You Son Of A Biscuit Eating Bulldog!

If you were to ask what my favorite gum was, hands down, it would be Orbit! Not only do I love their gum, but I love their commercials as well, which have been replayed numerous times lately on tv. With their unique themes, they leave the viewer with a witty thought of their product.

The opening screen of the commercial is very plain and lacking any bright colors. A glass bottle flies in out of no where and the funniness begins! You just have to see the commercial for yourself, but let me warn you, you may want to watch it frequently just for a good laugh! Also, pay attention to the guy and his coworker who are chomping away on their gum the whole time! Do they really need to chomp that hard?

I hear people say “What the French toast?” and “Stinky McStinkface” all the time. Even though these catch phrases are not very nice, I love the way this commercial spins common expressions which its viewers have adapted. This is just another way to publicize the Orbit brand

It’s funny when the Orbit lady randomly appears and simply says “Fabolus” and Bill, his wife, and the co-worker are suddenly smiling! They are in the background trying to basically kill each other though when Orbit’s famous phrase is shown: “A good clean feeling, no matter what!” Also, if you pay attention, the colors of the Orbit lady’s tie matches the packaging colors of the Raspberry Mint flavor being advertised. You can also relate her white suite with the clean white look the gum will make your teeth!

Overall, I believe this is thirty seconds of very random yet entertaining advertising. After all, “over reacting was when I put your convertible through a wood chipper!”

The Beauty of Smoking?!

US Weekly Smoking AD

I was flipping through the first few pages of the October 15^th edition of US weekly when an ad immediately caught my attention. A minty-green teal box and hot pink fuchsia and gray letters on a black background read “NOW AVAILABLE: IN STILETTO” and it was surprisingly for Camel No. 9 100’s cigarettes.

Although the word stiletto is referring to a new thinner and longer cigarette, I believe there is an additional hidden meaning. Smoking’s effects are ugly, yet the advertisers tried to make the cause of the problem compare to the beauty of stiletto shoes. So when women who purchase this brand will appear to be cooler than other smokers when they take the lovely box out of their purse.

Apparently they have found a way to target women with their sleek new design and feminine boxes. Although I am not a smoker, this ad and product design appealed to me. However, if I were a smoker, I would definitely purchase their cigarettes in the pretty boxes. Also, the name “Camel No. 9” sounds very similar to the perfume Channel No.9. I find this to be another way for the product to connect with their target audience.

Overall, this is a beautifully designed ad, yet I believe these ads will have an impact on the raise of young female smokers. Magazines should value the health of their readers over profit when publishing these ads.

May Cause Confidence!

After the conclusion of the premiere episode of Donald Trump’s Pageant Place, I glanced away from the TV. I mean, isn’t that what most viewers do after a good show goes off? Who really cares about the commercials? Well, my room went silent for a whole 10 seconds, and then I heard an “excuse me sir” come from our TV. I looked up to see a college student, who looked pretty average, in a quiet classroom, telling an older guy who had been standing around speechless, apparently for 10 seconds, about a trick to make people relax when public speaking. Although picturing someone naked was not what I had expected him to say, I do admit my roommate and I laughed pretty hard!

When the college guy says the same thing to a girl sitting near him, I was quite impressed, thinking he was quite brave for such a bold statement! After the nice display of the Clearasil kit, I automatically thought it was a pretty nifty commercial concept, unlike some of their others. Their commercials heavily rely on one’s need for confidence, which is good since that’s what their teenage target audience usually lacks. I also absolutely loved the way the brought back a little humor by having the college guy growl in the mirror. Overall, I believe this commercial done its job, brought a laugh, and could help with sells of their products. If buying Clearasil makes you feel that confident, count me in!

After reading the comments posted on YouTube about this commercial, I learned that some parents want this taken off of TV. I agree with the one writer who says there are defiantly more offensive commercials aired on TV than this one. Sure, it may have a little humor not suitable for all ages, but at the same time, I watched it on MTV, not Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, or Cartoon Network!

Smoke Free Tennessee!

Smoke Free Tennessee Ad

When designing ads, I sometimes find the simple black and white ones the most difficult. You do not have as much versatility as color ads, yet you still have to find some way to try to catch one’s attention. A recent Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids was very successful at grabbing my attention and maintaining it until I had read the whole ad. I immediately noticed the listing of the governor and legislators’ names in the shape of Tennessee, which was a very clever idea! This is defiantly different than your normal columns and rows of names. Also, by using a black background on the upper portion and a white on the lower, everything is nicely balanced, complete with a simple row of the sponsors at the bottom. Explaining the problem of second hand smoking, the statistics given are very informative. There is not much to say about this simple ad, but that it is effective enough to be straight to the point and get its message across. It simply works! Personally, I would love to see this ad in the future for other states! Maybe Kentucky will be next!?!?

Sharper than Ever!

Not only is that phrase Motorola RAZR2’s slogan, but are the exact words to describe its commercial. I found many interesting aspects along with hidden messages and symbols all combined into the 32 amazing seconds of sharp advertising!

RAZR2 Commercial

By playing on the name RAZR, it shows it as being sharp enough to cut things, of course it doesn’t in real life, but it’s the world of advertising, where anything is possible!

At first a guy gets off of a subway and looks down at his cell phone, slicing a woman’s top with his cell as she walks past him. After the perfect knife/sword sound effect, he checks his email on his cell and also shows the Motorola logo. Also, if you pay attention, they are some Yahoo! advertising hidden in there!

The woman notices has happened, let her part of clothing drop to the ground, quickly takes out her RAZR2 and cuts the back of his jacket. His jacket falls to the ground and he turns around and she uses her cell in a ‘come here’ motion, which shows the versatility of the opening and closing of the screen. The cell closes and she uses the external touch screen to push play on the MP3 player, which shows another new feature of the phone. It begins playing Le Disko by Shiny Toy Guns, which I believe to be a perfect song for this commercial with its very catchy upbeat rhythm. Also, the first lyric to the song is “Hello” which is part of Motorola’s main slogan, “HelloMotto!” which is yet another hidden component in this commercial.

Notice the cell phone, along with the guy, girl, and other’s outfits are all black, giving it a Matrix like atmosphere. Of course, the action breaks out and triggers back and forth camera shots while they continue to cut more pieces of clothing off of each other. Then he oh-so-graciously dips her into his arms, with his RAZR2 in the other hand, and captures her on the phone’s camera. This shot shows off the extra large display screen on the inside, with the very crisp camera feature, along with a zoom option, and of course you have another glimpse Motorola’s logo. She finally gets away from him and jumps back on the subway, but he still has her phone. He throws it and it cuts into some type of advertisement on the side of the subway’s wall. Although it is not a Motorola ad, it is for something that begins with “R-A”. This shot also gives you a closer up view of what the inside of the phone looks like folded out.

The commercial closes out with a basic black background, which flaunts different angles of the RAZR2. It displays its thinness, large inside screen size, and shows off its email, music, and web features once again. I absolutely love the way the RAZR logo appears on the screen and then the number 2 scrapes itself onto the screen in a bright burnt orange color, in a very appropriate cutting motion with the perfect sound bite.

Overall, I really like this commercial. I believe the guy and girl have a lot of chemistry together and do a great job making the commercial a success! Every aspect of the cell phone come together at the end and makes the viewer want to be the proud owner of Motorola’s new RAZR2!

Believe It? Or not?

Usually it takes bright colors and a catchy slogan to catch my attention, but not in this case. When flipping through August 27^th 2007’s issue of In Touch Weekly, I noticed an article featuring this Britney Spears’s latest print ad for the launch of her new perfume Believe. The headline read, “Is this Britney’s body? A gorgeous, too-perfect ad for the pop star’s new perfume has fans scratching their heads.” I wasn’t really sure what to believe after reading the article, so with the help of the wonderful World Wide Web, I done some additional research and came to my own conclusion.

First off, I took a good look at the ad. I can defiantly associate the perfume’s name with the advertisement because I don’t ‘believe’ this is 100% Britney. Photoshop can do wonders these days, which I realized after watching the Dove 'Real Beauty’ Commercial on YouTube the other day in class. The first thing that popped into my mind is obviously that isn’t Britney’s real hair! I guess her almost bare head of hair would be a totally turn-off for the ad though, causing her product to probably not be as successful. Next I noticed something just as surprising. If anyone has been keeping tabs on Britney, or just glancing at magazine covers at the grocery store, you would know that she has defiantly put on a little weight. Her body in the ad appears toned and with some pretty impressive abs! In reality, she he hasn’t looked that trimmed in quite sometime. My conclusion: This must be the result of the ‘Photoshop Diet!’

The tone of the ad is very calm, but the birds and bird cages don’t really make any sense to me. The only reason I can think of off the top of my mind is maybe the scent is somewhat nature like, yet I could be completely wrong! Actually, this ad leaves me clueless about what the new perfume will smell like. Shouldn’t that be what they are trying to sell? It appears to me as if they are trying to market Britney more than her perfume. Apparently it’s not something fruity or they would have used brighter colors. Maybe they are leaving it up to our imagination to where we will have to purchase it at the end of September to find out.

On a more positive note, the one aspect I particularly like is how they placed the nicely designed bottle on the ad. Myself, I tend to buy products simply because they look pretty. Of course when it comes to a perfume, the smell does matter, but the looks of the bottle is what grabs my attention. I’m not going to pick up an ugly bottle of perfume to smell it! In my opinion this is nicely designed and something that I would consider worthy enough to sit out on my dresser. I also give the company kudos for using somewhat the same hue of green for the logo’s text as the bottle, yet considering that is about all of the color in the ad, hopefully it is enough to get one’s attention.

Rumors have circulated that it isn’t even Britney in her own ad, but possibly another person’s body with Britney’s head. Of course that is very possible, but after reviewing others' comments and concerns about this ad, I have come to my very own conclusion: I 'believe' this is really Britney, but who ever Photoshoped this ad, should get a raise! Although this isn’t an ad that would necessarily catch my attention and persuade me to purchase the perfume, I do personally believe the ‘Photoshoper’ done a pretty great job, considering what they originally had to work with. So…what do you ‘believe’?