Pharmaceutical Advertising

After working on the Gelusil project, I defiantly have more of an appreciation for pharmaceutical ads. They are not as easy to come up with ideas with then most other brands, because you have stipulations not only by the client, but by the FDA. But regardless of these hurdles, there are many good advertisements for OTC (over the counter) medications. However, the advertisements that do the best in this area of OTC medications are ones that are humorous, or do not show the "perfect life that everyone has" that you see in most pharmaceutical commercials. One ad that I found is for Nicorette, which use to be called Commit, and is used to help people stop smoking cigarettes. Now the premise of the commercial is mainly about the name change, but you still understand what the product is for. The commercial is sweet, to the point, and I love it. It makes me smile, and I think thats what the majority of people want from advertisements right now.

Protecting Your Brand Image

Now in Advertising, we are always told our brand image is one of the most important things to keep within the lines of social etiquette. What we do and say outside of our advertising can harm your career and brand identity if portrayed in a negative manner. Now, Gilbert Gottfried (for those of you who are not familiar with this man he was the voice of Iago in Disney's Aladdin) tweeted some inappropriate remarks that had many people saying thinking, "not the time." He was making or "quacking" some jokes such as "I fucked a girl in japan. She screamed "I feel the earth move and I'm getting wet," and, "What does every Japanese person have in their apartment? Flood lights." Now many of you may not know, this man is the voice of the Aflac duck. And Aflac does over 75 percent of its business in Japan, so you can imagine how Aflac reacted. So naturally, they fired him. Now this was the right thing to do, because Aflac needed to protect its brand name and identity. But the only question I have now is, what is the next bird Gottfried will be the voice of in the future.

Mercedes Benz: Left Brain-Right Brain

As I am sad to say, I did not go to the ADDY'S last night, so I am not going to write my blog of the wonderful events and awards that I heard about from so many people. But instead, I am going to write about some print ads that I Found intriguing on adsoftheworld.com. They are for Mercedes Benz, and the concept behind them is about something in art school we always hear about- the left brain and right brain. Now the images depict the clear differences between the left brain and the right brain. The three images depict the difference in the left brain and right brain between passion, music, and art. The copy is the same on all three print ads, and also contrasts the difference between the left brain and the right brain. The copy for the left brain reads ," I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize . I am accurate. Linear....", and the copy for the right brain reads such as ," I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter..."

Now, I love the visuals so much. They are so artistic, but so easy to understand. The copy is simple, but I like it as well. The only issue I have is there is nothing tying the whole left brain-right brain concept to the product itself. I am assuming that Mercedes is trying to say they are left brained- right brained, or that their cars are modeled in mind of both people. I am not exactly sure if that is the point they are trying to get across. There needs to be one line of copy tying the concept and brand together, that is larger than the other text so it keeps to the rules of hierarchy. Other than that I really do like these ads. The visuals are definitely a page stopper.  

Escape Old Luxury: Audi's Super Bowl Commercial

So I must admit, I still have not watched a single Super Bowl in my entire life. Even when the Super Bowl was in Tampa, I watched Trading Spaces instead. But I would always hear about the commercials, and thankfully because of modern technology such as youtube, I didn't have to watch the Super Bowl again and could just watch the commercials online the day after. Now I watched many, and heard from my peers about which ones they liked the best. But after watching them again, I must say my favorite one is the Audi Commercial for new Audi A8. They took their tag-line "escape old luxury" and showed just that, but in the most creative and funny way. The commercial depicts all these rich people in this outlandish prison, and too men are trying to escape. The visuals and attention to detail was amazing, and the casting for the people. You a perfect picture of the archetype rich person, who probably belongs to a yacht club. But my favorite part was when they "Hit em with Kenny G," it was absolutely spot on and funny. Another reason I liked the Audi ads where they did not get vulgar at all like the mini cooper ads, or did they seem like a ton of money for a week concept such as the Coke dragon Ad. Now I had many other favorite ads, but Audi was my favortie, and who knows, maybe I will start watching the Super Bowl because of it. Oh the power of Advertising.

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.