In today's class, we showed our initial drafts of our comps ads. Some classmates did a very good job in their projects. Looks like they did catch Professor's requirement about "abstract". We picked Guylina chocolate as our subject in the ad. But Professor was not quite satisfied with our drafts because our design was not abstract enough. He asked us some questions like what ads message we were going to deliver, what the mood was in our ads. He thought we didn’t understand “artisanal” well about Guylina, which should be the key word of Guylina. After brainstorm with Professor’s advices, we decided to differentiate Guylina by emphasizing Guylina’s artisan.

        I found the following creative picture online. It's very concise structure accompaning with a succinct slogan, "save water, save life". There is no tedious disccusion about how important water will be. As long as we look at the desperate gold fish with the dripping water, all of us will agree that "water is source of our life".

        Our Monday class started with a discussion of Kali Nikitas, a guest speaker who came to talk for GAUGE speaker event last Thursday. Everybody had different opinions about her. Some people liked her easy going personality. Some people liked her website. But Some would think she had promoted her work too much. We preferred to know more about the process how she got her work done, the way she got her creative idea. I believed that would be interesting and inspiring.

        After that, each group brought their revised concept sketches and laid them out on the classroom tables in order to display them to the class and get some feedback from Professor and the classmates. I saw some interesting sketches. Some classmates worked hard on their projects. We got some feedback on our sketches too. Some suggestions like don’t use ocean background, think about something else, and so on. Professor wanted something more abstract that did not show the product at all, BUT, when the people looked at the ad, they would immediately know what you tried to talk about. Wow, it's really challenging. Each group was required to show 3 initial comps ads in the next class. We will have lots of work to do if we would like to get some improvement on Wednesday.

        Since my subject for the second project is Guylina chocolate, I found some interesting chocolate advertisements.



Dairy Milk Billboard: In Downtown Toronto

Kitkat - Bench

        We decided to do the chocolate product advertising for magazine. Finally we chosed the Guylian. Guylian is Belgian chocolate brand. Guylian is a Belgian chocolate brand. The company has a reputation to produce the richest and finest quality chocolates in the world. The Guylian chocolate brand ranks fourth in terms of worldwide popularity and the product is characterized by its unique sea shell design. As for the chocolate quality, the Guylian brand targets the production of a high quality chocolate made from primarily natural ingredients such as cocoa beans, hazelnuts, sugar and milk powders. The company offers eleven (11) different chocolate sea shells produced by multiple mixes of ingredients and delicious chocolate filings. Last but not least, the product design and packaging is an important aspect for the brand. Guylian chocolates are packaged in transparent boxes so that the company can better illustrate the artistic chocolate design and the implied product perfection.

 

        What is the ad objective and the purpose of the ad? The objective of the ad campaign is to communicate the competitive advantages of the Guylian brand and to differentiate the chocolate from other brand options in the industry. If the consumer identifies with the brand attributes of Guylian, then the company is more likely to sell more chocolates and to enjoy a higher customer loyalty. In short, the company will be more successful in its sales strategy and can better defend its market share against competitors as the fourth most popular chocolate brand worldwide. This marketing objective results into clear guidelines for the ad design itself. The main marketing message to be communicated is “The unique artisanal Belgium chocolates”. Therefore, the ad must effectively communicate that the production of the chocolates represents a process of art.

        This process includes the following aspects:

1. Careful selection of chocolate ingredients according to taste, quality level and natural identity (organic versus artificial).
2. The skill to generate different mixes of various ingredients in order to develop multiple flavors.
3. The integrity of the production process itself (semi hand made versus automatic production)
4. The product design in order to create a truly unique chocolate (sea shells versus regular and ordinary chocolate squares).

If the ad can successfully reflect these factors, then the consumer is more likely to identify a higher product value in the Guylian brand and associate image and product brand attributes that secure the successful sales of the Guylian brand versus other chocolate competitors.

Target audience: 30-40 years old male and female

Competitors: Lindt Nestle Ghirardelli

        The final presentation was over. Some classmates did very good on their projects. Our topic is Euthanasia. My partner introduced the topic and presented the con side and I presented the pro side for what our concept was, why we chose the headline and the image. When I started the research with my partner about this project, I saw a lot of sick people from the pictures online. Most of them were suffering because of endless pain with them days and nights. When I put myself into their situation, I believed that these people must constantly think about their life,  whether it is still worthy to live, or it is better to die. I chose that headline "dignity at last" because people who are very sick often feel that their life is no longer worth living. In other words they feel they are losing their dignity. The image of our ad shows such a sick man deeply in thoughts watching the sunset. Life is beautiful, but they can not enjoy their life because of the sickness. They are only suffering. Nobody wants to die, but sometimes it is better to go. I believed our presentation was good, except that the font we used for the headline was too hard at the back, was not good with the background.

        Our next assignment is doing market product advertising. We are required to create 3 magazine spreads for the product with our new partners. By next Monday, we have to write a brief about the product we want to advertise. Well, it's a complete new topic about the ad, which turns from charitable into commercial. I like it.

        Yesterday, we reviewed our final comps together in the class. Each group put up their 2 ads on the wall for the professor and classmates to critique our works. There were some great works, but some were not. I liked the one using superman to stand for pro while apple pie to stand for con regarding the topic of US Citizenship. It's very creative to link up superman with illegal immigrants. I did learn something new from our classmates' works.

        For our own project, although we did good at sketches, we got lots of comments on the work we just did via computer. Professor even said the feeling was different from the sketches. Some classmates said it's too flat and too dark, the professor said there were too much content on the ads. I believed generally our illustration needs more live and more emotional. Although we tried to use deep black color to express the death, it seemed not working that way. There are many things my partner and I have to fix, and lots of work to do before Wednesday presentation.

        Advertising is what insinuate you to the product. A different and creative advertisement is sure to stir the monotony and add the buzz about the product. Advertising industry is always beaming with fresh and innovative ideas and we can say that only “change” is a constant trend here. Check out few examples of truly innovative and out of box advertising campaigns both in print and outdoor advertising.

Coca-Cola / WWF: Plant Billboard

        The highlight in this billboard is "green". Since more and more people concern about their health in today's date, Coca-Cola has a chance to be labeled as "unhealthy". The designer uses the trees to outline the shape of coke's traditional bottle, which deliver a strong message, the traditional bottle will have new content, it will be healthy.

        Because customers are so familiar with coke, it won't have too much surprise for the customers if designer just uses the traditional selling points like tasty, happy, cool, and so on. But with such empty bottle, I believe it will catch customers' curiosity.

Clear Channel Singapore: Mosquito

        The reason I picked this ad because it used a mosquito statue to differentiate the billboard with all the others. There are so many advertisements around the city people, who already get numb. How to catch people's attention is challenging designers everyday. This billboard was not only use statue to catch eyeballs, but also linked up the statue with the picture. The statue didn’t stay alone; it’s communicating the character inside the pictures. Therefore, the whole design is very live and emotional.

COA’s HIP Program (Having Involved Parents): Sign swing
   

        This is another creative outdoor ad. At a first glance, I didn’t quite catch the message it tried to deliver. But after I looked at the selling product, HIP Program (Having Involved Parents), I started appreciating the idea. The highlight in this ad was the swing, which brought people into the picture and became part of the ad. Parents should get involved into their kids education, rather than just rely on school. If Parents made an effort on assisting their kids’ growth, they would receive good return. Just like the swing, if you pushed your kids high, you would receive high return.

        On Wednesday class we started to work with partner on the ads. Our group was working on the topic of Euthanasia Legalization. The pro side will be legalized solutions for death. The con side is stop euthanasia. We need to show our 20 pro and 20 con sketches.

Arguments For Euthanasia:
• It provides a way to relieve extreme pain
• It provides a way of relief when a person's quality of life is low
• Frees up medical funds to help other people
• It is another case of freedom of choice

Arguments Against Euthanasia:
• Euthanasia devalues human life
• Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment
• Physicians and other medical care people should not be involved in directly causing death
• There is a "slippery slope" effect that has occurred where euthanasia has been first been legalized for only the terminally ill and later laws are changed to allow it for other people or to be done non-voluntarily.