Wednesday, December 9, 2009

HuMarists Big Show


I don't know if any of you guys actually check any classmates blogs, but just in case, you should all come to the HuMarist's big show today. Especially you Professor since you're probably the only one who might read this.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Reverse Engineering - Illustrator

Wikipedia Entry Update

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Greenwich


At no time did my entry ever appear on Wikipedia. I think I chose too extreme a change for them to think it was real.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Monday, November 23, 2009

look up

reflection
mirror image
shadow tutorial

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Illustrator


This ad may have been traced or may be free hand, but I'm almost certain that Illustrator or some kind of program that uses vectors was used to create this ad. This was an effective concept for this particular ad because it allowed the colors to be bright and and almost candy-like. This would appeal to young people and the bright colors pop out to get your attention. You almost have to look at it twice because you might be surprised that it's animated and not a picture of a girl licking a shoe.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

MemoBOOST

Midterm Assignment

A Speculation on Marketing
One future product that I think has a great deal of potential is the memory pill. Especially from a marketing standpoint, the product has the potential to positively affect people’s lives and the possibility of creating a brand culture and using emotional branding means that creating an effective campaign should be relatively simple. Memory in itself is something that people often associate with family and friends. However, due to the unforeseen final use of the technology they’re starting to discover as well as its uncertain application to human brains, I will assume the product I am trying to market is a memory enhancing drug which is what they seemed to be striving for in the video.
Assuming the drug would augment your memory, people will want to see that it is not just another scam drug and that it actually works. Besides that, people will be more interested in this product if they can be persuaded that they’re forgetting valuable information every minute that they aren’t picking up their phone to order the memory pills.
The exact demographic that would be interested in this drug is unclear because no one ethnic group or gender has more problem with memory than any other. Except however, the elderly, who even without Alzheimer’s have trouble remembering things all of the time. Marketing to the elderly seems more daunting than almost any other demographic, for one because they aren’t always plugged into a television or computer like younger people are. This is all the more reason why today’s forefront of marketing techniques might prove effective.
Firstly, emotional branding is a must. To play on the emotions of those who have memory loss, know someone with memory loss, or just smoked too much pot in college, you need to inspire feelings related to what it means to remember. Nostalgia and warm, fuzzy memories should be incorporated into the campaign. Maybe a scene at a Thanksgiving table, with most of people’s faces and food blurred out to insinuate memory loss, with a catch line like: “Who wouldn’t want to remember?” or “Remember this? You can.” Being able to relate this product to nostalgic feelings like that would be beneficial in infiltrating the family life and trying to become part of it. If you can convince people that your family won’t be the same without your product, then you are going to sell that product.
Another new technique that could be incorporated to help sell this new product is across media product placement. Being able to have consumers see your product in places where they are likely to be more receptive would allow you connect on a deeper level with potential customers. Product placement will also help to associate the memory pill with a functioning, successful lifestyle, and make it something that people feel like they can’t live without. If consumers start to see the memory pill as something they need to have in their medicine cabinets, then you could even begin to form a culture around your brand.
I chose to make this particular ad because, as I said previously, the elderly will most likely be our largest demographic. It is a nostalgic scene in which some of the faces are blurred intentionally to communicate memory loss in a not so subtle way. Hopefully this will trigger feelings of sympathy or remorse in thinking about the memories that they might be forgetting because of not using our product.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Douglas Rushkoff Questions

What in "The Persuaders" surprised you (or not)? Name one new thing you learned about marketing or politics from watching the film. Name one new thing you learned about yourself from watching the film, or one thing that the film reiterated about yourself.

I knew some things about how market research was conducted, but I never knew that there was one giant company whose only purpose was to give other companies information about me. That is scary to me. Especially in this age of technology where if they cared enough, they could see when you go to the bathroom with a satellite or monitor your activity online. So from that, I learned that the advertising industry needs to take it easy and respect the personal bubble and I also learned that I would really rather not have information gathered about me, even if it means that I have to see a few unwanted commercials.

* "The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?

The amount of advertising that I see does not put me into panic mode about persuaders taking over my life, but there is no doubting the increases over the past years. Manhattan is an extreme example in my opinion. In suburban areas, the closest you get to intrusive advertising is billboards and storefront signs. The place where we see the most advertising is in places where we can choose to see it or not. On television, obviously there are tons of commercials, but with TiVo and the remote control, they are merely a few clicks away from being out of your viewing experience. Online ads on the other hand, you can't fast forward through, but isn't everyone numb to those by now. Subliminal messaging, do your worst. The advertising is all just part of our changing culture. There are more businesses now than ever before, some of which are online businesses and don't even have a storefront for people to see. Advertising is a necessary evil if we all want the entertainment and services provided by people who make their money from advertising.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Baby unaltered




This unaltered photo contains an integral missing piece. The uncropped picture shows a debatable hand gesture that in the cropped version is just out of frame. The missing part gives the picture a whole new meaning because that one hand alone is worth a thousand words. Whether or not the baby knows any of those thousand words yet is another question.

Baby

Monday, September 21, 2009

Medium Message Content 2




This new photoshop project is a lot more abstract than the one I did about Hulu, but this picture represents the new Microsoft Milan interface that allows for multiple users on one computer and a visual, physical, touch-screen table monitor. The picture represents how people are going to be further absorbed into the computers they are using and how the inter workings of these technologies are getting more and more complex and difficult to understand.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hulu photoshop Explained

The top picture, the television represents the content of Hulu because they have a compilation of television programs. The man with a television head represents the medium because Hulu streams these television programs directly to your face, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. The man watching TV represents the message because Hulu has made television programing so accessible that TV lovers can become the mush brained zombies that they desire to be.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

3 New Mediums

Microsoft Milan -

http://zdpub.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ziffdavisplayer/flvplayer2.html?show=PCMAG&movie=24

Sad Steve -

http://sadsteve.com/what.html

Hulu

http://www.hulu.com/