Pitt's Chanel No. 5 Commercial Causes Confusion

Many of us have seen the new Chanel No. 5 commercial starring Brad Pitt. He is dark and mysterious, almost lingering on the TV. His voice drones on as though he is reading a children's bedtime story to a lover. Even the setting of the commercial makes the viewer wonder "What is going on here?" What is he talking about? I was mostly asleep by the time the commercial had finished. It ended up being one of those advertisements where no one actually knew what it was about until the logo came up on the screen.

Was Brad Pitt a good choice? It is true that he has been deemed "Sexiest Man Alive" twice. For a brand that relies on sexuality to sell, it was a good choice. To confuse the viewer though...

According to Ad Age, about a third of the views for this video come from parodies. Viewers saw this goofy video, then proceeded to create their own. Even SNL created a version on their show.

Although the copy was questionable, and the video direction, this commercial did what it was what it needed. It got the Chanel name out there in a funny way that interacted with its customers. There are more than 20 spoofs floating around the Internet.

But did this awkward move work out in Chanel's favor? Yes. Think about all the videos on YouTube that are parodies. How many Call Me Maybe videos by Carly Rae Jepsen are out there? At least 50 fan-made videos. Another that sticks out: Like a G6. Like It's Quidditch (the Harry Potter parody) has over 5 million views.

Dad always used to tell me, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Read the Ad Age article here.

F Cancer Campaign Urges Women to "Touch Yourself"

At this point, with all the pink through Breast Cancer Awareness month, we are all aware of breast cancer. It's great that people donate and show their support, but what do people do about it? Mashable covered F Cancer's "Touch Yourself" campaign. It was launched in Women's Health and Men's Health magazines.

Does this campaign have the shock factor needed to get women involved? Sure. Many women are pleased to wear pink and show their support. People dye their hair, purchase brand name breast cancer apparel, and attend events. Even major sporting events show their support. For example, the NFL all decked out in pink uniforms.

The campaign plays on the sexual aspect of a breast exam to get women to do them. The campaign promotes early detection through self-breast exams. It engages women through the Facebook app, where they pledge to self-check. The clever play on words here (on their website) links to infographics on how to go about performing these self breast exams. After these women proudly make their pledge on Facebook, they are given the opportunity to share with their Facebook friends a card encouraging their friend to take the pledge. Some are educational, but others are funny.

Here are some of the popular ones:

But not only does this campaign cover breast cancer, but it gets everyone involved with a testicular cancer and melanoma self exam page. The campaign is based a lot on social media. Obviously the pledge is taken on Facebook. When you click Get Involved on the campaign's main site, it gives the options: Social, Digital, Physical, and Donate. You can tweet, post on Facebook, email, post on Tumblr and share videos all directly from the Social section of the website. You can submit a blog post and join the community in the Digital section. Physically, the give you the tools to host an event, start a chapter, buy a t-shirt, and even have "The Talk" with your parents. 

Follow F Cancer on Twitter: @letsFcancer and use #fuckcancer

As they say: Not just a great excuse to swear - a reason!

Read the Mashable article here.

If you would like to get involved or get more information, please email info@letsfcancer.com

eBay Institutes New Pinterest-like "Feed"

Courtesy of Ad Age

eBay has introduced a new user interface: a streaming feed of products. eBay will let users create profile-like pages by "following" categories. It will also include normal recommended items from the user's history and previous searches. It becomes social media in the sense that users can look at friends' profiles an get inspiration for their own pages.

Now is it too much like Pinterest? This streaming feed looks more like pins to any Pinterest user. Will people think eBay is copying the streaming feed giant? Probably not. Pinterest is set up so that streaming images take up the entire screen and go on for many pages. eBay is designed to do this once a profile has been created and categories have been selected.

From a PR standpoint, this is awesome! eBay is an online shopping giant, that is top of mind for most online consumers. The aesthetic that the Pinterest design offers is that ease of use factor. Everything is easy to see, it is easily manageable. Noticing the great feedback from Pinterest and the ease of use there, it was only a matter of time before other websites began these feeds. eBay may have struck gold.

To make this new feature work its best, eBay has introduced larger product images and better product-description pages. eBay has also made checking out easier. What used to be a four-step process is now streamlined into one.

Courtesy of facebook.com

Other than adding this new feature to their website, eBay has also announced eBay Now: a same-day delivery service available in San Francisco. This was in the pilot stage for a while and is now official. More cities are planned for this delivery feature and will be announced in upcoming weeks.

Facebook has introduced "Collections" as well. This is feature that allows Facebook users to click a "want" or "Collect" button on their news feed and can save them to a wish list. This is not yet running, and was only introduced last week. With only 8 like (myself included) the idea needs a bigger push. Facebook explains: "Major push forthcoming."

Read the article.

Placement of Heineken in New James Bond Movie

Courtesy of bourbonblog.com

"A Heineken. Shaken, not stirred," doesn't have the right ring to it. According to Ad Age, The placement of Heineken in the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, has caused quite a stir (not a shake).

Heineken paid $45 million to have James Bond drinking Heineken in place of his famous vodka martini. Great PR on Heineken's part, but the fans seemed to dislike the producer's decision to include the beer. There have been Facebook groups popping up and the use of a hashtag (#skyfail) on twitter to express the hatred of the product placement by producers.

The Bond movies are not strangers to strategic product placement. Pierce Brosnan's Bond once ordered a mojito instead of the famous drink, and got no backlash for it. In Brosnan's movies, Ford plays a huge role as well. Sean Connery's Bond movies placed Pan Am and Smirnoff throughout the movies.

With these Facebook groups and twitter hashtags causing a ruckus, it begs the question: Is all PR good PR? As a soon-to-be IMC professional, I see that even this bad PR can end up being good. Bringing any attention to a brand that it previously did not have can be a very strong motivator. Even though the brand may be shown in a negative light, it is now acknowledged by a consumer. Maybe the negativity brought the person to the dilemma, but after reading about the product, they don't care about the original problem.

As reported by Vanity Fair, spy movies are very expensive to make. The project had already been delayed by two years due to funding issues. With a promise of $45 million for one shot of Bond drinking a Heineken and the use of Bond in one ad seems hardly a bad deal. Product-placement has paid for many great movies and television shows and it is a great way to advertise by associating with an already established entity.

Here's a list of big success stories:

Wilson and FedEx from Cast Away

Manolo Blahnik in Sex and the City

Ray-Ban in Risky Business

Reese's Pieces in E.T.

Pepsi and Nike in Back to the Future

Red Stripe in The Firm

Junior Mints in Seinfeld

Bubba Gump Shrimp in Forrest Gump

Coca-Cola on American Idol

McDonald's in Pulp Fiction

In the end, everything is about money. As IMC professionals, we can never forget the power of strategic placement of a product.

Read the Ad Age article here.

Mandala

This blog post is all about me. I think sometimes it is important for us to take a look inside ourselves to understand ourselves, why we do the things we do for instance. I don't mind sharing this personal information with anyone. But if you don't feel comfortable doing the same, make the mandala and keep it for yourself.

Mandala

In my Psychology class we learned different theories on how personalities are formed. One that stuck out to my professor was Carl Jung's Analytical Psychology. This may sound like another language, but I urge you to understand this. A Mandala is a physical representation of self. This description shows our self-archetype/image. It contains symbols that mean something to that person. Above is my mandala. It it all m design and would match no one but myself.

The Artwork

In general, I am slightly more of an introvert. I can keep thoughts and feelings inside as long as I want. Most times, I prefer to be alone rather than with groups of people. But on the other hand, I am very much an extravert. I enjoy being sociable and I have been known to be extremely outgoing. More recently, the outgoingness has become hidden within me. I want it to come back out and I am working on my confidence level. To show these on my mandala, I started in the middle. To me, the middle was more of my introverted ways. It was the easiest design to come up with. It’s the dark part because the part of me that I don’t like (it goes into my shadow). The extroverted part of me became the outside of my mandala because it is the part that I want people to see more of, that is part of the reason why it is the brighter section of my mandala (it goes into my persona).

That Dark Part of my Personality

I took the shadow part of my unconscious literally. I used dark colors to show the part of me that I keep quiet. As a personal rule, I hate people until I get to know them. That way if they do something to hurt me, it doesn’t hurt me emotionally because I have expected it. Not even the strange sexual things that the shadow represents, but even just table manners. I would love to slurp my soup but it is rude in front of people at dinner.

The Persona That Is Me

My persona I displayed in colors as well. Because even though I have dark spots in my thoughts, I am a happy person when the sun is out. Bright colors keep me happy around people so I don’t speak the things I am keeping to myself. It also represents that even though I have these dark spots in my personality that I keep hidden, I keep the bright colors out front to remind people that I am a nice person once you get to know me. 

 Who Has Shaped My Personality?

The four individuals who have most shaped my personality are my mom, my dad, my sister and my brother. I chose to show them through Chinese characters. This is because I believe the Mandarin language is beautiful. The characters they give to words (which themselves are explanations of things we are describing) are beautiful. The top character is the symbol for mother. She is such a hard worker and will do anything to help me out when I need it. The character on the right is the symbol for father. My dad is the smartest person I have ever met and I am just like him. I honestly believe that I am my dad’s favorite child (though he could never admit that). The character on the left is the symbol for brother. He is younger than me and looks up to me. He is definitely the spoiled one, but I’m the one he looks up to, not my sister. The character on the bottom is the symbol for sister. She is on the bottom because she is my backbone. She keeps me in check, morally, because she is a better person than me. She is my built-in best friend. While she looks up to me, I keep her close by my side for advice. I can talk to her about anything and she can talk to me about anything. I can count on her to defend me and she can count on me. It works out for both of us. 

If you have any questions as to what any of these mean, I urge you to check out Carl Jung's Symbolism Definitions. These may take a bit to understand but it was an interesting project for me. 

My Bucket List

I always say to live life to the fullest. Live every day to the fullest. Well the best way to do that is to get the rush of exhilaration from doing something you have always wanted to do. I have my own list going, one that has been growing for a long period of time. I offer it to you all to give you a chance to come up with your own list or add to mine (because I am sure there are many that I have forgotten).

Things I Want to Do:

Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala

1. Hold a koala in Australia 
2. Get married to the love of my life
3. Go spelunking 
4. Say I have been to the last free territory on the planet - Antarctica
5. Visit the real Parthenon
6. Be the first person in the U.S. to see the new day
7. Have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks
8. Go to the southernmost point in the United States
9. Shake hands with the President of the United States
10. Be an extra in a movie/television show
11. Go on vacation once a year - just for me
12. Get an Awkward Family Photo taken
13. Get a picture with a star of Harry Potter
14. Skydive
15. Bungee Jump
16. Get a meaningful tattoo
17. Have a slice of real pizza - from Italy
18. See Stonehenge in person
19. Become fluent in at least on other language, por favor. 
20. Fill my closet with pink clothing
21. Celebrate Halloween in Salem, Mass
22. Write my own music album - just for me 
23. Land a perfect career
24. Kiss on the Eiffel Tower
25. Make my life a musical - for one day



Courtesy of historylines.net/history/french/

26. Make a hole-in-one

I hope to continue completing and adding more to this list. I mean, hey, you have to live for something. Remember to keep living life to the fullest!

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Take a Break from the World

I am big on using StumbleUpon to escape from all the work that I have to do.
Some time ago I came across a website, The Quiet Place, where I could take a second to avoid all the Facebook notifications, tweets and text messages.

Why It Is Great

The Quiet Place takes the audience to a place where forgetting the world is not a bad thing. It was built to remind people of simpler times, when we weren't constantly checking Facebook or tweeting about the funny thing that just happened. It explains to ignore your cell phone during the short running time of the program.

I have used it to help me focus before finals last semester and to keep my focus now.
Sometimes we forget to take a second and mentally stop. In this fast-paced world, we sometimes forget to slow down and enjoy the little things in life that can make us the most happy.

For Example

I take a walk/run (depending on the day) on the Allegheny River Valley Trail. As the Spring brings new life to to the trees and the forest floor, the trail have a different view every day. You meet friendly people who are doing the same as you. On occasion, you can find a person fishing on the banks of the river. Simply taking a walk around campus can help to get your focus back.

Or sometimes there are simple things you can do to take your mind off the world (that don't involve technology). 

1. Yoga: it may seem like the obvious answer, but since you are focusing on your inner balance, you are not worried about anything else.
2. Read a Book: it will take you out of this world entirely, and into a totally new world where people you don't know are taking care of the problems.
3. Origami: it is a great stress reliever. As you are focusing on folding the paper the correct way, you are not worried about the things going on outside.
4. Doing/Folding Laundry: it is extremely relaxing. The aromas after pulling out a batch of freshly laundered clothes stimulate relaxation. Not to mention how warm and soft everything is when it comes out of the dryer.
5. Take a Nap: there's simply nothing simpler. 

Remember that the world's problems aren't yours. You have to remember to enjoy the little things in life or else your problems weigh down on you. Don't stress. 

If you haven't seen the movie Zombieland, I urge you to. It is extremely funny. Just some advice on how to survive a zombie apocalypse (that fits in this case). 

Courtesy of http://www.xpressoreads.com/2012/02/zombie-apocalypse-are-you-ready-guest.html