Bill Hader: From SNL to T-Mobile

Bloody fingerprints around an apartment are the only defining features for the first ten seconds of this ad. The words "day 319 of 730" and the eerie ring of an unanswered phone call alarm the audience. For a moment, the audience may believe to be viewing a horror movie where a murder has just taken place.

Suddenly, Bill Hader, a famous comedian from the hit show Saturday Night Live, is shown. Laughter arises from the relief of finding out that this home was not the scene of a vicious crime. Smiles come about as well from the man's predicament and facial expression. Instead of getting a new phone, he allows his fingertips to be cut in order to answer his cell phone. He says, "Mhhmmm, hello?!" through searing pain and gritted teeth.

This commercial for T-Mobile's new 'Jump' program is successful. It uses a celebrity to make the ad memorable. It also uses the technique of an exaggerated example of why the upgrade program for cell phones is important. Moreover, these thirty seconds make you laugh. My friends and I were watching TV and this commercial came on. Two girls asked people to be quiet so they could hear Bill Hader's lines.

It is surprising that people find pain and violence in media amusing. Being able to watch aggressive sports and violent TV shows is the highlight of some people's week. In some ways, I am disappointed that this has become socially acceptable.

Think about the kind of violence you view in the media every day. Should there be regulations on it? Or is that against the freedom of speech?

Movie Previews

I went to see catch Catching Fire yesterday night at my local movie theatre. Initially we came for the 9:30 showing but it sold out so we bought the next show time at 10:30. To save seats, we sat down at 10:15. The movie didn’t start until 10:50. It felt like 4 hours. I use to always be late for the movies so I counted on the previews to run for about 10 minutes so that I wouldn’t miss my movie. Even though I haven’t been to the movies in a long time, I still realized that the previews had changed. Because we sat there for 15 minutes before the “show time”, the theatre played commercials for us…

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There, I questioned the existence of commercials in a movie theatre. Is this a new thing? Or maybe I’m just starting to realize it.

I find it so strange that commercials would play before a movie starts. We sit there and are forced to watch the commercials in order to save our seats.  This made me think of our last class discussion when we talked about the extremes that commercialism will go to have us exposed to its content. The only solution to this is going into the theatre at the exact minute a movie starts. Commercials put such a strain in our lives and I’m just starting to realize how universal the concept is/has become.




(blog post #10)

Beauty Stretches

A natural process that women do is criticize the appearance of themselves. Dove creates an ad that pushes this idea into the faces of the viewers. This ad shows multiple women describing themselves and another person describing other women. In facing both images created based on descriptions viewers can see the difference in perception.

When I saw this ad, I was really touched by this idea. I think that it is an important massage that the advertisement is portraying. It brings up the idea that women always assume that they not beautiful because of what the media and advertisements portray.

What is kind of convoluted is that this video itself is an advertisement. This video make you vulnerable that it it makes you think that dove is going to be the natural beauty that is different from the other advertisements. The font that is "Dove" uses is signature to them, and although the advertisement is not selling directly to sell products, this association causes the assumption that Dove is the brand for natural beauty.

It is hard for me to tell is this is a good or bad advertisement, but I know that the meaning that is it trying to portray is an important and affective one.

5 Gum

5 Gum's entire campaign is kind of terrifying.

The story is, from what I gather, there's some kind of 5 Gum laboratory in which human subjects participate in sensory experiments (experi-mints?) that represent the particular flavor of gum to the audience. The tingle of spearmint, for example, apparently equates to being dropped in a pool full of birdshot pellets while some scientists drop the bass.

Minty fresh.

 

The bleak, monochromatic setting and the stony-faced authority figures are probably supposed to evoke a sort of rigid, futuristic coolness which, juxtaposed with the avant-garde and awe-inspiring abstraction of whatever the "experiment" is, creates a distinct image for 5 Gum's brand. Here's another one, involving what's probably a fourth-dimensional Rorschach test.

                                                               Resistance is futile!

It's clear that what's literally going on isn't as important as the emotions and sensations evoked by those images. Instead of using a structured narrative to make the audience feel something, 5 Gum cuts to the chase and hopes some of its out-there imagery will resonate with the viewer.

Even if that was the intent, since I'm not used to this particular marketing technique, I found it easy to be profoundly distracted by the lack of narrative. Where the hell are these people? Why is this person in boxers? Why are they vulnerable and half-naked, while those folks in the press box get to wear sharp black suits? I get Stanford Prison Experiment vibes from this kind of imagery and I'm pretty sure that's not what 5 Gum wanted.

Narrative stuff aside, by the end of the commercial, I associate this brand of gum with artful technology that's just weird enough to be a little dangerous.

But it's still, you know, gum.

Moe

Over the weekend, I went to my friend’s home in New Hampshire. There, she brought us to her favorite boutique, Moe. The store was beautifully set and had an elegant feel. The boutique itself reminds me of fancy stores where celebrities shop. As we stepped in, the employee and manager greeted us and asked if we needed help finding anything. While the question addressed everyone, the two ladies focused more on my friend (let’s name my friend Julia), their returning customer. They gave off a negative vibe towards my friends and I because they saw that we weren’t buying anything.

While they were dressing Julia in an ugly dress that made her look 67 years old, they kept continuously complimenting the apparel. It’s obvious that they compliment their own clothes in order to sell but nearly forcing a customer to buy something that is clearly not meant for them is pushing it. It’s the same deal with many other consumer-based companies such as cars companies and the small islands in a mall. Sometimes employees give consumers the wrong idea about a product and as a result, distorts a consumer’s vision…. even if she looks like a nun. The consumers hardly ever see the extremes that employees/employers go to market their products with the brand loyalty (Julia). It’s only apparent to those who don’t fit into the image (me).




(blogpost #9)

Pepsi VS. Coca Cola

Pepsi VS. Coca Cola

       Most interesting advertisement ever!

       As we all know, Pepsi and Coca Cola have been rivals for a long time. The competition between them has been so heated that I can hardly see a Coca Cola bottle near a vending machine with Pepsi in it. So the first time when I saw the advertisement, I thought that the two companies finally ceased the fire, and it turns out the opposite when I noticed the words.

       To start with, Pepsi put a Coca Cola cloak and says “We wish you a scary Halloween!” It’s so true that Pepsi is being sarcasm to indicate Coca Cola’s existence is scary and unpleasant. What hides under the cloak is the real valuable thing. Unexpectedly, Coca Cola fought back by saying ”Everybody wants to be a hero!” Here Coca Cola is indicating two meanings. First, Coca Cola is heroic figure that everyone wants to be like it. Second, becoming a hero might be the dream of many kids, but not necessarily for grown-ups, and Coca Cola noticed that. By saying Pepsi “wants to be a hero”, Coca Cola is implying that the sarcasm of Pepsi is childish and naïve, thus there’s no need to argue with this childish behavior.

       Coca Cola company is so smart.

How men ads target women

The advertisement above, is for a mens shower gel. However, the ad directly targets/speaks to women.
The half naked model, in the ad, sells women the fantasies of their men being wealthy, and good looking and in good shape. He points out that although they cannot look and be like him, the closest they can get to being like him is smelling like him.
At first, it made no sense why an ad for mens product would speak to women. After thinking about this for a while, I realized that women would be better to advertise such a product to because, generally, men don't pay much attention to the kinds of soap they use in the shower-but women do.
Its interesting to think of the amount of thought that the advertisers actually do to sell such products. Who would have though the best way to sell a mens product is to sell it to his girlfriend?

The French Connection storefront display

After my mom went on a shopping trip this past weekend, she posted this picture of The French Connection's storefront. Admittedly, this was in Las Vegas, something like this isn't out of the norm. However, I tried very hard to decipher how this was supposed to draw people in. Clearly this store sells clothes, but why is the model not wearing any? I'm actually a bit embarrassed that my mom even looked at it, but I think this shows how far brands will go to sell sex with their clothes. This display was paired with another one of a woman on the other side, with the tag line of "From Sketch to Store." It's not a particularly offensive photo, but it shows a lot more skin that is usually publicly acceptable.

This isn't the first provocative image to be displayed in this particular mall. Last summer I noticed that Aldo had dismembered women to only have their limbs wearing the product. Not only is it a disturbing image, but it also perpetuates the idea that society thinks it's okay to reduce a person to an object. It seems that suggestive advertising follows us everywhere we go. When ads begin to lack the actual product, what is the point anymore?

Black Friday 2014

Black Friday is the American consumer's dream come true. On the Friday following thanksgiving, stores open their doors to the crazed men, women, and teenagers willing to shop until they drop. And nearly all of those that participate in this shopping holiday, would do just that. In the prior years, there have been tramplings and assault charges filed for cases when black friday sales instigated fights to get at the merchandise.

In recent surveys conducted by DDB Worldwide, "Millennials are nearly 4 times more likely to shop on Black Friday than bloomers". By bloomers I mean the generation that would constitute of our our elders around the age of 45-60 years old. Millennials (or what some call Generation-Y) are the older teens and late 20-somethings born between 1980 and 2000. According to these holiday surveys, we are the culprits of these late-night shopping binges that we indulge in every year.

Even online, on websites like Target, we see advertising for Black Friday that urges shoppers to "Score great deals before Black Friday". Many shoppers hit the sales on Black Friday to get a cheaper head start on christmas shopping. In the midst of all of the sale ploys and marketing, shoppers often fall for deals that do not even save them money. Black Friday is a set up for companies to bring in a huge wave of consumerism and shoppers, both in stores and online, fall for this trick every year. Between Black Friday and cyber monday (its e-retail counterpart on December 2 this year), stores will attract hundreds if not thousands of shoppers who see this mass-sale as an opportunity to shop for less. However, those that get pulled into the excitement of all of the sales actually spend more than they ever would. With the help of marketing, Black Friday robs vulnerable customers by encouraging outrageous spending. 

While many american take Black Friday as an opportunity to save money while shopping, they forget the power of marketing. Beware, the sales will curse you with obsessive shopping next weekend so shop wisely! 

Unremarkable

What is the power of celebrities and famous brands? A main power is that people will listen to them. Most of time, people don’t care about something, because they think it’s not important enough. However, when famous people and brands speak, the world will be silent and listen. Watching this public service ad, I felt encouraged. Chime for Change is found by Gucci, which actually surprised me. Most of time, when we mention luxury brands, we think that the expensive products lead the fashion, and they belong to the rich. But in this ad, Gucci stands for common women and girls, not the wealthy people only. When Beyonce attended the charity activities, she was able to attract enough concentration. Sometimes, when you can achieve more if you get others’ help. Besides, these people have better credits, people would like to trust their words. Chime for Change offers a platform where people can find projects and really do something.It is true that Gucci gain lots of profits every year, and sometimes celebrities behavior bad. Some people may say if Beyonce can be more famous because of this campaign. But as long as this program contributes to women’s and girls’ lives, then it should be supported. Feminism is not only slogans and the rights to show women’s breasts, but, more importantly, it’s the equal chance to compete with men and women living in other regions in this world.

http://www.chimeforchange.org/