So today we had a lecture with Peter about Typography. We learnt a bit about the history of type, how it has developed through digital technology and how it can be divided up into sub divisions. For example some typefaces are part of a genre, i.e. Heavy metal...
Other typefaces came about through philosophies or ways of life, for example psychedelia...
He also told us about the importance of things such as line spacing, font size, hyponating and heirarchy etc when using type. For next week; make three business cards using purleey type
Later we had the lecture with Vishua and we had to write about our visit to the museum as a way of him analysing our English skills. We then talked about advertising as ideaology the importance of symbols over other images. I personally think symbols are better than other images because of their emotional value. People wear symbols during hard or sad times to represent unity and make themselves feel better. Symbols are like art in that anyone can have their own meaning for them and can relate to them. They are also important because they are universal. Almost anyone from any country could say what a smiley face is, even if none of them spoke the same language.
Today we had our second lecture with Grant. He talked about S.W.O.T, an effective way of anlalysing and bettering something, whether it be a brand, an advertising campaign or in our case our advertising agencies. So....
Strengths. What are you agencies strengths? What is your aim? What is your belief? Who do you appeal to? How different are you? Are you original?
We are original in our ideas
Our belief is to show that you shouldn't be afraid to put yourself on the line. Be expressive of what you believe in.
We like to think we appeal to many different people, young and old male and female but we know that not everyone will like us.
We all enjoy what we do
Weaknesses. What are your agencies weaknesses? Are you all on the same page? What difficulties are you having? What are the problems and issues in your group?
We know that not everyone will like us as we may come across as arrogant
We are good at explaining what our agency is about but we have to improve on explaining how we will do it
Brands that like playing it safe may feel we are a risk
Opportunities. From analysing your strengths and weaknesses what opportunities do you have? Can you make your group better?
We have the opportunity to produce extravagant theatrical adverts and be irrevrant
We have to opportunity to improve on how we present ourselves
Threats. What threats are there to your agencies. Who are your biggest threats?
Agencies that play it safe and offer brands advertising concepts which aren't a risk
Later we had a seminar with Jo and Bruno where we presented our Justin Bieber ideas. Ours this photoshopped image as a poster idea for a play that Justin Bieber would make a cameo appearance in. We thought it would have a big impact if Justin Bieber were to appear in a play that was sexualised and more adult as it is the complete opposite of how he is portrayed by his current advertisers. Bruno then showed us a campaign that Justin Biebers advertisers made with him. It was started on Twitter with a fake post from Justin Bieber saying that his laptop was stolen. There was then an anonymous poster who blackmailed Justin Bieber that he would post the footage on the computer on the interent on a specific date. The date came and this video was posted online....
It was a way for him to show his new video to thousands of people. Even the people that didn't like him. I think it is so clever and a good way to reach people as he has over 25 million followers on twitter.
Bruno then showed us this video as an example of how we can promote ourselves in a cheap way. This performer used chatroulette to interact with the audience and it is so clever and funny.
Today Natasha and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to get a bit of inspiration for our agency. We looked at both the jewellery collection and the fashion and textile collections. There were so many beautiful pieces there and certainly a lot of flamboyant and eccentric things.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Picked up this beautiful fan in charity shop for just £1.99. I absolutley love it and think it will look great as part of the Marie Antoinette image
So as a group we've pretty much decided we are a Marie Antoinette inspiried rock group. Sounds a bit weird but I reckon we can have some fun with it. We've got all these great ideas about what our promotional video will be. We're thinking that we are all going to be dressed up like Marie Antoinette, dress and hair and all. And that we will all be sitting around having a civiliised tea party, before the rock music kicks off and we have a massive cake fights. We're thinking champagne everywhere, smashed crockey. We're just going to go mad and run with it. We've got an idea for a song, Oasis Rock and Roll Star...
We think the words just fit well for the ethos of our group and the length of the song is good aswell. It's got the right pace and feel to it.
Found this video by Travis which puts across exactly what we want to do...
So last week I order my dress and it came yesterday. I knew it was going to be too big because I could only get it in a large, but I'm sure I'll be able to take it in so it fits properly. Last night I decided to experiment with my hair because I can't afford to buy a wig as well. I think it went quite well for a first attempt. Especially as I'm not usually very good at this sort of thing.
Found some great examples of ambient adverts today. These are for Science World and are really interesting ways of teaching people scientific facts and at the same time advertise Science World. They use humour really well to get people's attention....
So today we presented our HMS Belfast Powerpoint to Peter and the class I feel it went quite well. We used the powerpoint we made but at the same time just talked about the ship as we didn't want to just be reading off a screen. We just about made the 7 minute mark for the presentation time limit, cutting it really close but Peter said we did a good job, just to be less heavy with the amount of text we use on each slide.
Later we went to the Museum of Brands and Advertising. It was actually really interesting. I love retro so it was the perfect place for me. It was quite amusing to see all of the old brands and how theyve developed over the years. Was also interesting to see why theyve changed, for example during the war advertisers started to use more humour in their ads to raise the moral.
Our task was to find two adverts, one that was denotated (i.e. that it was very descriptive of the product and literal in its persuasion) and one that was connotated (i.e. it was more abstract and less literal in its approach). I found one brand that showed both examples of this. There was a display which showed Ovaltine in its different packaging forms throughout the years, from when it was first established as a brand until the present day. The original container was so descriptive, from the ingredients to its uses, to how it should be used. The amount of writing on it made it look over complicated and boring at the same time. However in the present day, the container for Ovaltine is so much simpler. It has less written information and more focus is on the design of it, with a silhoutte of a family against the sunset giving connotations of freshness and nutrition.
Had another lecture with Jo this morning. We talked about USP's of products and also about 'Emotional Territories', i.e. the different ways that products can be sold. For example the ET's of a bottle of water are; health, neccessity, cleanliness, luxury etc. We then started to talk about using ET's to advertise products that wouldn't usually be used to advertise them as this is sometimes the most creative way of advertising a product. She showed us this video which is an example of how an advert that is totally wrong has a really good impact on the viewer...
Later in the seminar we presented our ideas for Daz. Ours was the washing line idea which Jo and Bruno both really liked. Our next brief.... to advertise Justin Bieber. Oh god.
Today I met up with both of my groups. First I met up with Marie Antoinette and we discussed ideas for the Daz advert. We came up with an idea for a washing line with white bras and knickers on it that could be strung across a street attatched to two buildings or something. It would really capture the playful edgy ethos of our group and certainly be eye catching.
Although I don't really like Girls Aloud this video is pretty much what our group wants to do...
Today my research group (Max and Lucia) visited HMS Belfast on the Southbank. The fourth member of our group Josh is dropping out of the course so it was just the three of us today. It was a really interesting trip, and the ship itself was pretty amazing. We managed to get a lot of information, including some from a lovely man called Brian who used to serve on the ship. He now volunteers once a week giving information to visitors and answering questions. It was lucky we decided to visit on the day he was there! We learnt a lot about the conditions the sailors and marines had to cope with and it makes you grateful for the people who made sacrifices and endagered their lives to serve their country. We also took some really good pictures which will go into our slideshow we are planning to make on Friday Morning.
Later we had our Contextual studies lesson with Vishua. A new girl called Nur was asking people if she could join their groups for the research project and I said she could join ours seeing as we had lost a member. So she is going to help us with our presentation on Friday and she's gone to the trouble of researching into the ship.
So in the lecture we learnt about semiotics. It was a bit of a confusing lecture to say the least but none the less interesting. I learnt that there are different types of images; icons, symbols and indexes. A symbol represents something through convention, an icon is something that doesn't need explaining and an index is a symbol that has come about through causation. So for example a flag is a symbol. Take the flag of France. It is something that has been made up to represent France and through convention we have all grown up being taught that it is the flag of France therefore we know it as so.
An example of an icon is the image of France on the map. The shape hasn't been made up, it is there naturally and we know that it is France by looking at it.
Thirdly there is the Eiffel tower, something that people will often say is a symbol of France. It is not. It is an index. It is only representive of France because it is in France. Because of this it is an index as it has become an sign of France through causation.
So yes, confusing but informative and I will be buying 'an Introduction to Semiotics' from Amazon.....
Today we had a lecture with Jo about our agency. She wanted us to come up with visual ideas for our group, but the problem was that we still weren't decided on which direction we wanted to go in- theatrical, or bitchy girl group.
Later we had the seminar. We presented our ideas to the class and with the help of Bruno and Jo came up with a new name 'Marie Antoinette'. Not that different sounding from the original name and still encompassing the same sort of principles we had to begin with. We are theatrical, flamboyant, eccentric, eccessive and over the top. Like the film 'Marie Antoinette' we have a rocky playful edge to us. I really like this new take on things, and we are already having ideas about having a cake fight to rock music as our promotional video. It sounds crazy but I think it could really work.
I really love the style of 18th Centry Frace- the elgeance, flamboyance and of course the greatest advantage to basing ourselves on the French Queen is the excuse to eat lots of cake....
Also in the seminar today, we were set a brief to come up with some ambient advert ideas for Daz washing powder in the style of our agencies. I've already started having ideas, including that of using the Daz powder to paint with in public places.
In other news I got confirmation of my place on the One Club bootcamp! I'm really looking forward to it now!
Today we all met up at 3 o'clock to go the Creative Review drop in session that was supposed to be happening today. After going to the designated room and finding it empty we then tried the seminar room but still to no avail. We tried to get hold of the course director Jo to get some kind of idea of what was happening. We still didn't get anywhere. So instead we sat in the library. The problem is that we have come to a sort of standstill in our work. We don't know which way to go in. Which is why we wanted to speak to someone today. Hopefully we will be able to speak to Jo or Grant before the seminar on Monday.
Later we had the second guest lecture. This time it was Antonio de Luca, a really funny, interesting art director. I was so jealous of his career. He worked for Wieden and Kennedy (what a coincidence that I was talking about how amazing they are this morning) and he now lives and works in Berlin, my absolute favourite place in the world, and dream place to work in. He gave us loads of good references and he showed us loads of work from a Canadian magazine he worked on called The Walrus. It was so interesting and it used so many different medias that were used as cover pages. I think I will be looking into The Walrus a bit further...
Most exciting of all today, we were told about the OneClub bootcamp project; a four day workshop created by the OneClub group (the most prestigious advertising award body in the US) in which students are put into groups and given a brief before working together and with mentors and creatives in the field to produce a campaign. For the first time, the OneClub bootcamp has to come to England, and where is it taking place? LCC. Wow. What an opportunity that would be. The winners of it also get guaranteed internships with agencies and might even get flown out to New York! Just taking part it in would be a great opportunity. The first thing I did when I got in the door was register for it as there are only 100 places on it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
As a group we have been instructed to research 5 ad agencies. As there is five of us we've divided up 5 between us. We've picked BBH, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden + Kennedy and Mother. I picked to research into W+K and after doing so can say they are giving BBH a run for their money in regards to being my favourite ad agency...
So I already knew that the 'Be Wonderful and Wise' Lurpak campaign was created by W+K. It is one of my all time favourite adverts. The visuals of it are just great, and the catchy song that just keeps you watching the whole way through.
But what I didn't know was that they also created the 'Cat's with Thumbs' campaign for Cravendale, which again is one of my all time favourite ad campaigns. It's just so humourous and ridiculous that it works. It's just brilliant.....
I guess what I like about both of these adverts is not only the humour, but the theatrical side of both of them, the Lurpak one in the sense of the music and timing of it- it is like a performance, and the Cravendale one in that it is telling a story, it's like a play. Both of them are over the top, eccentric abut at the same time clever and thought provoking. This is exactly the ethos of our group.
Whilst on the W+K website, I also stumbled upon a viral campaign for the Kaiser Chiefs for their 2011 album 'THE FUTURE IS MEDIEVAL'. The idea was that on their website you could listen to 20 brand new songs. From those 20 you picked 10 to make into your own album. You could then design the front cover for this album buy it for £7.50 and then post it on your blog or website. From this you could then sell the tracks, and for every track you sold you you make a pound. This campaign in my opinion is brilliant. It encompasses some of the principles of our group 'we want to make our adverts interactive' 'we want to create a sense of control.... in that the audience controls the brand'. What is so great about the campaign is that it is not only interactive with the audience and gives them a sense of control, but that because it is such a new and innovative idea, it made the whole world hear about the Kaiser Chiefs. They were on every news station and talk show promoting this idea and their fans felt like they were put on a more personal level with them because they were involved in their album.
Had my second class with Peter today and unfortunaltey we didn't look over the blogs, but hopefully we will do in a few weeks. In the mean time we've been set a new group project. In groups of four we are going to carry out primary research of a landmark in London. Our group made up of Max, Lucia, Josh and myself were given HMS Belfast, which I was really pleased with because I love History and the Warship is somewhere I will really enjoy researching. We've been given various points to go over, including the location, the History, the purpose etc of the landmark. I chose to look into the purpose and the History as they were the most appealing to me. There are eight points to cover so we all have four each and we are all going to do some primary research before we go to the ship next Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to the trip and gathering the information we need to create a 7 minute presentation.
Later in the afternoon we had our second Contextual studies lesson with Vishua in which we discussed the revolutions of comunnication in more detail and then listened to an interview conducted by Andrew Marr on BBC Radio 4 on the dying art of Handwriting. It was actually really interesting. They discussed how handwriting is sentimental, how it is personal and how people's characteristics are reflected through their handwriting. I think I will definatley listen to the rest of the interview.....
Also today Marionette discussed our ideas some more and have decided to go into the drop in creative review this Friday as a group so we can discuss our plans with the tutors and hopefully get some advice.
Today I had my first lecture with Grant who is a really great talker and motivator. He showed us and example of great advertising in the form of Apple and explained to us that they work because they are not selling a product. They are selling a lifestyle, a belief, and because people's lifestyles are always changing Apple are going to always be able to sell people things. They appeal to people's emotional side as opposed to their logical; they make people form a personal attachment to their brand and so their customers are loyal and will always come back. This is kind of like one of our manifesto rules in that we 'Marionette' also want our customers to form emotional personal attachments with the brands we advertise. I also got some more good references, including the book 'John Hegarty on Advertising' which I will be ordering from Amazon once I finish this post.
At lunch my group put down our ideas onto a piece of red paper and we also bought a portfolio to put everything into. Our manifesto was as followed...
We want to create a personal relationship between us and the client
We want to create a personal attachment between the audience and the brands we advertise
We want to entertain our audiences with theatrical and dramatic yet through provoking and clever adverts
We want to make our adverts interactive
We want to create a sense of control, both in the sense that we control the audience and the audience controls the brand
We want a varied client base
We will wear an unoffical work uniform of red at all times
Members of the agency have to be willing to put on a performace- put everything into both adverts and pitches
CAKE!
We want the environment we work in to be friendly and fair
Our visual idea was this.....
It is supposed to look like the control mechanism of a marionette puppet from the birdseye view. We like it because it's quite simple yet ambigious, however at the same time we were worried that it looked too much like a cross.
Later we had the seminar, in which we were shown the new facebook advert. It is certainly touching and appeals to the emotional side of the audience's brain. I was watching it thinking wow, this is inspiring, its beautiful... but wait. It's for facebook. It wasn't what I thought of when I thought of facebook...
After discussing the ad when then presented our ideas to our class. It was rather nerve wracking and although Jo and Bruno both liked our ideas, Bruno said he wasn't sure on the name, and said our group reminded him of the film Heathers in that we were cliquey and likeable and that he and Jo felt like they wanted us to be in our group. This is obviously great but the name change threw me a little bit and our group has gone away a bit from the theatrical side to more of an exclusive elite group of girls. The name 'Elite' has also been mentioned which I am not too sure about but hopefully after a think tonight and some more discussions tomorrow our group will come to some sort of agreement on which direction we are headed in.
Today I had my library induction. Was shown around the library and all it's facilities and was really impressed. All of the equipment is really state of the art and easy to use. I am a bit of a self confessed geek so I was rather excited to see all of the books, dvd's, magazines, journals, newspapers and even past dissertations I can use whilst at LCC. I will definatley be putting the library to use....
Later I had the first of the Friday guest lectures. This week it was one of my lecturers, Bruno who talked about his life and work. I was so inspired by all of the things he's done; working for publishing agencies, working for magazines, writing his own newsletter and even trying to create a new artsy porn magazine... the images were a little shocking but of course thought provoking and conversation starting so I think he achieved what he wanted to from the lecture. He also gave us some good references which I am going to be looking into....
Also today 'Marionette' had a discussion about creating a manifesto for the group. We ended up coming up with some interesting and slightly odd ideas, including all wearing red as a kind of uniform and serving red velvet cake to clients to tie in with the red theme and the visual ideas of red velvet curtains and chairs in a theatre. We linked this to the Marie Antoinette quote 'let them eat cake', which I really like and this again ties in with the floral baroque style of old victorian theatres and antique marionette puppets. We're also thinking of playing on the idea of strings and having control and power over the audience; like a puppetier has control over the puppet. The technical term for someone who does this is a manipulator which is also a good keyword we can use. On Monday we're going to put all of our ideas down onto a piece of paper along with some visuals for a presentation to the semiar group that afternoon.
On another note Natasha created a facebook group for our agency so we can all post ideas and thoughts. I posted a link on ebay for a marionette puppet which we are now thinking of buying as a visual.......
