Toblerone

Toblerone is one of the worst candies on the market, but today in class we had to come up with a social media campaign to get our consumers involved. Specifically, it was the new sweet and salty candy bar and it was during the holiday season.

What we thought of was the three social media sites - Instagram, Vine, and twitter.

For instagram we thought that you could share your #tobleronemoment. People that shared the story that made us laugh the most would win a prize of being in our print ads or winning cash and a bunch of Toblerone.

For example, this guy could submit this and say "Me buying my favorite candy. Even though my dad ate the WHOLE THING #tobleronemoment"

Another example are these two funny guys, the caption might be "My homeless friend lost a bet and gave me the only thing he owned. Winning. #tobleronemoment"

And lastly i'll use this as an example or how creative people could get with this. The caption might say something like "Opened my candy bar and got cement. What an unexpected Christmas gift from Toblerone. #tobleronemoment"

Not only can people share this with instagram or make video with vine, but to share on twitter also. We wanted to make the focus on this one campaign but our consumer would be able to share on these three social media sites. We talked about focusing on the new flavor or just toblerone in general but decided that focusing on the old classic toblerone would be more successful. Since we are opening up the door for people to buy the toblerone they originally loved, they would see the sweet and salty new flavor next to it and in turn would create awareness about this new product. Which is what we wanted all along.

Interruptive Advertising

We have all heard annoying advertisements. Interruptive advertisements are those ads that just can't get out of our head. Companies make themselves known thorough continuous radio, TV, or billboard ads that are just constantly reoccurring throughout our week. Yes this type of advertisements helps get a name out there but it may not set a positive image of a company with the customer.

For Head On, it succesfully got this migraine treatment out there. "HEAD ON APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD." Everybody knew this annoying slogan that other commercials even began making spoofs of it.

USA reports that this commercial  led to a number of parodies appearing on Youtube and it has become an internet sensation. Make magazine has even made it a ringtone. And this commercial was even parodied in the film Disaster Movie.

Is this success? Head on did make a name for itself through this one sentence. But people would still buy Advil over Head On, so I don't consider these types of advertisements successful at all. 

I believe brands have and products have to make a name for themselves through legitimate techniques. This type of annoying advertising is too old fashioned for today's consumer. Rather than repitiotion brands should set up an image of themselves through the actual product. Like if it works and such (for example, there is no evidence that Head On works - people just bought to make fun of it). TV is a whole different type of advertisement from radio, and a lot of radio ads have to rely on this type of technique. With TV brands can set up this image without this repetition. So I believe that setting an image is much more successful that these annoying advertisements.

Some examples of my favorite campaign from Levis - Go Forth

DON'T YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?

Extra Credit - Got Ethics?

What makes advertising ethical? There is no clear cut definition.

At this symposium, moderator Matt Cabot brought up four commercial examples and questioned their ethics. The first one was about a stoner "loaded" on jack in the box, then a pharmaceutical commercial selling depression medication, followed by a Superbowl commercial using sex to sell Mercedes, and a Groupon commercial making an gruesome reference to Tibet. What makes these ethically questionable? It's not like these types of advertisements are new to America. If anything, these types of advertisements have been embedded into our society and can be considered normal.

John De la Cruz brought up the point that "advertisers have the responsibility to behave ethically". I don't believe that we should question what type of advertising is ethical and how ethical advertisers are being, but rather question whether advertising as a whole is ethical.

Micheal Llewellyn-Williams said you should never be afraid of advertising, if somebody wants to part with their money it's their choice. They can tune out, it's background noise. They could say, "thanks for letting me know about your product but it's my decision".

And I couldn't disagree with this statement any more than I already do.

Advertising is everywhere, it may seem like background noise, but it's not. It's hardwired into our lifestyle and our consumer culture. "These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important."  Exposure to this media is what makes up what our culture values today whether we realize it or not.

TV and Radio Ad Workshop - Toilet Roll

The Toilet Roll iPod Docking Station, the perfect gift for any mom in a rush! We decided to make our this docking station the perfect housewarming present and wanted to advertise how fun it is and how much families enjoy this. Since our target market was to make this the perfect gift, we wanted to focus our advertising on gifting this item. Both advertising mediums we used are similar in that way.

RADIO SCRIPT

RADIO

SOUND: Clacking of footsteps and knocking on door. Creak of door opening.

WOMAN NEIGHBOR: Welcome to the neighborhood!”

MAN NEIGHBOR: We’re your next door neighbors and we brought you a housewarming gift!

LADY IN HOUSE: *screams* It’s the new toilet roll ipod docking station! This will be the perfect accessory to my bathroom!

WOMAN NEIGHBOR: you can listen to your music while you’re showing, cleaning, or even doin' your business (says cheerfully)

LADY IN HOUSE: Thank you so much my husband will install it right now! *slams door*

SOUND: Music blasting in background and toilet flushing at same time

NARRATOR: The perfect product for anyone

TV

Scene of teenage girl on toilet texting, she gets up and flush and then drops phone in toilet and shes screams

CUT TO NEW SCENE

Young boy in family is sitting on the toilet playing angry birds, he gets up and flushes and the phone drops in toilet and he groans in frustration.

CUT TO NEW SCENE

Old man dad is reading the paper on his iPhone and he drops it in the toilet, he shouts out "This is the third time this week!"

Mom rushes to the bathroom and asks "what happened?"

Old man dad says "it happened again!!!!!"

Mom says "it’s not going to happen again, now that our neighbors got us a toilet roll iPod docking station!"

CUT TO NEW SCENE

Different cut scenes of each individual family member bobbing head to music with the iPod on it's toilet docking station.

Pushing Creative Boundaries

Catching the attention of audience is difficult, especially when ignoring advertisements become second nature to us. 

But there are some advertisements that challenge the status quo.

When browsing creative ads, I came across Martor Solingen's razor blade ads in Germany. These advertisements show the razor blade billboard and objects underneath cut in half. Which is insinuating that this razor blade is so sharp, it cuts objects like pigeons and boulders in half. (I bet Peta doesn't approve of trying this at home.)

This picture doesn't only show the objects and advertisement, but it shows that people are stopping and interacting with this ad which is what really makes Martor Solingen's campaign work. Any advertisement is just an advertisement until it evokes an emotion with an individual. Whether it be sadness, curiosity, or happiness, an emotion is a strong thing to associate with a company and it is also a challenging thing to do.

I believe Martor Solingen did an amazing job of not only evoking curiosity but also laughter with their ads. This made this campaign stick out from all the rest. What creates a successful advertisement is one that's memorable and has a lasting impact on customers. The best advertisements are something you can't be indifferent to, what makes this ad prosper is the consumer. Martor Solingen did half the work by creating this fascinating ad, but the consumer did the other half of the work by the way they reacted. By sending, sharing, and even making double takes at this ad, this razor blade company made itself memorable. 

Sticking to the memory of the consumer is what makes an advertisement succeed. Customers will now think of Martor when purchasing razor blades and they will associate terms like "sharp" with these blades. Through creating good schema these creative ads work well.

And that's what makes an advertisement successful.

Trendy Typewriters

What college student doesn't want a typewriter. They're affordable, trendy, convenient  and the ultimate cool conversation starter.

For our campaign, we decided to focus on the cool factor of typewriters rather than the fact that they're cheap. We have a campaign focusing on the generation-to-generation aspect of owning this timeless, vintage piece. Your grandparents used it, have stories, and now you can use it and create your own.

We decided on three mediums to use for this "passing-down" campaign.

The first one is - TV:
The first scene is a grandfather in his younger years. We will probably edit this in black in white while we give the actors a 1920's feel. This young grandfather is typing vigorously on this typewriter to quickly finish a paper. After he is done, the scene cuts to him running to class. Once he enters, he is out of breath and slams the paper on the desk. His professor looks him in the eye and gives him a small grin, he says "Congrats son, this is the last paper of your college career. You're ready to graduate". Then the young grandpa, has a sigh of relief and burst of excitement before the cut to the next scene. '40 years later' text appears and the scene fades into the next with a match on action with the face of the young grandpa with the old, so you know it's the same man but just aged. The grandpa is holding a typewriter, he holds it out to a young man in his late teens. He says "Here grandson, this helped me graduate from college and I hope it does that for you too."

FIN.

After telling this emotional commercial to our professor John De la Cruz, he shared a story about his friends typewriter to us. Then the light bulb in my head went off!

Next media outlet - social media:
It seems that everyone has a story with their typewriter. Whether is be how it got passed down to them, how it wrote a love letter to a girlfriend who then became a wife, or if it stayed up with them all night writing papers. We wanted to use Facebook and create a page where everyone can share their various stories of their typewriters. This is by far my favorite aspect to the campaign.

Lastly we have our billboard images:
I didn't want there to be endless information about the product but instead wanted a simple picture of a typewriter, since everyone knows what they are anyways. This simple picture will remind kids that these old contraptions still exist but with a new spin. At the bottom, the saying "vintage is the new modern" or "share your story" will be typed in a typewriter font. We just want short and simple sentences to be on our posters.

The typewriter lives on.

Nostalgia

When someone thinks back on their childhood, they remember the good times. Nostalgia marketing uses these good thoughts and images to their advantage. When we grew up we have certain images that stick out to us like maybe Mr. Bubbles bubble bath soap or pizza rolls. If we loved these things a long time ago, they have an attachment to us therefore we’re more likely to buy into these brands and items. Instead of being a just a product, these items engraved themselves into our past memories. This is a pretty smart way for advertisers to target customers but it has its advantages and disadvantages.

A major perk that nostalgia marketing incorporates is consumer loyalty. You could be loyal to a brand without nostalgia, yes, but this type of marketing creates a much more powerful bond with a product. Creating a lifelong consumer is one of the one of the greatest achievements a company could make. This type of marketing relies on good schema.

A disadvantage of this marketing is, if you’re trying to market an older product, maybe “older isn't better”. Consumers may not relate a product with good memories but instead bad ones. I think creating a good schema for a product is the key to having a successful nostalgia marketing technique.

Since this type of marketing may not work for all products. You have to know your target audience. For products such as converse or mini, I may be too young to understand all the references in their advertisements even though they are intended for me. Let's take converse for example, many people my age do not know Sid Vicious because we did not grow up listening to the Sex Pistols (instead we grew up with Lady Gaga and Britney Spears which is sad and I could write a whole new blog post about how that is a terrible thing, but I won't). Converse uses Sid's rebellious demeanor to sell converse but if the consumer does not fully understand who he is, this type of advertising may not work. 

Another way nostalgia marketing could not work is when they company changes the product in a way consumers do not like. This happened when KDD changed their ice cream to Blitz. Consumers had so much negative backlash and the company went under fire.

There is no doubt that nostalgia marketing is successful but companies should just understand some disadvantages.