HP Print The Holidays Ad 12/15/19

I get super weird vibes from this commercial. The message that they're trying to send is pretty obvious, that during the holiday season, everyone is increasingly spending more time on technology than with family. The ad itself is pretty cool. They have interesting transitions, angles, and effects. The first half of the commercial isn't totally dark, but the lighting is mostly artificial and compared to the second half, where the phone runs out of battery and everyone is doing something that doesn't include technology, it is overall much brighter with natural light. Actually, a lot about the first half is just unnatural. The proportions are all off and in some shots the background scenery of nature is noticeably fake.

It's clear that they believe that technology usage is bad, because they use it negatively and show that it leads to bad things, like when all the sledders crashed into each other. However, one thing that I don't really understand is how with the main little girl, her eyes are really dark throughout the whole thing. When everything else gets brighter, more chaotic, and fast paced, she kind of stays the same. Also, at the end, it shows them printing out their holiday cards, all smiling, but then it goes back to the family taking a picture. The parents are smiling, but the kids aren't really. This could just be showing how in general I guess younger people are thought to be more attached to their phones, but I would think that if the whole thing was about screens making everything all disconnected and gloomy, why would the commercial keep a little bit of that in when its all supposed to be bright and happy? Below is the last shot that I'm talking about. The parents are smiling while singing, but not so much the kids.



In the comments of the video, which is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvlnCaMEg0Y, everyone is saying "ok boomer." I honestly didn't totally look at it that way, but people can get pretty annoyed when others say that you're spending too much time on your phone. I think that the commercial did kind of over exaggerate what the family time looked like with phones, at least for my family. We find a way to incorporate technology, but it includes everyone. Theres video games, but we compete with each other. And every year there's a movie that everyone goes to watch. Yes, there are some times where people just chill on their phone, but it a lot more of it is chaos. I don't think that it is as bad as in the commercial, and that's probably what everyone in the comments thought. But then again, I think that it really is all exaggerated for the ad. All of the scenes shown were really interesting,  mainly because the people were able to play around with a basic idea and make it weird. If they didn't really make the two different sides of the commercial as opposite as possible,  people might not have gotten the message as clearly. I wouldn't say that I liked the commercial, maybe because I can see how sometimes it is like the first half of it, but what the company did was different and interesting. It caught my eye because it has some sort of surreal effect to it.

Something that I don't really get is how the actual product is supposed to be connected to this. They do use it as the "5 printed things" part of the song, but the actual printing is not really connected to the concept for me. I know that like what we have been talking about in class is that people are selling their products by emotionally connecting instead of selling what they can do. But, HP is a printing company and it just prints a card. Ok, actually I just realized that they can sell what the company is about. It has all the family stuff in it, so I guess it's connected in the sense that this is what the company wants you to see that they are about. Thats pretty good, because I'm guessing that the parents like what they see, with the family all together. They can print their holiday card and get that feeling.

Peloton wife 12/15/19

Recently, there has been some controversy around a commercial for Peloton bikes. Their commercial showed a small family on Christmas morning, or somewhere around there. The wife walks down the stairs with her daughter and is met with her husband and a gift. He shows that it's a Peloton bike. The rest of the commercial is her starting out kind of nervous and vlogging her rides for a year. Here's the link for the original Peloton bike ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShKu2icEYw&feature=emb_logo

The problem that people have had with the commercial is that the wife already looks thin and fit, but with the husband giving her the bike, its like he's telling her that she needs to lose weight. One of the biggest things that people have commented on is her facial expressions. The actress herself said that her worried expression is probably what drew a lot of the criticism. When I first watched it, I guess without hearing about the controversy before hand I wouldn't have really thought anything of it, but knowing what people have said, I definitely do see how others perceive it.

Building off of the controversy, Ryan Reynolds was able to use it to his advantage. He's the owner of Aviation Gin, and they used the same actress in their commercial. In this commercial, its her and two of her friends, and they're out drinking the gin. One can infer from the commercial that she and her husband got into a fight, which is why they're out. The wife chugs her drink and then takes one of her friends. Then at the end, her other friends says something like, "You look really good by the way." I think that this is a pretty smart move for Reynold's company. The storyline fits with the other commercial and its poking some fun at Peloton. They only actually comment on the gin once, saying that it's smooth, but that's it. The ad isn't really bashing Peloton or meant to be saying anything about the company, but the team for Aviation Gin saw the opportunity to have some fun with it and came up  with this ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=H2t7lknrK28&feature=emb_logo

Do We Have Culture? Persuaders 12/08/19

When I was watching this documentary, I learned a lot of new stuff. I was really oblivious to how much actually goes into marketing and ads. But now, when I'm watching tv, I'm noticing how every commercial tries to do this. It's weird to think about how ads try to give us an identity. A product should be sold because of its actual usefulness, not what we think we can feel if we bought it. A product that has a spiritual connection with us is just a kind of unnatural thought to have, because at the end of the day, we all know that none of that is the goal and really it's just to make more money. But, advertisers actually do a super good job at this. There are some that did really well, especially when its a new tactic that people are now trying out.

From Persuaders, we can tell the the Song Airlines didn't do too well. One of the reasons was because people didn't really know what it was. When I watched some of their ads, I think that they did do a pretty good job at creating a persona for the company, but their ad really didn't make it clear what it was. However, in the comments, it said that people really liked the airline and how it was designed. One of them mentioned the colors of the seats, which I remember that in the video it said that colors matter. In their farewell video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO3UAtO5Khk), it looked really fun, just like the people tried to make it. So, there has to be a balance between getting a certain ethos out there, but you also have to make yourself known and it be pretty obvious about what it is.

Another thing brought up in the video was the tribes and how they connected it to cults. When you get people to join your tribe, it really is like a cult. I think that its kind of scary how advertisers can figure out ways to get us to subconsciously to things they want us to do. People look at those in cults and think that the idea of being in a cult and their ideas is so unbelievable that you would never join them. It's just too obvious for that to happen. But its like wake up people this stuff is happening to you, just with advertising. They are literally talking to people in cults or cult like things and take that information and use it against you. That is going really far, but honestly, I think that the whole thing of advertising is super far. 

Wayfair 12/08/19

For wayfair, their slogan is "Wayfair, you've got just what I need" and then there's probably something else they sing in the jingle about that rhymes with it. But, I watched three ads for Wayfair and in every single one they made a point about how they have free shipping. However, in only one of them they actually said that its for orders over $49. But this is only in small font held by a lady on a couch moving across the screen pretty fast.

If I only saw the other ads and them just featuring the part about free shipping, that would definitely make me more likely to buy from them. I'm pretty sure that I speak for a lot of people when I say that shipping affects whether I buy something or not. Like, if something cost less but it had shipping, I would be less likely to buy it than something that costs a little more but has no shipping.

Another thing I noticed about when I was watching the ad was that there was free shipping when an order was over $49. It didn't say when you spend $50 or more, but when something is over $49. I think that could be because they just wanted something shorter to write on the sign, but its probably more because its not $50. People don't want to spend the amount that is in the 10s place. If it was a dollar less being said, its like your still spending on the higher end of the 40s, but its not quite into the 50s yet, until you look at the end price with tax and stuff but still, you think its ok because at least its not in the next tens group. That's like when businesses do the $9.99 thing or something like that. It's always a cent less. A person's mindset is that it's technically not $10 even though with tax it'll be over that. When a kid wants a toy and it has the 99 cents added on, they'll obviously round down to $9 instead of $10.

All About Ads 12/1/19

As you know, I've watched a ton of TV. And during the episodes there is always commercial breaks. Two commercials that I've seen a lot is one for a drug called Ocrevus and also one for Xfinity. Here is a link for the Ocrevus commercial: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/oXat/ocrevus-dear-ms.

In the commercial for Ocrevus, I noticed that there wasn't really anything shown specific to the appearance of the medicine or what it did. Instead, it consisted of a lot of slow motion walking and a close up of people's faces. They do this a lot in commercials for stuff like this. It's just people doing an everyday thing or something that people might take advantage of that if you had whatever they were selling for, you wouldn't be able to do. When I thought about it, I guess that there isn't really much you could show about the medicine itself. People also want to be able to do normal stuff, so that probably would appeal to someone who couldn't. I don't really know why they had the close up of the faces, but it could just be to show that other people use it and it works for everyone that would need it. The slow motion part is probably just to make it more dramatic. Also, I didn't see it in this specific commercial, but in others for products like these, they always say the cons to the drug really fast at the end. That's pretty obviously so that people won't be discouraged to use the product after hearing the bad stuff about it.

The other ad I saw was for Xfinity. It had ET show up and then kids were scared, but then it showed the dad be like "You came back!" Then it ended and said to watch the full thing, you had to go to the website. I thought that that was pretty smart because everyone knows that movie. And because everyone likes the story to continue, a mini sequel would be interesting. Once people are on the website, they have access to everything else you have to offer, so that was a good marketing strategy done by the Xfinity people.