able just to use humor without concept.