HIV Trials Unit Campaign is Stomping & Hammering out AIDS

The last few weeks in Seattle I have seen a few ads on the Metro buses for the Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit. You can see the other 2 ads below. The work was done pro-bono by FCB Seattle and I think they did a really nice job. The print says,

"Take action. Join a paid study.
You can't get HIV by participating,
but you can help end the disease."

I think the images are strong and get to the point. If we work together, we can stop HIV. If only stopping HIV was as easy as taking a hammer to the little bugger viruses. I wish the bottle with the copy on it would have been placed better though. It took me awhile to find it cause the transit banners were split with the bottle on the right so it looked like it wasn't attached unlike in the example given. The ad is kind of a cliff hanger without the text. I was wondering why there was just this image of a hammer getting ready to take out this giant HIV. I was thinking it was some public service ad telling people we need to stop the spread of HIV. Cool, but that would be a no brainer. Luckily I saw the bottle and it let me know how I could be one of those people hammering out HIV.
Needless to say, I think this HIV campaign was done in much better taste than this one. Even though one is for awareness and one is for a clinical research study, the subject matter was presented in far more powerful and pleasant manner.

Toronto Restaurant & Bar Association says WASH YOUR HANDS!

I really like this piece of work that the Toronto R&B Association sponsored along with a few other toronto eateries and bars. Not only does it make you think about washing your hands, it scares you into doing it, or just not touching anything or anyone else. I think they did a real nice job on this one. JWT Toronto is credited with the creative. You can visit the nice little Web site they setup here.

Yikes

Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?
Why do morning dj's think they are so creative. You know some honcho at the station thought of this and without consoling anyone and without taking an extra second to think about it, went ahead and put his "genius" to the billboard. This is probably a prevy to the script for the morning show which is nothing more than sad.

What Creative Can Do

Figured it out. Kids are overweight more and more because snack companies' commercials have better creative. Why would any kid want to exercise after watching this -
It will prompt you to launch Windows Media

Phones and Snail Mail

Does anyone write letters anymore? I do when good ol' mommy reminds me to write thank you letters to my relatives during holidays. But, unless its a cordial thank you, I don't usually send mail. This past spring I was looking for a new job and I had bought a whole bunch of resume paper and envelopes to mail my resume and cover letters out, but all the places I applied just asked for emails with PDFs attached. I'm all about saving trees, so it didn't bother me at all, it's just interesting how the system is changing.

Also changing I think is the way we communicate. At my new job, I get email after email from my boss and other people in the office. I work 50 steps away from my boss and he sends me emails every 10 minutes which have little to no subject. I've become really comfortable using email - too comfortable. I've lost the little phone skills I had. Now, when I HAVE to call someone, I get really nervous and I have to write out a script sometimes. Emails are no problem though. I can write out, erase and review how my words will appear. I wish we used phones more in our new technologically advanced society. I wonder if this reliance on, or rather, this more prolific use of email will change the communication skills of youth?

LifeSavers Bus Campaign

Alright, I guess I've become a critic of unhealthy foods' advertising. Today, LifeSavers. On my way to work the last couple of weeks, I've seen the metro buses covered in LifeSavers advertising. They have buses completely painted that say, "It's good to be sweet." And, they have billboards on the sides of the buses that say a few things, but the one that catches my eye the most says, "I don't have to drag race other buses to prove my manhood." With the other saying, "I'm everbody's designated driver." I don't have a picture of this one yet, but I'll try to get one and repost this. I think this campaign is only running in Seattle, but it could be in a few other select cities.

So, let the ripping begin. After working on a Coca-Cola campaign that targeted youth 13-21 year olds, I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea about advertising sugar to people who shouldn't be consuming more sugar. "It's good to be sweet" seems like a little way around the subject of unhealthy. Candy sales are slipping because people are watching out for this stuff more. Especially on the West Coast where granola health nuts control the market. So, how do you get a bunch of city dwelling tree huggers to buy candy again? You make sugar a good thing - but you don't use the word sugar, you substitute it with "sweet." It's good to eat sugar is basically what LifeSavers is saying, but when you say "sweet" it just changes it so it sounds like a really good thing. Could it be subliminal advertising? After reading a few other Seattlite blog posts about the buses, it seems people like the campaign. Check it out -
I'll see if I can snag a photo of the side billboards and repost.

I was taking a look at this again and I think Bill cosby's head is on the side panel picture. It's only half his face, but I think it's him.

Nestle is Trying to Kill Our Kids!

Okay, Vodafone isn't really trying to kill brits, their commercial is just weird, but this one is legit. Nestle Nesquik is putting out this new :30 spot that basically is telling kids that if they don't like their veggies (like every normal kid), then they should wine and cry to their parents to get them some Nesquik Chocolate Milk cause it's a perfect swap for those nutritional, but ickie vegeatables. Hats off to Nesquik for telling our kids that chocolate milk is a good substitute for vegeatables. OH WAIT! It has 25% less sugar now! So the difference between a healthy meal and a treat is 25% less sugar. What Nestle isn't telling you is that the Nesquik Chocolate No Sugar Added brand has 3g of extra milk sugar and an extra 40 calories. And the more traditional varieties can add up to 18g of sugar and 90 calories per serving, which more than doubles the amount of calories that you would get from just the glass of milk.
Keep in mind that the no sugar added varieties use artificial sweeteners. Check out the commercial below -

Vodafone Wants to Kill Us

Vodafone is giving Londoners more time. Or, trying to kill them with it, as is shown in their latest advert seen below. I like the Bambi music, and the idea is good, but seriously, if a bunch of heavy rolexes and other watch parts started to fall from the sky, I wouldn't just sit in a field or play in them. Or would I? Would I think to myself that these were a gift from the heavens - the gift of TIME! Wait...no, watch parts are still really sharp and could hurt me if I looked up into the sky when they were coming down. Wouldn't really want to take a sprocket in the eye just because Vodafone threw it at me. Thank goodness I live in the US where the phone companies are too busy changing their names to give me "time."

More Abuse Ads

Coming back to the subject of Abuse ads let's talk about these anti-abuse ads from Safehorizon. I like these, unlike the ads we looked at before. I'd have to say though that the target is different, so I don't think I could actually say these work better than the other ones, but I like the approach none the less. I think these invite curiosity with an older age group and even a younger age group too with the colors and shapes. Older people like the complexity and youth would be drawn by the color. The message is great. It tells you the answer and I think it does a good job of educating and not just telling you or showing you why abuse is bad. WE ALL KNOW IT'S BAD! So, thank you Safehorizons for educating us and reminding us instead of showing us a kid with a black eye.

Axe Construction Girls Gone Bad

I was surfing around and found this blog post about a recent interactive advertising piece by Bom Chicka Wah Wah for Axe deodorant. These girls in Dallas were dressed like construction workers and making suggestive comments at passer byers. Their hard hats had the Bom Chicka Wah Wah sticker on them and they were supposedly saying things like "You must be wearing Axe!"


My thought was, if you're boosting egos by having some hot girls making comments at passing men and telling them they're hot because they must be wearing Axe, aren't you eliminating possible new users? More than half the guys walking by there probably aren't wearing Axe, yet they're telling those men they're hot - they're basically telling them they don't need Axe to be hot, they already are! So, this whole experience doesn't create a call to action or anything. It doesn't create new customers. It's a failure. Girls used badly.

AIDs Awareness Commercial

Two things - WTF and OMG.

Sorry, I just had to post this cause it's the weirdest, possibly most disturbing commercial I've ever witnessed.

McD's finally does it

Continuing to look at fast food ads, I saw a commercial for McDonald's that I actually liked. Why? Cause I think it actually works. Everyone has come to know McDs as a terribly unhealthy fast food restaurant. They tried to introduce salads and fruit into their menu to detract from the fact that all their food is unhealthy. Too bad those salads are more unhealthy than a lot of their burger meals. I think this new commercial is a great spot that really shows them in a new light. I actually would believe that they are doing a lot more now to make their food better, and the commercial didn't even tell me that. That's just what I got out of it. Check it out and read what adgabber has to say about it here - McD's Stop Motion

America Overweight? How did that happen?

First thoughts - Oh my goodness. No wonder more than half of our nation's population is overwight. Good job Advertising and the entire fast food industry.

Yes, those were my first thoughts in regards to Taco Bell's new commercial for what they have dubbed "Fourthmeal" - the meal between dinner and breakfast. I can't find the commercial online yet, but you can check out the website here - Fourthmeal.com

I think their intentions were to target the college drunks and stoners who are lookin to satisfy those munchies at 2 AM. I'm from Seattle, and this would be everyone in line at Dick's Drive-in at 2 in the morning trying to get their burger fix so they can slip into a food coma from eating too many calories in one sitting. For me, this would be called getting Funked - Food+Drunk = Calorie/Alcohol Coma.

Or...it could be that their new target market are Hobbits. Either one would be better than assuming Taco Bell is trying to get America fatter than they already are by creating a new meal time for everyone. I mean come on? Fourthmeal - are you serious? I hope the PR guys at TB aren't getting too overworked for this marketing mistake. If you wanted to let stoners know they can eat at TB in the middle of the night, just tell them that. Show some stoners with munchies. This just makes it seem like you think people should either get out of bed to go eat their fourth meal of the day, or they're just not supposed to sleep. Both are really unhealthy.

Lastly, there has got to be a better name than "Fourthmeal." Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? OH yeah, ichameleon/group & FCB. Come-a Come-a Come-a Come-a Come on ichameleon. (Sorry, couldn't resist) Brunch was a mix between breakfast and dinner, so why can't a meal between dinner and breakfast be dikfast? Oh, I see... Yeah that kinda sounds like a Hillshire Farms company picnic. So, good job on choosing Fourthmeal guys!

I can't wait for someone to try and market brunch more. If this fourthmeal thing takes off, this could be a new trend in positioning. I can picture it now - Fast food chains creating new meal times and then altering their menus. People will stop working because they demand to have their blunch break, yes, blunch - the meal between brunch and lunch. It will lead to outrageous weight gain and laziness and craziness and... this post is out of control.

Almost forgot to mention the Web site more. Umm, yeah, it really sucks. They tried to make it all interactive and stuff like a SecondLife kind of deal. Didn't really work out so well. If you go there and check it out, you'll see what I mean. Number one - you can't fly like in SecondLife, so that's already a few points in deductions. And two, everything else is just kinda lame. I DON"T WANT TO WALK AROUND IN TB LAND!

Abuse ads - Is target being reached?

I think we can all agree that the majority of abuse/assualt prevention ads use the emotional appeal when trying to reach women and others in abusive and dangerous situations. They have the picture of the woman beaten or scarred and then the telephone number and a quick header that says something like, "Take back control" or "Help is just a phone call away."

This post was inspired by something I read in my daily adrants email about a new ad for a The Pink Line, an abuse hotline. See ad below-

They commented on how the ad focuses "on the traumatic moment may actually miss the point." I agree, and furthermore, I have to think that a lot of women might be in denial about their situation, which is why they would say, "oh, that ad doesn't represent me." The adrants guys went on to suggest that maybe an image of "life after help" would work better to reach people in these situations. I think they may be onto something. I think it's hard to reach people who may be in denial or afraid though. How do you reach someone if they don't believe they belong in their own demographic? Maybe there is a way to reach them through another demographic? Or maybe they need to attack the denial problem within the ads. This would also bring awareness to friends who are suspicious of abuse.

I think this is an important issue and maybe The Pink Line and others should spend a little more on testing to find the best possible way to reach their target.

Whoops!

Okay, so in the process of trying to clean my dashboard up, I accidentally erased this blog. Whoops. However, not all is lost. Luckily for you, well, more for me, my Ziki kept all my posts archived. Whew. In the next few weeks, I'll be trying to load up all those old posts again and get all the links back up on the blog.

Parents and Moore's Law - Generation Divide with Technology

I'm 22 years old now and I think people in my generation would agree that most of our parents don't really get the whole technology thing. My mom checks her email and what not, but she can barely use Microsoft Office. The one thing she is good at is saving crap and taking real good care of the things she owns. Now, I don't know if those are things that are common with other parents, but I'm gonna try to make a case for why I don't take care of things like my mom does, and why she shouldn't get on my back for it.

So, when my mom was young, her parents saved everything cause they might need that item or whatever sometime in the future and the 25 cents they saved for hording it for 10 years would pay off. Also, they took good care of their stuff because it HAD to last and they weren't going to buy something that wasn't made to last (that would be un-American). My mom grew up on these principles and practiced them too. This is why she has empty cardboard boxes filling up her garage along with glass bottles and containers.

She always has got on me when I haven't taken good care of something. She tells me to always clean stuff and keep it polished and what not. I know that you should take care of things that you want to last, but it's hard these days. Here's the explanation.


Why would I take care of something that I know is going to go out of style or become obsolete in 2 years when I can treat it however I want and it will still last me 5 years? With Moore's Law, I can buy a computer and in 2 years It will be obsolete. I can't sell that machine to anyone and make any good money off it, but I don't want to really throw it away cause I've had it just long enough that I have a personal relationship with it and would hate to see it go. Wait, no, I just don't want to believe the computer I bought two years ago won't be able to run the latest programs.

This got me to thinking that if Moore's Law continues for a long time, hardware and machines will become obsolete in months or even weeks. How will Moore's Law affect the economy?

Whatever the future holds, I know that Moore's Law has taught me to not take good care of my personal property and in turn I should not be lectured to by my mom. She should lecture the technology geeks out there that make my wallet empty with all their developments and upgrades. Hope you read this mom.

*Note that I use Moore's Law to represent technology in general and not just transistor technology as was originally theorized by Moore.