Market Schmarket

So I was looking through my friend, Julia’s blog, and came across an ad that I had seen before and loved! It’s an ad to raise awareness for breast cancer.  The images basically feature naked women’s bodies that are painted (extremely vividly, I might add) in a way that creates an optical illusion.  Not only are the colours used bright enough to catch any viewer’s attention, but it prompts a reaction.  First, the person will do a double-take when they realize what they thought the image was at first glance isn’t actually what it is. And then they’ll probably pay attention to what the ad is raising awareness for, which is really the most important part.  I’m lucky enough to not be affected directly by anyone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer but it’s a serious topic that deserves all the attention that it can get.

On a lighter note though, the site that I had seen the exact same ad is actually an advertising blog that I check pretty regularly because the people that run the site update really frequently.  It’s called, I Believe in Advertising and boy do I believe in advertising after browsing through this site. I first got into it after a friend in 3rd year who’s majoring marketing introduced me to it and I’ve been hooked ever since.  This site probably made me realize that I am in love with advertising and that I would LOVE to be able to be involved in projects like this for a career.  Here are some cool ads that I’ve found from browsing on the site:

One thing about me is that my life pretty much revolves around movies. I’m obsessed with watching all the new trailers and keeping up with casting news and new releases for the next 3 months. It’s not that I’m obsessed with celebrities or anything because that’s not why I’ll watch a movie (okay FINE. Sometimes it is. SOMETIMES.) I am genuinely just really into the whole movie culture. I’ll watch Hollywood blockbusters at the Scotiabank Theatre or indie movies at VIFF or old school flicks rented from Blockbuster. And even though not everyone may be as into movies as I am, it’s undeniable that movie culture has a HUGE influence on contemporary culture. And not only that, but it’s a great way for certain companies to make some quick cash by creating promotional products or advertising schemes for a limited time while there is still a lot of anticipation for an upcoming movie to explode in theatres.  2 really prominent ones that I’ve seen lately are the pair-ups of Pantene/”Tangled” & Hurley/ “Tron”.  Pantene is obviously a company known for their hair products so it seems extremely appropriate that they would partner up with “Tangled”, a movie about Rapunzel, for their line of shampoo and conditioner products. A not so obvious connection is Hurley, a clothing company. Although they’re usually known for their clothing and shoes that reflect a skater/urban vibe, the ad for their partnership with Tron is something that looks very different from their usual merchandise of board shorts and bomber jackets. The model in the ad is wearing a sleek black mini dress, with a design that’s similar to the outfits that the characters in the movie are seen wearing.  This just goes to show that a movie can provide a good excuse for a company to go beyond their comfort zone and provides a chance to capture a new target market that they would normally not be able to reach.  And with the movie, Tron, soon to be released in theatres and already generating A LOT of hype, Hurley can expect that their new line of “Tron clothes” is going to be a success.

The same marketing technique can also be used in the reverse way: using an already famous entity to create hype for a movie. As my friend, Andrew Kwan, mentioned in his blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/akwan91/2010/09/29/500-million-friends/), the movie “The Social Network” got a lot of attention because it was a biopic about Facebook, a zeitgeist of our generation. Not that it was the only reason that the movie was such a huge hit (since Jesse Eisenberg did do a STELLAR job portraying Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook) but it certainly didn’t hurt that the social networking site has practically become a necessity for most students in high school and college.  In fact, the movie poster for the movie had nothing but the actor’s face on it and the title of the movie line across it. Even just by seeing the font, it was easy to make the connection that the movie was somehow related to Facebook. The font used in its logo is a brand in its own. And it did a little more than help the blockbuster get more publicity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWFuZEcJlo

Hurley x Tron Website:

https://shop.hurley.com/department/tron-legacy-10132.cfm?killnav=1

It was just last week that we were talking about shelf talkers in class and how they’re an effective way to grab a shopper’s attention as they’re browsing through a store.  When I was working at HMV, we would use shelf talkers to let customers know about special promotions for the day so I was already familiar with the term. But our shelf talkers were just hot pink labels that we would use on the dividers. They weren’t anything too fancy.

But yesterday while I was looking for popcorn at Safeway, I walked past a shelf and I suddenly heard popcorn popping coming from the boxes on the shelf. I was so confused and I immediately stopped and looked around, desperately trying to find out where the sound was coming from. Finally, I saw a black box with speakers placed camouflaged on the shelf among the boxes and bags of popcorn. My first thought was. “Holy breadsticks! That is so awesome!” and the next thing I thought was, “Look at all this popcorn! I need to buy some kettle corn NOW!” It went something like that anyway.  But the point is, the shelf talker was really attention-grabbing and even if I wasn’t initially thinking of buying popcorn, after hearing the sound of popping popcorn and seeing all the different varieties that I can choose from, I would definitely start considering buying some to snack on later.

Best shelf talker. Ever.

Twitter is such a large part of our generation nowadays that it is used to market close to everything. Many clubs at UBC have their own twitter pages to update their members about new events, opportunities, etc. Restaurants, bars, radio stations, and everything between and beyond  have their own pages as well to tweet about things happening within their realms.

Recently, I came across this nifty, vintage packaging for post-it notes:

First, I’d just like to say that I LOVE the packaging. I love anything vintage so this little box that the post-it notes come in is definitely appealing to me. They even changed the way the “twitter bird” looks to make it look a little more like it’s from the 1950’s. I’m feeling the throwback. Even though the concept is nothing new (meaning the post-its aren’t anything new. They’re still square, yellow, and awesome), I still feel compelled to buy this “new product” because 1. the packaging is so cute & 2. “vintage twitter” sounds so retro and cool.

It’s suckers like me that fall for these corporate, marketing traps but I’m not going to deny, it works. And if it works for one, naive consumer, I’m positive it’ll work for a million more.

Gee golly, good show! (that’s what they would’ve said in the 1950’s right?)

Even though we probably don’t think about it that often, there’s actually a lot of marketing that goes into making a book successful.  As I remember once hearing in a nice little movie called Cheaper by the Dozen, “If there’s no book tour, there’s no book.” Recently, I’ve noticed that there is actually a lot of publicity going into a book before, during, and after its release. I guess it’s pretty much like any other product.  Books always seem to sell themselves though. It’s almost as though the author comes up with some brilliant idea, gets a book published, gets it on a shelf, and then waits for the money to start rolling in. But in reality, there’s a lot more work than just sitting around and waiting for their book to do the work for them.

Surprisingly, I came to this realization through Twitter. I was following Russell Brand, famous for his roles in movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and newly wed to Katy Perry. He released his second novel a couple of months ago which was titled, “My Booky Wook 2”. His first book did really well so I assumed that when he first mentioned a sequel’s release, he’d maybe do a book signing or two and call it a day. WRONG. He was promoting his book for over a month through tweets. But promoting didn’t just mean mentioning the book.  It meant mentioning the dozens and dozens of signings that he was holding over the span of months at bookstores located around the WORLD, not just North America where he currently resides. Books are kind of a big deal.  And sometimes he’d take pictures at these book signings and it’s absolute pandemonium at them sometimes. People are hoarding around him, books pushed into his face. Of course, not every book signing is going to be this chaotic because obviously not everyone is a celebrity/comedian/actor/married to Katty Perry who decides to write a book. But the fact still holds that something as humble as a book has extreme marketing tactics around it. To sell a book, you need events and exposure like this.

Another thing worth noting about books is that when it does get to the point where it can sell itself based on a good story, usually after generating enough buzz by being a New York Times #1 Bestseller, it becomes trendy to recruit that book to be made into a movie. Sometimes, even into multiple different versions. The book I’m specifically talking about is “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” which I’m reading right now (it’s SOOO GOOOD by the way. I’m only 121 pages in right now but it’s already addictive!! Cheers to failing my finals because of the Millennium Trilogy! Jokes. Hopefully).  If you already don’t know, all 3 books have already been made into 3 very successful films in Sweden. But that’s not where they’re stopping. American versions of the movies are now in production and are scheduled to be released in 2011.  I know this all seems kind of irrelevant but the fact is that filmmakers wouldn’t have even know about this book if it weren’t for very good marketing on the book’s publisher’s part. And of course the success of the Swedish films were a major contributor to the Americans’ decision to create their own version of the movie. I haven’t seen the Swedish version of the movie yet but I’ve heard a lot about it which reveals, again, good marketing. When it was first released, Blockbuster promoted the film as one of their “Hidden Gems” and every visitor to the store is greeted with an ominous image of Lisbeth Salander upon first entering. The successful marketing of the Swedish version of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” in North America has undoubtedly contributed to the hype around the work-in-progress American version. It is already a highly anticipated project and I personally can’t wait for it to come out next year. After I finish reading all 3 books.

I recently got a position in a UBC advertising club called Advertisinc and I was fortunate enough to make it onto the team that I wanted to work on: Warner Brothers.  We worked in conjunction with a company called Gray Marketing which was hired by Warner Brothers.  We were essentially responsible for promoting the new movie “Due Date” starring Zach Galifianakis (Alan from the Hangover!!!!) and Robert Downey Jr, who is Iron Man of course.

Warner Brothers was able to host a pre-screening of the movie this past Monday at the Norm Theatre which was really cool because the actual release date for the movie isn’t until this Friday.

The reason I brought his up was because as a team, Advertisinc was responsible for promoting this movie, which means getting the word out and letting people know about the movie.  We were given lots of swag and premiere tickets to work with but basically, we had the freedom to plan/organize any events or promotional strategies that we thought would work.  The only request that we were given was to make sure that we got proof from each event about our promotional efforts, which basically just meant get tons of photographs to show Warner Brothers that we were doing our job.

Before this gig, I had prior experience with event-planning but nothing that had ever been so “start-from-scratch” or with such limited time either.  We got all our ideas together within 2 days and had only 2 weeks to plan and implement everything in time for the day of the premiere.  From other events that I’ve helped plan, there was always a precedent that we could refer to, or some kind of protocol that we had to follow.  But with this process, there was nothing like that.  We were able to have a brainstorm session where we just blurted out any ideas that we could possibly have to help us promote the movie.  I always have really outlandish ideas that are over-the-top and usually taken as too crazy but it was different for this project because we were looking for insane and attention-grabbing and out-of-the-box. Of course, a lot of the ideas were impossible but it was really refreshing to experience the creative side of marketing where I could come up with really crazy ideas and it could be considered “all part of the process.”

This has definitely been one of the best experiences I’ve had with marketing/advertising.  And I’ve really realized that this could be something that I would genuinely enjoy as a career.  I’ve known now for awhile that I’ve wanted to major in marketing, and recently decided that I want to work in the advertising industry (my dream job is to work with ReThink Communications.  LOVE THEM!)  And being in Advertisinc has really given me a good taste of the kind of work that I could potentially be doing. I love being able to get creative, to just get all my ideas out, and to have a supportive group around me that welcomes new ideas, both the good and the bad ones, mind you.  But accepting nonetheless.  I’ve been in the field, and I’m liking the scenery.

Every time I go to a conference, I usually come back with a bunch of business cards.  And sifting through all of them, they start to look the exact same.  They’re all the same shape, the same texture, even most of the colours are the same: White background. Nifty designs. Maybe a logo.  With everyone else trying to stuff their brand down my throat, it’s pretty hard for businesses to come up with a business card design that will stand out and make people remember you.  But that’s EXACTLY what this veterinary clinic from Israel did.

They took actual xray images that they have used on previous “patients” and printed them on transparent business cards so that the end product looked like a mini xray scan.  Not only that, but they were speciality-specific so that each vet could have a personalized card with their area of animal expertise on it.

I really liked this idea because I just thought it was so innovative!  Not only would these business cards stand out in an overwhelming business card-shaped pile, but now, the card gives value to the client.  I don’t know about anyone else, but if I were to get my hands on this bad boy, I wouldn’t want to throw it away.  Some business cards (as harsh as this may sound) have a throw-awayable quality to them.  Sometimes, they just seem so disposable.  But I wouldn’t feel the same way about this one.  To me, it seems more like a commodity, something that I wouldn’t be able to get easily.  It’s almost a work of art, really (I wouldn’t be surprised if an xray scan was propped up on an art gallery wall somewhere.  Modern art these days doesn’t really have a criteria. Except maybe confusion and political vulgarity).  But most importantly, this card represents the business that it is promoting clearly.  Receivers have no doubt what this card is for. It’s an animal xray. Go figure.

Halloween’s coming up.  So inevitably, there’s tons of trailers playing on tv for horror movies.  There’s Paranormal Activity, of course, and some exorcism movies, and some creature features.  And then there’s the seemingly never-ending SAW franchise that is really beginning to exhaust the story line and overextending the clever schemes they first introduced in the first couple installments.  But seriously, SAW is really just too much right now.  They’re basically creating movies to gross people out now. The plot isn’t even vaguely interesting anymore.

But the reason why I brought this up is because I remembered these trailers that they played a few years ago to promote the new SAW movie (3 or 4 maybe?…I’ve lost track).  Anyway, they had this REALLY smart marketing scheme where they would show a really quick 5 second shot of the creepy doll from the movie (the one with the red targets painted on his cheeks and has red eyes and the cuhrazy black mop on his head) and then 1 or 2 normal commercials would play before they showed the actual trailer.  And the thing is, they would only do this really late at night.  So the creepy factor shoots up like 6 points…at least.

The freakiness of this SAW promotion is unbelievable.  Because it’s so late at night, you’re already a little on edge because of the eerie, creaking sounds your house is probably making. Cue some rain. We got ourselves a scary situation. And when this little SAW thing happens, BOOM we got ourselves a psychological breakdown.  The thing is, they play that first little 5 second clip so fast that at first, you’re not even sure if it happened. And then you’re freaking out because you’re not sure if you should turn the tv off, or change the channel, or just sit there and hope it doesn’t happen again. AND THEN the trailer plays and you kick yourself for not leaving the moment you started doubting your sanity.  Not only did this little SAW ploy creep the beejeezies out of the majority of the human population, but it got people talking.  Which is what was really important.  At school, my friends and I would bring it up, asking each other, “Yo have you seen that messed up SAW trailer?” and it would be brought up again during class.  The point is, this marketing scheme for the new movie was HIGHLY effective, and not just in a “we’re-gonna-get-you-so-scared-with-these-tv-spots-that-you’ll-be-scared-not-to-go-watch-the-new-sequel” way.  But in a a “spread-the-word-like-wild-fire” way.

And this isn’t the only insanely smart movie promotion strategy.  Production companies are becoming more and more innovative with their posters.  Remember those few weeks last year where there were those weird “HUMAN ZONE ONLY” posters at all the bus stops?  And there was no description on the poster besides a silhouette of an alien and messages all in caps? Well that got people talking too. Because it was confusing. And kind of ominous. As if there was a threat of a possible future alien attack. Well turns out it was just a series of promotions for the new movie “District 9.” And when people found out, they wanted to know what the movie was about after seeing all those weird bus stop posters.  So yeah, there’s not one, but TWO amazing movie marketing strategies for ya.  Two things I took from this: people respond well to confusion and fear.

So I was watching the new episode of House last night, and Chase hires a new girl (since Thirteen’s been MIA for the past few episodes, basically skipping off to who knows where to do who knows what. Don’t worry, it’s a perplexing subject that severely confuses me too).  Anywaaaay, this new doctor really isn’t competent at all so House starts picking on her.  And throughout the episode, she remains unable to prove herself.

This all seems really irrelevant but here’s the point: Once the new doctor realizes that she’s not up to par, she asks Chase whether he has BUYER’S REMORSE!  Of course, she’s not actually referring to what we discuss in marketing class when we use this term, as in buying something and then regretting it (because ONE, Chase didn’t buy her and TWO, well…Chase didn’t buy her).

But when I heard her say this, I got really excited and I could almost hear the non-existent, imaginary, non-crazy alarm spastically going off in my head.  Here was one of my favourite shows, using a marketing term that I just learned in class, to describe an emotion in this situation that parallels information that I understand!  I love it when I get reassurance that school actually has meaning in real life (just kidding….sort of).  This was almost as awesome as that Grade 12 Biology Test that had a question that no one else could answer, but I got it right because I remembered House solved a case with it in an episode that involved a magician (turns out hemorrhaging  can be caused by having the wrong blood type infused into your blood stream.  True fact.)

So yeah.  Just wanted to share this cool story.  This just proves: marketing is everywhere.  And not even in a creepy way.

I sincerely think that some of the greatest artists in the world create ads.  Ads these days aren’t just images with catchy slogans that tell you why you should or should not buy something.  It’s gone way beyond that.  The creative minds behind advertisements are beginning to explore their methods of marketing through art.  And not just the type of art that is nice to look at.  I’m talking about art that is thought-provoking and innovative and breath-taking and basically what may typically be considered museum-worthy.  Advertisers have taken their advertisements to an extremely personal level by injecting their work into the streets.  It’s hard to ignore a statue on a fence, or on a flight of stairs.  It’s hard to walk by something that is life-size (or maybe even bigger) and to ignore it.  And advertisers know that.  They know that bigger is better.  Advertisements are now street art.  Take a look at this example:Not only is UPS making a statement and promoting their brand that promises speedy delivery and efficiency, but they’re creating street art in the process.  They’ve made an optical illusion that makes people look twice.  The reason why this is so mind-blowing to me is that I can look at this in so many different ways.  I could see this in a museum.  How is this different from any other strange and attention-drawing piece that could be found in an art gallery?  I love this aspect of the advertising industry: how the lines have been blurred between what is art and what is brand promotion.  They both share common goals anyway.  Art and ads both want to be stared and remembered by people.  Most preferably forever.