Thursday 9 December 2010

Really?? Hublot new ad

Hublot have just released their new ad. The image states:
"See what people will do for a Hubolt"...
With the image of millionairre Bernie Ecclestone's face, beaten and bruised from a real life mugging for his Hulbot.






Are they sure that showing someone famous, looking like this will really encourage people to buy one? Highlighting the fact they are going to get mugged if they wear their watch is perhaps not how to go about showing the lengths people will go to get the product. And really I don't think muggers care what kind of watch it is anyway!

For the full article on this advert go to Campaign Magazine: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1045767/Hublot-uses-battered-millionaires-face-watch-ad/



Testing your mettle

A great way to get noticed and test your advertising skills is to enter open briefs. D&AD runs open student briefs for campaigns and there are others.

http://www.dandad.org/awards/student/2009/categories/25/open-brief-1
http://www.bootb.com/en/all-briefs/

This is an excellent way to get onto advertising courses by standing out. It will help you to develop a portfolio and to get the juices flowing. Its great to have the knowledge and theory provided by books; but taking it to the next level and forging a campaign idea is just so much more fun.

You don't even need to enter these, you can keep the ideas to self , it's just nice to see the kind of briefs set.

Degree Courses For Advertising

You do not necessarily need a degree to get into the advertising industry and many get into the business after doing a broader degree such as English or History.

However, being advertising students, we can definately see the benefits of studying advertising. Some courses in particular you will get an idea of the different areas you can go into and which may suit you best and others will give you a focused area. Within our degree we have studies core units such as: Communications and Marketing Research, Media Planning, Account Planning, Branding, Consumer Behaviour, Planning and Budgeting amongst others. This gives you an insight into the different areas of communications and also enables you to have both theory and a practise application. In the final year you can choose areas of focus (e.g. creativity).


You should be aware, that advertising courses do not always focus on creativity, some have a larger focus on the business side to the industry. If you want the drawing/design side it may be better to look into arts courses and do a foundation year in art. Nevertheless, knowing about the different areas can only benefit you in the future.

For a list of advertising courses look on Hot Courses: http://www.hotcourses.com/uk-courses/Advertising-Undergraduate-Courses-In-England-p2/hc2_search_result.page_pls_user_sresults_col/16180339/220704/s/858889440/p/2/p_zoom_level/11/page.htm

Remeber to look at the focus of each course!!!



Sunday 5 December 2010

Skoda -

We haven't really blogged about ads - more how to get into advertising, but I thought I would just throw one in now. I recently went and saw Harry Potter (had to be done) and my favourite part of the cinema is always the good ads. I noticed that the ads were jam packed with different car adverts!! Obviously making it hard for the bad ones to stand out (poor media planning??). However, this is currently my favourite one of the bunch, that stuck out miles compared to the others. I seem to love all the Skoda adverts and was happy to see that the latest wasn't a let down.

The link between the previous ad (Skoda Cake) and this one really works well. In particular, I think the music makes this ad what it is. Perhaps that's just me? Any thoughts on it?

Check it out if you haven't seen it...


http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialFabiavRS?v=NmZNvGHtMbo&feature=pyv&ad=10636006639&kw=skoda%20advert

Thursday 2 December 2010

Some websites to get your creative juices flowing..









What is creativity? 5 things to think about


So i'm sure you might be wondering what is creativity? well obviously its not an easy definition. here's 5 questions/statements to get your juices flowing and get you to think about what you think this elusive devil is?

1. According to William Plomer “creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected”.

2. Oscar Wilde observed that “The imagination merely imitates.  It is the critical spirit that creates.”

3. If creativity is the ability to ‘think outside the box’ what constitutes ‘the box’?

4. The postmodern affinity with nostalgia (e.g. the revival of the Fiat 500, the resurrections of the Honey Monster, Tetley Tea Folk and the Milky Bar Kid and the retro rebranding of Virgin Airways) has meant that creativity has been increasingly superseded by reference to the past.  Evaluate the diminishing role of creativity in the context of postmodern nostalgia.

5. “Notwithstanding all the rhetoric and attention in corporate corridors and boardrooms all over the world, lack of innovation remains a key problem in business today.  One reason for this is the continued failure to systematically manage for creativity.”   (C.D. Shepherd, 2010)
How and why do organisations fail to structure for creativity.

This stuff is adapted from questions for final year university essays. Think about it, there's some interesting stuff in there.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Creative Must Haves...

OK, I have put together a brief list of my top creative books that are helpful and interesting...

Easily the the best book on copywriting. Simple. To the point. Used by copywriters all over the world.


Step by step guide to developing the strategy behind creative campaigns. One of the most important reads for would be creatives.



The best book on life within the industry. Luke Sullivan is a comic genius. Entertaining whilst still being extremely informative.
Let me know of any others that you have read that would be good to put up on the list, or just comment on some of the ones I have mentioned if you have anything to say about them!