What makes you get out of bed in the mornings?

What stimulates you?  What gets you out of bed in the morning?

If you are like one of the 83% of adults in the USA coffee drinkers in the US you don't get out of bed in the morning unless it's for that cup of coffee.

The US is the biggest coffee drinking nation in the world.  And one of it's greatest global franchise coffee success stories came out of Seattle city, Starbucks.

But coffee, is coffee, is coffee. 

Same black bitter bean, roasted and ground with steaming hot water passed through it..... or is it?

It very much is

Which is why branding is so important.  And of all the coffee brands, Starbucks is just that, coffee.

  

Now Starbucks is famous for many things, fancy whipped creame mocha smochas, the novelty and cheekyness of the customers name being drawn onto the cup.  

But the creative concept in this advertisement is simplistic and almost zen like purity.

It's as if Starbucks are going back to their roots, a simple concept, a flat white being the most simple of the espresso style coffee drinks, the motto and who it's almost a pledge to return to something that was lost, a simpler existance.

And then right towards the bottom, the logo, stripped of it's name, recognisable instantly.  The famous mermaid and the green colour.

This advertisement works on a very intrinsic level, and it's very difficult to understand why it does, but if you are serious coffee drinker and you're reading this at I dunno about 10am and the day is starting to unfold, what do you feel like drinking?

Please tell me below.

Gratsi   

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” ― Oscar Wilde

They were right then as they are right now, sex sells (c) and it's a shame they didn't own the copy rights.

It's true that sex is a powerful motivator that works on all humans on a sub-concious and instinctive level.  When used within the creative confounds of the advertisement messages that are hard to resist are sent and many are hard to ignore.

Hotels, if you've every stayed in a bad one you'll know there is nothing sexy about them, but take the hotel idea and cover it dripping in the sweet sticky glossy sheen of sex and soon you are atrtracting guest like bees to honey.

The above is an advertisement for a hotel in Las Vegas.  It plays heavely on the themes of S&M and bondage. It's very visually based, which for men sex is, and it capitalises very nicely on the recent interest in the little known and tabboo world of S&M that has come to the fore with the recent
50 Shades of Grey book and movie franchise.

Sex and power, power play 

The more traditional red-blooded american male perhaps is a little more traditional and he therefore is attracted to the more less niche area of sex.

The below advertisement uses no wording at all except for the name of the brand at the bottom of the advertisement.  It reallys wholly on the visual effect to convey meaning.

The female model, posing in a provocative stance, in an erogenous display.  The male character assuming the role of the powerful boss his feet up on the desk indicating a blase and casual demeanour.

 

Super Ad-men and the creative concepts of Esquire Magazine

Below are 4 examples of print advertisements from the popular American men's interest magazine Esquire.

America was really the birthplace of advertising, it's vast population embodies consumerism and in a product chocked environment, advertisements need to conjure up new and exciting ways to get their meaning across the cluttered grocery store shelves, along the side-walks, over the white picket fences and into the homes of the American consumer.

And what would be foolhardy consumerism if you couldn't buy now and pay later

But any ol' shlub can get himself some credit, that's what got us into this mess in the first place.

So a man of discerning tastes needs to separate himself from Joe Blog with the credit that can be extended to him and the credit card eh owns.

Here the creative concepts of colour are used very well.  Colours such as BLACK, SILVER,
and GOLD, invoke power and prestige. Semi precious metals too with the novety of a metal credit card, you may have a plastic one, but mine is made from superior material, that of metal.

If these were sords, my metal sword would no doubt make swift work of yours made only of flimsy plastic.

The theme of exclusivity is carried on by the idea of membership, VIP membership and preferencial treatment (to those who can afford it)

Do you own a Visa card?  Perhaps your's works just as well as the stainless steel black visa card does?  Still want one?  Tell me why?

Advertisement No. 4

Poetic license, it sets the creative spirit free.  Not held to the rigours of right or what is correct it allows for special meaning, new and fresh meaning, to be given a new light.

Poets used it when they compaosed poems, not wanting to be held to the constraints of iambic pentameter they broke free and changed the course of peotic license and style (much to the resetnment and disgust of the established few)

These new styles of writing, writing conveyed so much meaning and emotion they did to creative writing what High Definition did to televion.

With new styles and expression can new words, if you couldn't find the right word why not borry one from other language, it became uber cool and very chiche thing to do.  Or better yet, if the right word didn't exsist, why not just invent a word.  It could be a whole new word (something Shakespear was particularily good at) or it could be a word chopped and created from 2 other established words to create one whole new word.

And say for example a cold beverage was so refreshing and just so thirst quenching the only word to desrcibe it was requenchment you create a hyperbole that is so unique to that product, and a powerful message using a word that attracts much attention.

What are your brainthoughts?  Remember to add them in the comments below.

Advertisement No. 3

Lets take a moment here to talk about the 5 senses,
Sight
Smell
Touch
Taste
and what's the last one?  Sorry what did you say???  "HEARING!!"
"oh right, sorry!"  "You don't have to shout!"

Well you might think that print advertisements only make use of one of the senses, that of sight,
and you'd be right.
RIGHT?

WRONG!

You must've seen your sister or mother leafing through the latest edition of fashion magazine only to stop at a page, start picking at the foil tab on one of the pages, then proceed to rub their upturned wrist on the page fervently and even pick the whole thing up and rub it on their neck.  Like a cat to catnip the creative concept being used is smell, usually for that new perfume that's just come out and it works a treat, MEOW!    

Felt the material of a fabric or carpet swatch?  Chewed the free single bean of gum from the latest mens' magazine, tried the squidge of free shower gel or washing up liquid that came with your magazine?  These are all creative ways company's can get us the consumer to sample and experience their products without us commiting to going out and buying them.    

But a few free squirts of dishwashing add up to a few free cases of the stuff, which can get costly.  And what if you're advertising something that people can't experience wihtout physically going out there and getting, like car tyres? 

How about if we use their sense anyway?  Make peoples skins crawl, give them an adrenaline rush, act on their senses.

It can all be done through sight.

Take the above for example.  What does it conjure in your minds eye.  Take specific notice of those long wiry attennae, those dark beady little eyes, what do they SAY to you?  How do they make you FEEL?  

And the sound?  The audible crrrunnch as the foot steps down on invertibrate instead of piled cartpeting.

YEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!  SCCCREEEAATTCHHH!!

Now take those sense and the emotions that come with them and tire them in with a tyre advertisement and now you're selling rubber!  

Advertisement #2

Before hashtags were #ireallythinkthisproductiscool #hastag they stood for the abbreviated number, or No. or Num. or just N.

And there in itself is a creative concept.  Numbers and how they are used to convey meaning.

Take this advertisement for example it's got NOTHING to do with numbers
(see what I did there)
but it has everything to do with WORDS and it's the words that advertisers use with such profound effect that when coupled with a seeming innocent picture of a man on his coffee break (Hi Innocent) the message and the meaning give you a kick harder than any mocha java could ever do. 

What's the creative concept here?  Isn't it about being creative, Innocent is sat at his piano an aspiring musician because of the creative use of words, words like

Moment

every beat, every second

Possibility

Passion

So take it and make it

Opportunity

These are emotive words and they use so eptly like stanzas in a sonnet, they are almost poetic, they read like the rhythmic beat of a metronome , it's all about music, the rhythm, the high aspirations of a working musician, working hard and taking one of (hopefully many ((this will insure a regular customer)) well earned coffee breaks.

Men's Health Magazine Ads

Here are 4 print advertisements from the men's interest magazine Men's Health South Africa.

Please won't you take a moment and comment on each one, describing what you think the creative concepts behind the advertisements are.

So think from the perspective of the admen (and women) that came up with the idea and what creative things they use in order to convey the message across to buy the thing being advertised.

Got it?  Oh course you do!

Ready for your first advertisement?

Well here it comes.

Herbex advertisement

Ok so what do we think?

What strikes you straight away?

Stunning transformation, this young man has completely changed his image, he looks a lot more confident in the after photo.  It looks as if he has certainly lost some weight, and had a haircut, but I don't think it's the haircut alone we can credit to this change.

He's lost a boatload of weight,

The classic before and after. But this is actually the same individual.

We have the before and after headings in case you were unsure of the creative concept going on here. The creatives also put in the actual weight he was before 115kg and after 94kg and to highlight this amount have used a big red balloon with the amount he's lost.

THIS PRODUCT IS INCREDIBLE!!