Marie Dolby Chapters 13, 14, & 15

Chapter 13
In chapter 13 the ad for Old Spice Swagger really caught my eye.  I love this campaign and love how the ad is interactive online.  It is sarcastic yet very funny and I feel many men can relate to it.  This ad campaign was launched to enhance the online experience of the customer and to move their ads to something different than print and TV.  Items such a banners and Web Videos are used to draw more traffic to the website and to make it more fun for viewers.  An ad campaign that reminds me of this is the Dove ads.  They have been continuously updating their image to a more modern, realistic image.  By rating products online and interactively participating in surveys, you can win free products.  This encourages the consumer to not only participate, but to use the products.  Both ad campaigns are successful.

Chapter 14

The UrbanDaddy app is really great.  I love how it is very target specific.  This male is upscale and in the know.  They are also concerned with fashion and appearances.  Not only will this app help men to find the latest and coolest places to go, but it will keep them updated on style and fashion on the way.  An app that I find to be similar to these are dating websites such as Are You Interested? which is an app in which you can look at profiles and rate them based on their pictures and information.  This app helps you find people in your area to date and also creates circles of people in which you can group date or have fun outings with.  Both of these apps are geared toward specific audiences, those who are out and about and who are looking to date.  

Chapter 15

When there are interactive ads such as the Coach "design a Coach tote" I think it makes whatever is interactive, in this case it is the tote, to be a big seller and very popular.  People like to feel like they have things that are one of a kind and like to be able to tell people that what they have is a name brand. Something that I find to be very similar is the Nina shoes brand which allows you to create your own shoes with different fabrics, patterns, colors, and details such as sequins or crystals.  I have designed my own Vans and a few purses and love them, because I was the one who picked out all of the details.  i think this makes brands more customer aware because they are literally giving the consumer the options to do what they want.  People feel like they are truly getting what they are paying for and are guaranteed happy with the end product.  Below is a screen shot of the shoe designing process. 

Callebert Final Spoof Ad

Katie Callebert
Final Spoof Ad

  5-hour EXTEND Your-Binge (5-hour Energy)

Print Ad - Parade Magazine
Ad on back of bus

 Logo Changed

Reflection Essay

My print ad would appear in Parade Magazine. I receive the Parade Magazine every Sunday with the Chicago Tribune and thought this would be a perfect choice for my subject. I chose to spoof 5-hour Energy, energy shots. I changed the name into 5-hour EXTEND Your-Binge. The purpose would be that if a person is binging on crack cocaine, and has to go to work, or school they can extend their binge for five more hours.  I wrote this explanation to go along with the print ad, but I chose not to include it.

Have you just arrived at an abandoned building to realize you are out of sweet, sweet crack, and you are late for work?!

Well, there is no time to shoot over to the west side to turn a trick, to get money to comp.  Something has got to get you through the day. That something my friend is 5-hour EXTEND Your-BINGE. Guaranteed to create that manic psychotic state of euphoria that enables you to drag yourself through the motions at the office.

I recreated the 5-hour Energy logo and bottle to match my spoof idea. In addition both of my ads are inspired by real 5-hour Energy ads. I used a orange, yellow, red, and black color scheme which matched the actual logo and bottle.  Both ads have a black background, and a red border. Also, I have used the font Impact throughout my ads. I believe the fact that I used the same colors and design features brought a unified look to my ad.

I do not drink 5-hour energy, but have heard that many people take them when they go out so they can have more energy and stay out longer. I just took this concept and exaggerated it and brought it to the next level, hoping to make it comical.

I am hoping that the comical relief came across in my ads and that the crack head on my print ad looked as creepy and grungy as I intended. In addition I did try to create a unified design with the colors and fonts. I spent several full days on this project and I really tried to make it successful. I spent a great deal of time on the details, and I am also hoping that came across.

When I saw the ideas of my classmates I knew I wanted to expand my ideas and do something that was not similar to the other projects. I saw many good ideas and I am eager to see the completed projects.

Eric Montanez - Spoof Ad Final

For this project I spoofed an advertisement from Pony Shoes that I came across in Filter, a small time music/fashion magazine.  While this spoof ad was initially my backup option because I thought my spoof idea of Ugg For Men was stronger, after reaching the final design of both ads I felt the Pony design came out more complete. 

After discovering the advertisement, the first step I took was sketching out some possible routes with a pencil and better.  I decided I wanted to stick closely to the look of the original ad so took to photoshop and began finding images of all the elements that composed the advertisement such as the Pony shoes and Pony logo, and then found a text that resembled the one used in the ad to start reconstructing the ad with my spin included.

 The overall influence of this design was to reflect my reaction after initially seeing their advertisement, which was something similar to “why are they still making shoes.”  I attempted to draw out the fact that they are a brand long past their prime have become practically become obsolete over the years. The most dominating area of text in their ad read “achieve” and formatted it such as a definition in the dictionary would do; I kept that format but changed the word to say “ancient” and continued to define it.

As far as my goal for reflecting the original ad, I feel the design is successful.  I believe the format and layout of my spoof ad match the design concept of the original Pony advertisement.  However, because my main focus (for both spoof ad ideas) was to reflect preexisting ads, I feel that I lost some room for creativity. 

Emily Iammarino - FINAL Spoof Ad

For my final spoof ad I chose to spoof the brand Yellow Tail. Yellow Tail is a cheaper wine brand that is normally bought for dinner parties and targeted towards women. So, to spoof this brand I decided to change the name to “Get Some Tail” and target it towards men. My goal of the spoof was to make the brand seem more sleazy and raunchy, due to the new name of the brand.

            The medium that I have chosen for this spoof ad is print. This ad would be a print ad that would be placed in various magazines, on billboards, and other city-type structures.

            The audience for my ad consists of young men, ages 21 – 30, that normally buy lower to mid shelf alcohol. These men are the targeted because they could benefit from the product’s ability to help them pick up chicks or “get some tail.”

            My final spoof ad takes the form of a glossy print ad that features a pair of woman’s legs that are straddling a bottle of “Get Some Tail” wine with the taglines: “the wing man that never fails” and “pour some more till her panties hit the floor.” The layout and overall theme of my spoof ad closely mocks the real Yellow Tail print ads. I believe that the black and yellow colors are the most unifying principals of this work so I used the same yellow and black pantone colors as the original Yellow Tail ads. I  also mocked how the ads feature a black and white photograph with a drawn in “yellow tail” or yellow element. In my ad I made the woman’s legs black and white and then illustrated a pair of yellow high heels onto her to add sex appeal. The product is placed in between the legs in a sort of suggestive matter to also up the raunchy factor. The overall look of my piece is very geometric and simple because I made the message pretty clear and simple to understand due to its form.

d) What does this work have to do with you if you are the creator? What particular experiences or attitudes do you bring to the work?  How does this work compare to others you have seen in class or have seen and read about? Is it in dialog with others works you have seen in class or have studied? How does it compare to other student works in class? 

            This spoof ad relates to me because I am a pretty loyal user of the Yellow Tail brand wine because it is one of the cheaper wines and it’s sold everywhere so it’s easy to pick up for a night in with the girls or a fun dinner party. Also due to my own experiences and living with 6 other girls I know that girls love to drink wine. To many girls, wine is something that they go to because it has a different appeal than other alcoholic beverages; i.e. more classy. So, when a man to brings a girl a bottle of wine they see it as romantic or classy gesture. So what I’ve done in this ad is flipped this perception to the males point of view, which is basically expressed in the taglines “pour some more till her panties hit the floor” and “the wing man that never fails.” I brought a kind of sleazy and sex-crazed attitude to the brand that I frequently see every weekend in the drunken men of Lincoln Park’s finest bars. Like many other students’ work in the class I was able to make a joke out of a product by pointing out a different use for it that opposites the original advertisements’ messages but keeps a similar look and feel.

            I definitely used the original Yellow Tail print ads as a reference for comparison because I was trying to mock their style as closely as possible. As for influence I like to look towards artists who make simplistic, illustrative graphics (like Saul Bass) because I think they can convey a big message without having to be a big cluttered mess. I like things that are simply constructed, clean, and easily can get a message across.

            The purpose of my spoof ad is to poke fun at how some men need the help of alcohol in order to get laid. As my tagline stated it acts as a sort of “wing man” because it’s helping them “get some tail.” I believe that my final spoof as is successful at conveying this message though a clever use of imagery and catchy, tongue-in-cheek taglines. I’d say the weak part of my ad lies within my not-so-great Photoshop skills; because it’s the devil and I normally like to use Illustrator and InDesign. 

Nick Souksavat - SPOOF FINAL

The brand that I am spoofing is TOPSHOP which is a British based clothing retailer that was founded in the mid-1960s. The brand has established itself to be a one stop shop for fashion, offering a wide variety of clothing that spans many styles. Similar to H&M, clients can find just about anything from lax casual to edgy street fashion. The main differences between the two are that TOPSHOP offers its clients supposaed better quality in materials and designs, but with that comes a much steeper price point comparatively. In recent years, a lot of hype has been built around the TOPSHOP brand once it made its bridge to the US.

To spoof the brand, I changed the name to $LOP$HOP. I incorporated $’s to emphasize the high price point and changed the word “top” to “slop” for the fact that if you look at their collection, their general design aesthetic does not compensate for the amount that they charge consumers.

The medium that I’ve chosen to make my print ads with is digital photography. Like any other clothing brand, TOPSHOP relies mainly on print ads to market them. The ads are meant to show off clothing on a model to give clients inspiration on how to make style conscious outfit choices. In terms of composition, I took a very straight forward approach where the model is the main focus with nothing else to really distract the message of the advertisement. In order to keep it interesting, I had my model pose in dynamic shapes to create different pulls to give the entire image balance and life. My personal aesthetic is to highlight some features but keep things sharp and that’s demonstrated through the deliberate posing and color scheme. I used a lighting kit to manipulate the shadows and also to make sure colors were represented properly.

I feel that TOPSHOP was a brand that I am comfortable with addressing because I work in retail, and for many years I’ve been reading fashion magazines and blogs which gives me other insight to compare with my own personal style. My sensibility is often geared towards more minimalist and classic whereas TOPSHOP in my opinion can come off very gaudy/pretentious. Therefore, my investment with the spoof ad is to call attention to the distorted vision of fashion that people have placed on something based on a brand name. I have friends who shop there who often tell me that the actual fabrication of the pieces they purchased doesn’t merit the amount of money they spent on it. Compared to others in the class, I think everyone generally has a good grasp on how to design. The ideas are always flowing and they have a good sense of what’s more effective and what’s not. The only variances that I’ve noticed are execution levels (some people are more versed in design programs) and obviously personal opinions in taste.

In addition to the print ads I composed, I designed a new shopping bag for the spoof as my alternate form of non-conventional marketing. Taking the advice of some classmates, I took the iconic plastic bag that just says “thank you” repeatedly with a small tagline at the bottom for example, “have a nice day!” and modified it to be cohesive with the message I am projecting in my print ad.

I think from a design standpoint, my ads and bag are successful. My main struggle fell into conveying the message through the actual ad because the simplicity of a fashion ad worked to my disadvantage. There wasn’t really room to incorporate a slogan that would help get my point across. Instead I just used pricing to communicate the message.  

Niederer - Spoof Ad Final

conventional ad

unconventional ad - to be placed above bottles of liquor in liquor stores

This piece is entitled ‘WiNO: Have your way with your boozing,’ created by Carissa Niederer as a spoof ad pulling design styling and inspiration from MiO’s print ad campaigns.  The materials used for production were Adobe Photoshop in conjunction with Adobe Illustrator to create the print designs; the designs were finalized on 30 April 2012.

Both mediums are prints, one being a magazine and the other being a thin cardstock that would be placed over bottles of alcohol in liquor stores.  The specific subject is a spoof advertisement of MiO’s print ad campaigns, utilizing their primary styling for an effective spoof.  The primary compositional element that causes the piece to stand out is the switching out of a water glass for a vodka bottle: it catches the audience’s attention because the iconic view of a large alcohol bottle being replaced with a simple glass of water is naturally attention-catching; typically we do not see unlabeled bottles of alcohol in advertising.  Additionally, the general simple aesthetic applies itself to being highly effective.

This spoof advertisement applies to me because I’ve seen it in action personally: I’ve been to numerous parties and pre-gaming events in which this product sits right next to the shot glasses, and is used to help smooth the shot-taking process: people add the “water enhancer” to their shots to make it taste better.  I’ve always found this to be very amusing, as the advertising campaigns declare this as a “water” enhancer, yet I’ve never seen it used as such: so I applied this into my advertising campaign.  I think it fits along well with other spoof advertisements I’ve seen: it has a play on words and follows along with the brand’s aesthetic for a believable spoof.

The designers for MiO’s original advertisements used a very minimalist aesthetic to get their point across, and I followed their lead with my work.  The minimalist aesthetic is useful in delivering messages effectively, and it works both in the original ad as well as in the spoof.

Events and ideas that shape my approach center around the way that spoof ads have the tendency to mimic the styling of the original advertisement.  I utilized MiO’s general aesthetic, picking up their colors and fonts in order to carry along the exact same feel and therefore make for a successful spoof.

My purpose is to bring to light the “alternative” use of the MiO liquid water enhancer—I personally have never witnessed the stuff being used as a water enhancer, but instead as an alcohol enhancer, and I wanted to bring this to attention with these spoof ads about alcohol use.

The final project is quite successful; I feel that it gets the message across promptly, which is the goal of any successful advertisement. The major strengths center around the iconography I created for the spoof: the vodka bottle works very well as a distinctive but clean departure from the water glass that catches the audience’s attention.  A weakness is the body text—I found it challenging to come up with an equivalent to the body text  on the original MiO advertisements.

Ally Geoffrey's Spoof Final

For my project, I created a print ad spoofing Verizon Wireless by changing the name to Verizon Wirelost. My objective was to make fun of the poor cell phone service and dropped/lost calls that tend to happen with the network. I am a Verizon Wireless network user and have experienced the poor service first hand. The ad is titled “Can you hear me now? What?!” by Allysen Geoffrey completed on April 30th. I created my logo in Illustrator and created my background with buildings and fire I found online in edited it Photoshop. It was too difficult to have a photoshoot and recreate an angry crowd, so the mob is made up of angry people I found online and added some torches to the mix. 

a.) My target audience is 18-45 year old men and women since they are the primary cell phone users. Also, the older adults usually control what network and plan they’re on which controls what plan their kids and other family members are on and depend on a good, reliable network. The format is a print ad in People Magazine so it reaches a variety of viewers. My second format  will also be print ad but on a Billboard. The ad doesn’t have very much text so it is pretty simple and to the point which is the purpose of a Billboard.

b.)Verizon Wireless ads typically depict the Verizon Wireless Guy surrounded by smiling and supportive network users, however my ad contains not so happy users.  My main subject is of the Verizon Wireless Guy being chased by an angry mob of users who are fed up with dropped calls and bad service. 

c.) Overall, the print ad is fairly simple. The curve of the crowd and gradient from small to large lead the viewers eye to VW Guy, who is a recognizable figure with Verizon, and the short tagline. I created my logo in Illustrator and created my background with buildings and fire I found online in edited it Photoshop. It was too difficult to have a photoshoot of an angry crowd, so the mob is made up of angry people I found online and added some torches to the mix. 

d.) As I mentioned, I am a Verizon Wireless network user and have experienced the poor service first hand. My brother and I have both experienced software issues and needed replacements within the first year. Without a doubt, my cell phone drops calls in the student center and I rarely get service in the library, labs, or other office buildings. I miss text messages because they come hours late. This ad is a way of showing mine and many others frustration with Verizon Wireless.

Being my first design class, I am very impressed with my classmates work! Many of their spoof names are clever and their editing work is even better. I really appreciated everyone’s feedback during our critiques.

e.) I used one of the old Verizon Wireless “Can you hear me now?” ads as a guide. I tried to keep my ad simple, but didn’t want to copy the plain white background and I am a little nervous that my ad is a little too cluttered. We discussed in class that sometimes less is more. Finally, I wanted to recreate the “network” because they represent me and the other dissatisfied network users. 

f.) It was the day we shared our very first spoof ad ideas. I had no clue what I was going to spoof and was getting concerned. After class I called my brother to see if he had any good ideas when his call got lost. That’s when I decided to do Verizon Wirelost. 

g.) My purpose is to bring attention to the poor and unreliable service of Verizon Wireless and illustrate users frustration and irritation toward the network. 

h.) I think I tried my best on this project and given my lack of Photoshop/Illustrator experience, I think I was still able to get my idea across. My weakness was definitely lack of experience but at least now I have some for our next project. 

Here is where I got my inspiration for Verizon Wirelost and the network users.