Facebook Bumperstickers

I have had a Facebook for the past four years, but it has not been till this year where I have become fairly obsessed with it. Being about to talk to people instantly and having an application for Facebook on my phone to make it accesable for me to use at any time, I have become a mutip times a day user. Another aspect of Facebook that has become increasingly addictive is bumperstickers. You can browes through seemingly thousands of pages little photos with funny or meaningful statments on them. I have started to notice that more and more bumpersticker have to do with differnt prodcuts or companies. I feel that some of them are fitting and funny, but others just seem like little advertisments stuck randomly on the page. I think that bumpersticker are an awesome way to advertise to young people, but only if they are done right. The comapnies can really get their products out through bumperstickers if they are sneaky and done right. It will be intresting to see how they evolve in the future.

iPhone Applications

A new way that advertisers are able to market to people are through applications that can be used on people iPhones and iPod touch. These applications can be anything from fun games, to restaurant finders, to socail networking sites. Some are free and some you have to pay for. It wasn't until recently that I noticed many of these application were sponsered by differnt coompanies. The ones that are sponsered are usually the free ones, which makes people more inclinded to download them and have them on their phone. The one that I recently downloaded was a Target holiday shopping application. These applications help both the consumer and the advertister. The advertister gets to build their database with information about people who are interested in their products and the consumer gets to have fun with the application. Finally, a win win situation.

Kings Game Advertising

I was lucky enough to recently go to a LA Kings hockey game. I was surprised at how much advertising was at the game. Everywhere I looked, all I saw was advertising all over everything. From the scoreboard to the rink, even the seats had advertisements cluttering it. It made me wonder if the advertisments were actally being effective or it was just turning into white noise. To me, it was just annoying and taking away from a fun experence. For other people that have not been trained to look at advertisments and catch all of their sneaky ways, it may not be the same for them. Every aspect of the game is sponsered by someone. An example of this is, at the end of the second period if the Kings are up everyone gets a free taco from Jack in the Box. Its just another way from marketers to ring people in.

http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/EdmontonOilers/scoreboard.jpg

scorebored at kings game

Polital Advertisment

With the election becoming increasingly close, political ads everywhere are becoming much more prevalent. When the ads first come out, they all seem fair and equal, just trying to get the message of their campaign out. Now, all the ads I see seem to be just breaking down their opponent. I wish they would just stick to their own issues and what they are going to do to fix the economy, and other issues.
I had never thought of protesting/picketing as advertisements until this year, but now I do. I have seen so many people out on street corners with signs for or against different propositions and I just love it. Its so nice to see people actually out on the streets expressing their beliefs. Its the great thing about America. And its a great thing about advertising. You have to notice them because it is usually a big group and everyone is honking to show their support. I fairly sure that this would only work for political issues because people feel strongly about them. I doubt if Nike payed a bunch of people to stand on a street corner to promote their new line of basketball shoes people would be honking and excited. It just shows how much emotions play into advertising.

:)

FreeCreditReport.com

I've been getting these weird phone calls from an automated voice telling me my credit was not good enough to buy a house. The weirdest part is....I'm not trying to buy a house! I'm sure I just got put on some dumb list, but since it has been going on for three weeks I started to get a little freaked out. My mom recommended I check my credit score. My first reaction...Free Credit Report.com. I really like those commercials, but have never really thought of it because I had no reason to check my credit score. Well now I did, and because I was so familiar with the product from the commercials I did not even think of looking anywhere else to find my credit score. It was actually really easy to use. My only worry now is that I'm going to get junk mail for the rest of my life from them but so far so good. The best part is my credit is fine and those people haven't called me, at least not yet today :) It just really made me think of how successful those commercials have been, and how at least in my case, the commercials did exactly what they intended to do.

Product Placement.......on SOUTH PARK?!

I know that I wrote my last blog on product placement, but after I wanted south park this week I wanted to cry. South Park is really one of my favorite shows of all time. I had missed all the episodes in the 12th season, the most recent season, because I had been so busy so I decided to download them off of iTunes and watch them. I did not get far into the show until I saw many innocent of products being pushed in the show. This just made me mad. Its south park! Do they really need to do this?! I remebered back when they had a whole show about Cartman, one of the main characters on the show, spending the whole episode trying to get a Nintendo Wii. But this just felt different, almost as though they were trying to hard. I really like Matt and Trey, the creators of the show, and I can not believe they would allow this to happen. I know that their thought process was probably along the lines of, oh people trust us, so they'll trust the product. At least for me, it definitely did not work like that. Whats next....Family Guy promotion something ?!?

Prodcut Placement in Eagle Eye

I recently saw the new movie Eagle Eye. It was a great movie with a lot of action and always kept you on your toes, but there was one problem.......prodcut placement. I don't know if I really noticed product placement before this year, but since I have learned about it I fell like I see it everywhere. The one part of the movie that really drove me crazy was when Shia Labeouf's charactor is told by the women on the phone to get into a car. But she didn't just say get in to the black car on the left. No she said Porsche Cayenne. And goes on to say the full name two or three more times. It really took me out of the movie and kind of made me laugh. Its interesting now how much more I notice these kinds of products in movies.

First Blog EVER :)

Since today is September 11th, in my principals of advertising class we watch ad that came out around this time. It was hard for me to believe that it has already been 7 years ago since this tragedy. It was very interesting to watch these ads and see the patriotism in them. I couldn't find the links to the ads we watched, but the ones that really touched me was a Budweiser ad and an American Express ad. The Budweiser ad featured Clydesdale horses walking across the Brooklyn bridge and bowing down in front of a scene which featured the New York skyline and the statue of liberty. The ad made me feel as though I was about to cry. The other ad was with Robert Deniro. He was talking about how New York was his city, and it has beautiful scenery. It was directed by Martin Scorsese . It also made me feel patriotic. It was very interesting to look back and see how the commercials were back than compared to now.

:) Kelli