Distractions

It's been a whole 2 days since I last posted, but a lot has been going on for me. I'm pretty frustrated right in the research department, but that will hopefully change soon. It can be really hard to approach people and ask questions.

I will have another book review up tomorrow. I will be reviewing the book Perfect Pitch.

That's all for now.

Interesting mini-story

So, Yesterday, I went to cash in a bond that I had, which I had forgotten about and matured way back in 2003. The woman that was helping me out was really nice, then she asked me what I was taking in school. I told her that I was an advertising student. She thought that was great. And guess what? She actually worked in the business for a while for Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto, and got to work with the guy that game up with the famous Smarties commercials. She even got to meet David Ogilvy, the man himself! How cool is that?

It's amazing how many people have actually been in the business. Everyone has some kind of cool story too.

Just to kill two birds with one stone here, I've come across the second BMW video in the series on YouTube. Here it is:



Another great ad by Cundari. That's all for now from me.

Book Review: Rethink Reinvent Reposition

Title: Rethink Reinvent Reposition
Authors: Leo Hopf and William Welter
Time for another book review (I read fast)!

Instead of using the full title during this review, I think it will be much easier just to refer to it as Re^3. Re^3 is about how to renew your business. The authors describe at length 12 strategies that can be employed to do just that, especially if your business is in trouble. They also outline traps to avoid, and how to build the next generation of leaders.

Re^3 seemed kind of dry. Probably because this was written for managers and executives of large companies, and not for advertising students. That's not to say that this book was bad by any means, I just think that the project management the authors were talking about in the book was not geared toward smaller businesses or people who are managing small projects. I also felt that the authors were talking down to me when I was reading the book; they did not feel like they were on the same level at all. I would have liked some content that was geared more toward small businesses and small projects instead of almost always using examples of big companies. This made me feel like I was not in their league.

There were definitely a few things that I liked about Re^3. The first thing was the case studies. The authors picked case studies that exemplified the strategies that they were explaining in the book. This was helpful, so that I could actually visualize how each strategy could work. I also really liked the chapter that was about traps that needed to be avoided during the renewal process. I felt that this chapter was probably the most helpful in the book, because it outlined some very common mistakes that managers tend to fall into, and that you should always be on the lookout so that you do not do the same thing.

I'm not sure that I would recommend this book for someone in the ad business, unless they were a high ranking executive. But, for someone like me, I just don't fit the target group that the authors were going after.

I hope that you enjoyed this review. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights. Let me know what you think.

Until next time!

Check this out

Back with another blog this morning! I found a pretty cool link, and thought that I would share it. It's from Ad Freak, and what they deem to be the 10 funniest ads ever. Remember, the ads target different target groups, so you most likely find all of them funny. My favourites were number 3 and number 1 on the list. Check out the link below:

Ad Freak's 10 Funniest Commercials of All Time

Remember, you might have to move our cursor over the link in order to see it.

One last thing. I will have another book review up later today. These reviews will not come as frequently as they have been, but I have some time off school, so relaxing has been part of that.

Until next time.

Book Review: The Brand Gap

Title: The Brand Gap
Author: Marty Neumeier

Guess what? It's time for another book review! This time, I will be reviewing The Brand Gap.

When you first pick it up, you think: wow, this is a small book. How can there be much that's useful in it? To answer that question, you have to read it, or just read my review.

This book is amazing. It is short and to the point, and it has a lot to say for such a small book. It was very easy to read, and it provided great examples and fun pictures to go along with it. It even has a brand glossary at the back, so that you can look up the terminology that you need later for reference.

This book is broken up into 5 "chapters". I put that in quotation marks because there are all kinds of sub-headings in between. Each chapter focuses on a different part of the strategy needed in order for you to be successful at branding. It takes something that appears to be a daunting task, and makes sound a whole lot simpler.

The writing style is very easy to read and understand. The author uses great analogies so that the reader doesn't get confused and can actually get it. There's nothing worse than when you're trying to read a book, and it just doesn't speak to you or seem very clear. Luckily, that is not the case with The Brand Gap.

I enjoyed this book so much that I just ordered the follow up by the same author called Zag. I would recommend this book to anyone in the industry and any advertising student, whether they want to go business or creative.

The Brand Gap does what it says: it tells you how to bridge the gap between strategy and design. What a great read.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights and opinions.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Some new creative campaigns

After a 2 day hiatus, I'm back and ready to blog. I will be blogging more frequently over the next week or so, because it is Study week at school (yay, time off!). I thought I would do a weekly wrap-up of a few really cool campaigns that came out this week. Check them out below:

Dead bees try to help remaining ones live

Mr. Peanut's Stunt Double

Nokia Dancing Dolls

I hope you find these fun. I will try to do a weekly wrap-up every Saturday. This could be news that I like, or some cool new ads. Feel free to comment and let me know what you want in these wrap-ups.

I will hopefully have another book review posted today. It will be on The Brand Gap. I'll let you know what I think of the book in my review, not going to spoil it now.

Edit: Just a heads up: you might have to run your cursor over the links in order to see them.

Until the next post!

This is the way to make a car ad

A lot of commercials for cars these days are pretty boring. They talk about the horsepower and the maneuverability, etc, etc, but they don't really show it- other than hugging a few tight curves. This ad for BMW that Cundari made shows a car actually threading the needle, and really shows off how maneuverable and precise a BMW is. This is probably the best car ad I've seen in a long time. Now this is how you do it, and stand out from the crowd at the same time.



This is the first in a series of spots, and I can't wait to see the next ones.

Advertising Research

It's crazy how much research is needed in order to construct an ad or a campaign. It's all about finding out who the target group is, and literally, everything about them. You need to spot trends and link those trends back to each target group too. It seems that sometimes when I do an assignment, I am only scratching the surface of everything.

Great research leads to great ads. It's only great if you know your target group.

Sometimes when I am doing several assignments at once, I get some of the research mixed up. It can be hard to keep everything straight because there is just so much information to gather and understand.

I should have another book review up next week. It will be reading week, so I should be able to make better, more insightful posts than this. Lack of sleep is really getting in the way right now.

Later!

Cundari, burritos, and evil printers

Wow, yesterday was a crazy day! I went downtown to visit Cundari, an advertising agency in Toronto. I got to ask the account executive in charge of the project that my team has been assigned a bunch of questions. He was really helpful. Everyone at the agency was super nice- we even met the owner, and got a tour. It was a great experience.

Lunch was also a great experience. I finally got to try out Burrito Boyz, and I have to say that the food there was amazing, and priced very reasonably as well.  It was crazy busy there, and we had to wait for our food because of the crowd and because there make everything fresh. It was worth the wait. There are so many great restaurants in the area around Cundari. It was hard to choose a place, but I really wanted to try Burrito Boyz out because of all the great things that I've heard about them.

Yesterday was a really long day. I couldn't blog because I had so much stuff that needed to be done. I had a huge problem with a printer that I needed to use, and that issue carried over to this morning. Why can't everything work smoothly? Why do there have to be so many hiccups? Just once, I want that printer to work fine. It ate my money. I kept trying to print, and then it would just say printer ready and not do anything. At least it was finally fixed, but it gave me hell in the process.

That is all for now. I hope to have another blog up tomorrow.

Book Review: Rework

So here is my first book review. It's all about Rework.

Rework was written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson, the founders of 37signals. It is essentially lots of little tidbits of advice in many areas of how to run your business. Why is an advertising student reviewing a business book? Well, this is because planning and management skills are important in any business, for any project. I bought this book because one of my teachers recommended it during my IMC class. I figured that because I am team captain on the IMC project, that I should go check it out; anything to help make me and my team run smoother. Now that I have finished the book, I decided to share my thoughts on it.
I really like how easy it was to read. The chapters were short and to the point, with no filler in between, with really great business examples throughout the book. The chapter titles were really funny. Some of them included:

• Make a Dent in the Universe
• Scratch You Own Itch
• Nobody Likes Plastic Flowers
• Drug Dealers Get It Right
• Strangers at a Cocktail Party

The names alone piqued my curiosity when I first picked it up at the book store. The illustrations in the book were really great as well. I like how they went hand in hand with the chapter titles.
Another thing I liked: that the book doesn't talk down to you. The authors wrote in clear and concise sentences that didn't use big words or scary business lingo, they wrote the book as if they were having a conversation with you.

The advice given in Rework is very practical, and most of it can be applied pretty quickly. Two pieces of advice they the authors give really struck me right away: workaholics and resumes. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that the workaholics chapter really opened my eyes to some of the things that I try to do that really weren't right (i.e. staying up late a lot).

The only negative? I wish this book was longer. Not the chapters or anything, because I love how short and to the point it was. I wish there was more advice given in Rework because I enjoyed reading it so much, that it left me wanting more.

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to manage a team or a business, because it cuts out the garbage and gives you real world advice.

I hope you enjoyed my first book review. I almost forgot: you can also follow me on Twitter, @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into what it is like to be an advertising student.

Morning Brew

I'm sitting in Second Cup right now, sipping my white chocolate chiller and listening to Paul Anka sing a cover of Bon Jovi. Today is great: I've got a team meeting today to discuss our research project (hence the reason I'm at Second Cup), and it's still the weekend. Tomorrow will be even better. My team and I are are going to an ad agency to get our questions answered about a problem that we were assigned in school. We have to pitch our solution to the problem at the end of August.

I've finished reading a book, so my first book review will be up later today. I will be reviewing Rework, which is all about how to manage a business. You might think it that it doesn't have anything to do with advertising, but it actually does. I will explain more when I post my review.

Well, it's back to work now. I will also post tomorrow all about going to the agency.

Bye for now!

Great insights lead to great ads

Insights are what make ads work. Without them, ads won't speak to who they are targeting. A great insight for the Snickers campaign was that people in the target group act really cranky and whiny when they are hungry. That's why they chose to use the actors that they did. Check out the latest commercial from Snickers below. I love their campaign, and how well it speaks to the target.

Welcome to my blog

This is my blog. Who am I? I am a Creative Advertising student at Seneca College.  I will be blogging about you guessed it, advertising.  Not only will I share my opinions on ads, my life as a student, and news, but I will also be posting book reviews related to advertising. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. And don't worry, future posts will be better than this.