To show, to sell

Advertising, what does it really mean? What is it's purpose, for many people that would be the time to change the channel and see what else is on, unless it is a very good advert that will get your attention and than suddenly you are being sold a product, an idea, a service or simply a concept.
There are a many brands trying to compete with each other for the customers attention, trying to fixate their image, position themselves higher than everyone else, problem is when everyone is trying to do that all the ads start getting a bit repetitive, and than you don't really know who is advertising what, which is image belongs to which brand. Was that car advert for the new Ford or the new vauxhall? Same goes for phones, make up, beauty products, beers, and so on.
For me the really good adverts are the ones that have a very clear brand identity, that can be done by the choice of colours or the way the advert was filmed.
The purple chocolat, Cadbury, has one of the best identities out, and a not so old advert from them with the Gorilla drum really put them in a higher place. The secret is to be different and striking, perhaps funny or maybe rude as those images tend to keep in mind or with a happy go lucky song that will stuck on your mind for days and you won't for get the brand.
Here goes a funny and rude ad from Greenpeace



Then there are the ones that the song will stuck on your mind, i literally drove my partner crazy for weeks with this silly little song, I have to say i don't really like this ad but the song just stuck on me, is that good advertising then?



Then we have all the celebrity endorsed videos, everyone wants a celebrity in their videos as they sell! But even there you can still spot the difference between a very well placed celebrity and one that just got the celebrity there for selling the product.
The first one is the famous Chanel advert with Nicole Kidman, direct by Baz Luhrmann after the Moulin Rouge. The movie is beautifully made in the same language as the movie, not so much in your face and poetic. Still one of my favourites.



Than there are the ones that makes you think, but what s she doing? Did she need some money to build an extension i her house?
This is Desperate housewife, Marcia Cross, not wanting to sell potatoes, the script is not so terrible but certainly cringe worthy.



And ten there is sex, lot's of sex, there is even a Tv show about sexy ads on fiver. These are the ones that get the most complaints, mid you people will complain literally about anything., but sex seems to bother people more, I wonder why?



Now for last, this is one of my favourites as well, audi r8, although the slogan doesn't seem very good for a sports car, or does it?

Packaging

Beauty, Food, Beverages, Toys, Electronics, Books, Home, Office, Sports, tobacco, Alcohol. All the industries fighting for their place in the market and if first impressions can make it or break it, then packaging is the hammer.
The main point of packaging would have to be to protect product and to sell it to the customer in the most convenient way. Thanks to designer packaging is doing that and more by presenting to us products either in a exciting way or environmentally friendly, or the best when it is both.
Generating a low carbon footprint is a becoming a big concern for most industries, and to achieve that most of them are starting to use recycled and recyclable material. Not being aware of the carbon footprint emission is not an excuse nor not doing anything about it.
There are plenty of organisations such as Sustainable Packaging Coalition, 'is an industry working group dedicated to a more robust environmental vision for packaging. Through strong member support, an informed and science-based approach, supply chain collaborations and continuous outreach, we endeavor to build packaging systems that encourage economic prosperity and a sustainable flow of materials.' The website has various interesting points such as definition of design packaging, design guidelines, essentials of sustainable packaging and also a link to their design library, where you can find many examples of green packaging. It is very exciting to see big names on the list such as Marks & Spencer, dressing brand Kraft and for me who is Brazilian it was specially gratifying to see that the Brazilian water 'Lindoya' was there as well.



Even though the green aspect of packaging is pivotal, there are other aspects of care and concern when it comes to packaging.
At the design council web site you can find ten golden rules when it comes to packaging:

at the website you can also view a few of his favourites packaging examples, even though there really are some very goos examples cha as This water, Perrier and others.
I was slightly disappointed to see that one of my favourites wasn't there, Absolut Vodka. I have always been fascinated with the design of the bottle, because in my mind if you think of a bottle, or if you draw a bottle, any bottle for me it would look like the one from Absolut, simplicity at it's best. The brand also is continuously releasing new flavours and versions of the bottle, which i perfect for collectors. I particularly like the las edition the rock version, which my in laws gave to me and my partner, should I worry? another design they did which I loved was the Absolut Mini bar, some might say it is a bit gimmicky but the other night it was very useful as well as looking good, and this is what good packaging for me is, recyclable, useful and it looks good.




While researching for this task i found a blog that really interested me, even though I only used it for the first photos it is definitely worth having a little look at Lovely Package.

Design and Social responsability

A group that really caught my attention is the 'Three trees don't make a forest.' They aim for a design industry with zero carbon foot print, by providing designers, advertising agencies and people who are related to the design industry to re-think their work and start producing more sustainable design that really works.
Their website can be very useful to every designer with information on green papers and printers and some inspirational cases.
"Sustainable design demands lateral Thinking"
The group is a non profit enterprise set up by three directors of well established agencies, Sophie Thomas from Thomas Mattheews, Caroline Clark from Lovely As a Tree and Nat Hunter from Airside.
All three agencies have work that are sustainable and environmentally friendly.
The cases that really caught my eye was Thomas Matthew Your Ocean
thomas.matthews created the National Maritime Museum’s first permanent exhibition made completely from reclaimed, recycled and sustainable materials.

The exhibition, ‘Your Ocean’, tells the story of the impact of human beings on the ocean and its ecosystems.

Gallery walls are made from reclaimed wood. One of the walls is even clad in left-over materials from the gallery build itself. Other materials used are old road signs, charity shop fabrics, old mobile phones and crushed CD plastic.

The other project that i thought was very interesting was the campaign Airside did with Greenpeace in 2008 when London's Heathrow airport bought land to expand the airport. i find it very encouraging to see agencies getting involved with social causes like this one as many others would rather sit in silence for better business.
"Airside’s main concern was to create a logo for Airplot that would directly communicate the campaign’s central strategy. Airplot does not fall into the tradition of confrontational protest that you would associate with Greenpeace so the logo would also need to reflect this more cerebral approach."