Give this a ponder

While randomly surfing the web, I discovered an ad campaign to try and prevent teens from "sexting" and spreading rumors about people. I love the tagline of the campaign: Before you text, give it a ponder. It features James Lipton as the spokesman for the campaign, which, in my opinion, is an amazing choice for a spokesman. My favorite part is when he takes his trademark beard and places it on the faces on the teens, who then "ponder" about their actions while the beard is put on them. Well done LG.


















The website, giveitaponder.com, is hilarious as well. You can watch the TV commercials and give some more things a ponder as well.

Long Copy Ads

While I was looking for ads for La-z-boy, I found these very well done long copy ads done by a copywriter by the name of Erica Horstmeyer. My favorite are the ads that she did for the classifieds in the newspaper. The copy is attention grabbing and the stories are very funny to read and think about. Here's some of her work that I found to be really interesting.

I Christine Fitzsimons Challenge Thee...

To not love this ad. Probably one of my most favorite ads ever is for something that is not aimed at me. It is for Old Spice Swagger. I don't particularly like Old Spice (it's scents aren't the best) but I LOVE their commercials. I think that they are doing a good job of making this brand new again, since I always used to think Old Spice = my dad and my grandpa.

This Old Spice commercial features Brian Urlacher, who plays on the Chicago Bears Defense. I did not know who Urlacher was before this commercial, but soon learned more about him from my friends who became obsessed with him after this ad.

My friends and I talk about this ad all the time, including the numerous parts that we find the funniest. There are 5 things that make this a great ad, including the contrast in bodies, the loser being made fun of by a loser, the effect of being made fun of and the treatment of the product. The humor value is there right when it starts, since it features this stick like kid challenging a group to an "honor duel." He is stick thin, huge over sized glasses, and goofy hair. Once he says "I, Brian Urlacher..." you immediately get the joke that is "was" Brian Urlacher before he became the Brian Urlacher that we all know today. The literally difference is there: not cool Brian Urlacher, with his hair, glasses and stick thin to the Urlacher of today: Huge, intimidating, no hair, and no glasses. The kids who he is challenging aren't the ones that you would probably be hanging out with on a friday night, nor do they look like the ones

that are the top of the popularity chain. This loser (Urlacher) is being made fun by his own group.

Once the camera pans away from Urlacher hilariously crying, we see the present day Urlacher.

What really makes it for me in this ad is the way that he handles the product. In the majority of ads, ranging from personal testimonies of the ad to celebrity endorsements, the product is always held with care, as if it is a sacred object. Old Spice Swagger within this ad does not receive this same respect from Urlacher, but I think it completely works. The way he handles the product,( by picking it up and throwing off the cap, where it hits the back wall) makes it

seem like he does not care about the product at all, and is not doing it for the money, but doing it because he is still upset about how he was treated when he was younger. The way he treats the product is how he would like to treat those kids, by literally picking them up and throwing them against the wall. He then says "Whose laughing now? Haha, ME" I love the shot focuses on Urlacher after he says "ME," lingers for an extra second longer than it should, emphasizing how he is still pissed and upset over that incident. My friends and I have speculated that maybe one of the reasons that Brian Urlacher became a football player was because of this incident and that one of his life long goals is to really have the last laugh.

Edit, here is the print ad:

Is LOLchair amused?

While I am home today from classes, I saw this commercial for American Express. As soon as the first image appeared, I immediately smiled and was in love with the commercial and whoever came up with the concept for it. The ad is for American Express, and features "faces" out of different, everyday objects that we encounter in our day to day lives.

I have many reasons for LOVING this ad. One, I think it is very cute, different and original. American Express's ads usually feature celebrities or are about small businesses, but is completely different. It is unlike many of the other credit card commercials that show what you can buy with the card (this car! this necklace! this dress!) or what you can do with the card (sail around the world! etc). Instead, while it does show what you can buy with the card , it does it in a way that makes the objects more "human," by giving them emotions and expressions. These emoitions are able to connect to the point of the ad, by stating that if "something you bought with the card breaks, it can be repaired, replaced or your account credited." The "happy" faces of the objects then reflect what American Express can do to fix the broken objects.



Another reason why I love this ad is because I recognized a piece of internet culture within the ad. I'm not sure if American Express was aware of this connection, but something was definitely there. Here's a list of pictures of things with "faces," which many times represent different emoticons (such as :), :D, :0, etc)




There is even a flicker group called "Things with faces" and a website called thingswithfaces.net. Clearly, whoever came up with the ad for American Express was a fan of the "things with faces" idea. And so am I. And I hope LOLchair is too.

3 Creative Headlines

While I was looking for ads with headlines on adsoftheworld.com, it was difficult to find ads with good headlines. The ads that I picked were ads that I would have stopped to look at if I were flipping through a magazine. I think that these headlines are creative and are able to convey the overall message of the ads very fast and quick.

This first ad, through its headline, effectively states how much slower your reactions times are while driving when you have been drinking and driving. Though I am able to figure out the headline, because of the positions of the words and the way some words are spelled, it does take me a couple more seconds to figure out what the headline is actually saying. This ad could have done what many other drunk driving ads could have done, by using some shocking statistic or don't let this happen to or someone else story.



The 2nd ad that I picked, for art school, is one of my favorites because of the "truth" that is behind the statement. I took many art classes while I was younger and always had trouble drawing the most realistic drawings. If I lived in the area, I would definitely be interested in taking classes at this school. This headline, like the one before, is able to tell a story about what type of art school it is (for beginners) and also be interesting as well.


The last ad that I picked, for an Australian church, features a statue of Christ the Redeemer and the headline "The fish was really this big." I think the headline goes well with the statue, and the headline is able to make the overall message of the ad clearer. Though it uses exaggeration, it is able to communicate the message that if you really want to find out the real story of Jesus and the feeding of the 5,000, attend St. Matthew in the city to find out more about Catholicism. Again, I think that this ad uses a creative headline, instead of some bible verse or a famous quote from Jesus to illustrate its point.

3 Eye Catching Ads/My First real post

While I was searching on Adsoftheworld.com, I wanted to find ads that would actually make me stop and look at them while I was going through a magazine. I think that though there are many good ads on the site, many times if these ads were placed within a magazine, I might flip by many of them, not even stopping to at least glance at what they are for or what they are attempting to sell. Even if I might stop and look at them, I might not take enough time to really look at the ad to see what message is trying to be told/sold to me.

Creative Technique: Turn it right around

This first ad made me stop because of the visual featured in the ad's design. It looks to be very sexual, but once I read the copy, the overall message of the ad becomes very clear. I think that its use of colors is beneficial to the overall image since it immediately focuses your attention to the visual message of the ad. The imagery used in this ad does a great job of first catching the attention of the reader, since it turns around the idea of what doctors normally check for down there. In addition to checking for prostate cancer, doctors should be checking for thyroid cancer as well.

Creative Technique: Mixing and Matching

This next ad, for a dentist's office, also features a very eye catching visual. It plays on the idea of the grim reaper and his infamous sickle of death. It mixes and matches the of the grim reaper, who is the bearer of death, with this dentist, who "kills" bacteria and plaque. The ad is able to successfully communicate this by mixing the grim reaper and a floss pick, which is substituted for his sickle. While looking at the ad, I realized that doing an ad for a dentist could be very boring. I am just glad that this ad didn't do what other ads for dentistry have done already, such as talking about how many awards he has won, or show a picture of before and after shots of the teeth he has worked on, etc. This ad made me realize how anything could become interesting with just some creative thought.

Creative Technique: Spoof and Parody

The last ad and probably my favorite of the 3 is ad an for the National Museum of Science and Technology, featuring a little girl sticking her tongue out, imitating the famous Albert Einstein photograph of him doing his infamous pose. The copy reads, "Every little genius' favorite place," which goes along perfectly with the picture of the little girl. I think again, that ads for museums sometimes have very similar themes and ideas that they use for ads, such as look how much your children can learn, exhibits of ancient fossils, etc. This ad would make me stop looking through any magazine so that I could see what it was advertising.