I love pictures of naked athletes. To see the human physique as a perfect symmetry of muscle and flesh and power, a model of performance and efficiency is awe-inspiring. Three British Olympians have posed nude for a series of ads for Powerade, and the results are as magnificent as you'd hope. Above is British swimmer Gregor Tait. After the jump, triple-jumper Phillips Idowu and cyclist Rebecca Romero show what their mamas gave them and years of hard work have honed.

I've never been a fan of wispy, limp, vacant-looking models and overly stylized ad campaigns. I appreciate both the photography and the raw beauty of these images, as the subjects are in action and supremely focused on the tightness of their movement. They're caught in a moment of exercising their craft, pristine and concentrated.

Kudos, Powerade, and photographer Nadav Kander. I'm so excited for the summer Olympics!

It’s not very often that I see an advertising campaign I instantly appreciate. That’s the power of imagery, and the power of targeting our environmental responsibilities. This paper towel dispenser shows an ad campaign for the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), and the strapline reads:

SAVE THE PAPER SAVE THE PLANET

The idea is that the more paper towels you take, the less green South America becomes. De-forestation in South America happens at an alarming rate, so anything that highlights the issue is good in my view. I’m not quite sure why green foil is used behind the silhouette of South America. After all, the paper towels are already green (which I think is quite standard throughout Europe?). Perhaps its use is so that white paper towels have the same effect. Regardless, I like it a lot.

The agency responsible is Saatchi & Saatchi, Copenhagen Denmark.

A new ad of B for L'Oreal has surfaced..and what in a ham sandwich?????

I can't even recognize her, meh.. I do kinda like it for it's overly photoshopped natural beauty LOL!

Keep makin' them dollas B!

Eva Herzigova for Louis Vuitton by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott:

You like? xxx<3

The other picture on warding of evil eye / Drishti or Nazar, this is a very famous idea used across India. HSBC too featured an advertisement campaign around this.

Seen at a shop front.

(P.s.: I'm delayed in putting up this post by a day because i could locate the HSBC adv. a bit late)

1. Create your advertising campaign yourself.

Sure, you can do it. Who needs a professional anyway? You are just going to pay for it immensely and would only be left with unsatisfactory results just because your color printing company was not able to provide you with your expectations. Or that your graphic designer did not do a good job the last time you hired one.

No matter. The reason why you are hiring a pro to do it is because they are experts in their field as you are with your business. If you want to have an ad that is oozing with professionalism and expertise, then better hire someone who knows what he or she¢s doing. Believe me. You will be able to save more money, than getting someone later to correct what you have totally botched up because you wanted to save on your costs.

2. Pay no attention to your target audience when you create your ad campaign.

You do not want your target clients involved then don¢t even think about starting your ad campaign. In the first place, the reason why you are doing this is because of your target market primarily. It would not work at all if you totally ignore them. Professional marketers and expert advertisers will tell you that in order for you to have a successful marketing campaign you have to identify first your prospects before you begin any kind of work in your campaign.

3. Do not plan; just take hold of the bull by the horns and go for it.

Just go ahead and start your advertising campaign. Everything will fall into place anyway. And do not even think about your budget or the right places where you can promote your stuff. You will just see where your campaign leads you.

Well, it will definitely lead you to failure. If you want to blow it big time, then the way to do it is to not plan your moves. This is the foremost idea in marketing: you need a well conceived plan if you want to be successful. And if you want to save what you have in your budget, then you better plan fast. You would not want to waste your limited resources and then later find out that you don't have any paying customers to show for your efforts.

4. Do it once and then forget about it.

You do not need to do it again. Your ad is so spectacular that everybody will be remembering it for many years to come.

Wrong! Frequency is the key to any successful marketing campaign. If you want to be recognized and remembered, be sure to run your color printing ad not just once but believe it or not, more than 6 times. Studies have shown that consumers remember better when they see the ad 6 times or more.

These are just some of the no-nos when you run your ad campaign. If you want your ad to fail, then use these strategies and see how your business crash down quickly.

Related resources:
Business Logos
Logo Design Service

Know more about the things that you should avoid when handling your advertising campaign with the help of http://www.justprint.com a well-experienced commercial color printing company.

why? well aside from adding an extra layer of proofreading, it helps to prevent unintentional - and undesirable - double entendres from making the client look ridiculous. granted, not all double entendres are bad. i'll even go as far as to say i'm usually quite fond of them. nonetheless, when used improperly, they can ruin a message. i'm no psychologist, but i would venture to say mistakes like this occur when a creative team is so entrenched in a project they forget to take a step back and consider what others might read into their verbiage or imagery. and then of course, the client usually eats, sleeps and breathes their product or service, so they're not exactly the best candidate for this process.

to illustrate the need for suggestion #427, i wish i had a photo of a billboard i recently passed on hwy 70 heading west from st. louis. it's advertising for centurytel, a regional cable tv and internet provider, and it reads:

GO FIBER-FAST

sure, it's harmless (and probably unintentional), but i have to think i'm not the only person to make the connection. and generally speaking, equating loose bowels with a product or service(s) isn't the best approach. i've had issues with this particular ad campaign for awhile, but mostly because it seems to lack originality. and while this particular slogan may be somewhat original, i don't think this double entendre purposeful.

side note: if the campaign was actually to subliminally suggest stopping at the next convenience station, they just might be onto something.

In honor of the first day of school for D.C. students, a dispatch on what school children are up to across the pond:

Nobody likes a narc, so backlash is inevitable against do-gooders who follow the instructions of a controversial new series of British ads from leading energy provider NPower, which charges children to “police their family’s global-warming crimes.”

The National Post reports that the ads—placed in prominent British rags like The Sunday Times and The Telegraph—provide diaries for kids to keep track of home infractions, like when mum leaves her mobile phone charging extraneously, and warning Post-It notes to leave at the crime scene, like when sissy leaves the DVD player’s telltale red light flickering through the night. Children are also encouraged to hop over to the Climate Cops website to report classroom violations.

According to the National Post, reactions to the scheme have been quick and emotional:

Some activists and marketers see the site as a clever marketing gimmick to teach children to preserve their planet. Others see excessive indoctrination tactics lifted from the pages of the George Orwell novel 1984, in which children are set against their parents, or worse, the Hitler Youth, who were encouraged to betray their loved ones for the greater glory of the state.

A spokeswoman for NPower told the NP that the marketing campaign is not intended to be "remotely sinister," and that the response has been "overwhelmingly positive."

Now I'll admit, harnessing children in such a grassroots way to help lower carbon emissions is an intriguing tactic, and one with a refreshing spin on the ubiquitous "save the world for your children's sake" rhetoric. But knowing kids as the know-it-alls they inherently are, I can't help but cringe at the idea of wiring them in such a militant way.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

Multicoloured stripes obviously look fabulous on many kids and GAP makes great striped knits (obviously)

Coming Home

using LG DARE

Considering the campaign developed by ad agency Fallon is worth tens of millions of pounds and is supposed to promote the themes of “the power of community” and “together we can do more”, it doesn’t appear to be doing very much within the global community on the internet.

Orange has been bouncing around my head since last week, ever since I sat on the commute home with my advertising friend and discussed how terrible their ad campaigns are getting. Apparently they won the Donkey Award (worst ad) for the new adverts. First the raccoons and panthers, now the whole 'I am who I am because I am'.

Thinking about Orange makes me cringe, I remember the days when Orange were the crème de la crème of communication networks. While I was stuck on 1-2-1, I'd envy the swanky customer service my older sister was receiving with Orange.

I worked in a phone store during my late teens and it became pretty obvious that Vodafone were steadily beating them on offers, however I always thought 'nah Orange know how to deal with their customers best'. How young and foolish! The figures that I found on telecomsmarketresearch.com show that Orange rank fourth for Q1 2008 out of the big four. I'm still searching for the latest figures.

I think today was the fourth or fifth time this year that I've experienced their lack of internal communications-how is the consumer meant to feel connected if you're not connected enough internally? Sales staff in stores are good but they don't necessarily know how to troubleshoot the main tech issues faced. Stores are part of the consumer experience, a part of me thinks that just having them as an outlet for sales can steadily kill that experience.

As I sat in the Orange store, wasting my lunchtime with my work colleague in an effort to resolve his Samsung Omnia pains, we listened to a couple of customers have a good old rant. The second customer's main questions (which believe me he wanted answered) were:

1) Why are online customers treated differently to store customers?

- It's a fair point that he raised. If you're trying to create this 'community' feeling of being connected wouldn't you want to focus on creating some equality in your pricing. I was really perplexed that he was told to visit the store when he called Orange customer service and then when he was at the store the sales assistant put him through to Orange customer service anyway. Do you really have to explode to get attention?

2) Why are existing customers made to pay unfair prices for their upgrades? Is there no reward for loyalty?

-One thing I pretty much picked up from working in a phone shop is that if you really want your upgrade for free you have to threaten to leave the network and prove that you can get a better deal elsewhere...you will always find a better deal.

After around three phone calls and a hour wasted in the store, Orange customer service informed my friend that he would have to wait 24hours before they could send the data update again. We rolled our eyes and tutted, why didn't they just say that during the first call?

I divorced Orange broadband a month or so ago and feel so much more content with 02. This doesn't mean I wouldn't go back to Orange...they're just going to have to find a way to prove they're more than just kooky adverts.

Anyhow should you want to torture yourself with the ad campaign please do follow this link

Naturally your thoughts on the campaign and experiences are welcome!

P.s Does the iPhone upload business card info from a pic of a business card like the Samsung Omnia does?

Here's the shark fin hoodie that Kanye wore to fashion week. Interesting choice of models that he chose. Apparently, Rihanna is broke. I guess Kanye's just helping out pay some bills.

[First seen at H.E.R.]

Look at Michael Phelps' chick, Lily Donaldson, channeling her inner hippie. At least she's no longer groping suits of armor.

[Source: The Fashionisto]

As readers, I'm guessing that a majority of you are Mac users, but either way, I'm not sure how many of you have heard of this "Mojave Experiment." What it is, in a nut shell, is this: participants know nothing about Vista, are tricked into thinking they are testing a new OS codenamed "Mojave" [like the Mojave desert...dry and boring, maybe?] when in reality, they're just using Vista.

At the beginning of each segment, one would say that 100% of the subjects heard negative things about Vista, and wouldn't touch it. They were also asked to rate Vista on a scale from 1 to 10, then at the end of testing Mojave, rating the phoney OS similarly. Microsoft reports that 94% of participants rated Mojave higher than Vista, and that 0% rated Mojave lower than Vista [you can't go below a 0].

What I found interesting was the fine print. Of the 140 subjects, 20 were not video-taped. About 30 [22%] of the participants were Mac users. Meaning, the Mac users, could have not been taped at all, technically nullifying their rulings. [or meaning they can do whatever they want with the results, since there's no hard evidence]

Another beef I've got is the fact that none of the people that were polled knew anything about Vista. This meaning that they were basically behind the times, and probably thought that Windows ME was awesome. Also, with that information, I've guessed that their computers [mostly XP] had 256MB to 1GB of RAM, and maybe a mid-range processor. The computer they tested "Mojave" on was an HP Pavilion DV 2000 with 2GB of RAM. Now, I consider myself to be a power user, and I used to be an avid gamer, I have 2GB of RAM...so of course the computer is going to run fast, as well as it would with the dual core processor.

All I'm saying is: it was a kind of unfair game to pull on users who probably haven't used a computer that much better that their own at home.

- The Mojave Experiment - Facts

PS: Vista users and the like...if you really want, I'll load up my Vista and do a review, so no griping in the comments.

Brooks Brothers has partnered with the Central Park Conservancy in support of their Adopt-A-Bench program. Deciding that they did not want an adopted bench to go to waste, they took advantage of the situation and made a photo op out of it. Imagine what Brooks Brothers would have done if they had adopted some kids, Brangelina style. The photos are in classic black and white and the outfits have some class in them as well. I've always been a fan of Brooks Brothers because of the promise of their clothes like the ones shown in the picture. It doesn't usually translate to what they sell in stores. You would think they were designing their clothes for Quasimodos with the way the clothes fit on my smaller frame.

]]> http://adrianfitch.wordpress.com/?p=128 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:58:55 +0000 Adrian Fitch http://adrianfitch.wordpress.com/?p=128 Orange recently launched its I Am campaign with an ad featuring Mark Beaumont, the round the world cycling record holder.

Mark started his 18,000 mile journey in Paris last August and arrived back at the Arc de Triomphe 194 days and 17 hours later.

BBC Scotland produced The Man Who Cycled The World, a four-part documentary following Mark's journey, which it showed earlier this year and BBC One is planning to show it from this Monday (Aug 18).

Here's a ten minute version from Orange:

Advertisements promoting Islam will be placed in New York City subway cars for one month beginning in September. The organizers of the ad campaign say they hope the ads will clarify some misunderstandings about the Muslim religion.

The ads are simple, using phrases about Islam, such as "Head Scarf" or "Islam?" The ads then direct riders to a website or to a telephone hotline to obtain more information about Islam.

"Hopefully it will erase some of the stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam. It will give people an avenue to reach someone. Everyone doesn't have a Muslim neighbor or Muslim co-worker or Muslim friend,even. So for those individuals especially they will find an opportunity
to speak to a real life Muslim who will represent their faith better than anyone else," said Azeem Khan, the Assistant Secretary General of the Islamic Circle of North America.

Read the entire article here

To find out more about the ad campaign, click here

In this addition to the McCain camp's attempts to disparage Obama by virtue of his popularity, the McCain folks are extending their argument. But what is their argument? That people who are for Obama must be airheads, taken in by his good looks and lofty rhetoric?  I was trying to figure out which of the many possible implicit messages the McCain folks thought they were conveying:

1. If many people really like a candidate, then something is fishy about that candidate?
2. Someone who is attractive can't also have substance?
3. A candidate can be blamed for the fawning of his or her supporters and their reasons for supporting the candidate?
4. That McCain is a superior candidate because people aren't passionate about his candidacy or about him?
5. That Americans value superficiality over substance (which, if true, says what if McCain should win)?
6. If "experience" is valued so highly, then what does that say about McCain's support of Bush after he won the primary in the 2000 election? (At that time, Bush's experience level was so low that compared to Obama's current level of experience, Bush had NO experience).

As many of you are probably aware, there was recently a very twisted murder on a Greyhound bus in Canada. A man was the victim of a random act of violence when another man, who was clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness, stabbed him to death in front of the other passengers. The victim was repeatedly stabbed in the neck and was later beheaded. It has been reported that the attacker also took part in acts of cannibalism with the corpse after this gruesome scene.

If this account isn't disgusting enough, wait until you hear about PETA's latest ad campaign.

PETA has decided to use this terrible tragedy for marketing purposes. The organization has released an ad comparing the brutal murder of a human life to what an animal experiences in a slaughter house.

http://blog.peta.org/archives/mani_large.jpg

This ad is along the same lines as their 'Holocaust on your plate' ad campaign. Both are completely unacceptable and disrespectful.

http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr/data/image_2_577.jpg

PETA is clearly against animal cruelty, but do they realize that by publishing these ads they are advocating human cruelty? Are they not thinking about the families of the victims they are exploiting?

On their website, in response to criticisms of the Greyhound ad, PETA brushes off the incident at hand by saying obviously it is horrible, obviously we are sad, obviously our thoughts go out to those affected by this, but... "PETA is known for being provocative." 

For me, this is not a valid excuse for such a low blow. It is fairly easy to be provocative. Say something that will offend lots of people, and it will stimulate discussion. It is another thing to be provocative and to successfully promote your cause.

This has always been the way of PETA: issue some controversial, attention grabbing advertisement and people will be too distracted to notice that this institution is no more than a vehicle for a celebrity to be naked on a billboard.

These tactics have kept PETA in the news, but have completely discredited the organization and any good that they may have to say.

In honour of this display of true bad form, and to honour those affected by the tragedies that PETA belittles, I will be eating a thick, juicy, rare fillet mignon tonight for dinner. I say everyone who reads this show your anti-PETA colours and enjoy your favourite meat dish, showing that tactics of this kind will not progress the anti-animal cruelty movement one bit.

I also suggest that unpon reading this, and also in honour of Tim McLean, learn more about mental health programs in your area. See what you can do to help. Volunteer. Donate. See if you agree with your governing body's legislation on issues on mental heath.