Interesting Blogs

Here are links to interesting blogs:

#1 Google vs. China -
http://internetcontentregulation.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/google-vs-china/#comment-6

       This post shows and describes the on-going situation of censorship in China. As all of you probably know there are many advertisements that are censored, this post is showing how far the censorship can go, so I recommend to look at it because it open a different and wider view. 

#2 Video Games to be blamed for massacres?
http://effectofvideogamesonchildren.blogspot.com/2010/05/were-video-games-to-blame-for-massacre.html

      This issue is discussed very often, it is an interesting article and I believe that everyone should have a look at it.  

#3 Children and Advertising
 http://vivianast.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/children-and-advertising/#comment-8
       Very related blog to this one, it discusses issues of advertising and brainwashing and the negative effects of ads.  The link above will redirect you to the post of children and advertising.

#4 Brainwashing and Advertisement 
http://vivianast.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/brainwashing-and-advertisement/#comment-9
      Again related post, with interesting 3 brainwashing advertisement strategies that sell and may be considered as disturbing.

#5 Media Influence on Men
http://sanjailic.blogspot.com/2010/05/media-influence-on-men.html
       A brief look at the influence of media on man and the effects of it, there are few interesting statistics.
I does refer to my post about the Axe ads.   

Recommended Webpages

Recommended webpages

This post is to inform you about good webpages that relate to my theme, humor vs annoyence in advertising.

1. First recommended webpage is on wikipedia which explains more about the advertising. It gathers allo kinds of infromation from history all to regulations about advertising and also it has some more extrenal links.

Click below to look at wikipedia and their page about advertising: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

2. Another webpage that I recomend is by a company called Advertising Age. This company deals with advertising on worldwide bases and does have a lot of information about advertising, a lot of videos and good example around advertising.

Click below to turn at Advertising Age home webpage:

http://adage.com/.

3. Next webpage is also the one that helped me to find out more about humurous advertising and gave me an idea how it works and what are the positives and negatives about this specific way of advertising.

Click below to enter webpage of Profesional Advertising company:

http://www.myprofessionaladvertising.com/Index.htm

4. This link is to a 60 great advertisments, it show very high quality of advertisement and also it is funny and entertaining webpage by a company called Onextrapixel, pleas look at it!!!

http://www.onextrapixel.com/2009/12/08/60-humorous-print-advertisements-to-tickle-your-bones/

5. This webpage is very interesting, also shows many good advertisments and it is on wolrd wide bases.

http://adsoftheworld.com/

Web Related Article #2- Annoying Ads: Do They Work?

Web related article #2- Annoying ads: do they work?

This article is primarily focused on the issue of newspaper and the online version of newspaper and its differences. In Czech republic this case can be applied to most newspapers, but specially to Lidove Noviny, it always makes me angry when I want to look up for older article or find something, the online version is just different and it is much more difficult to find an article, one could say that it might be easier to go through the trash can and just find the paper version of the newspaper .The article is also relating to TV and radio, and it states that the annoying “stuff” stays in our minds.

Below is part of this article that I believe is worth reading.

“It has become standard practice to include ads that appear as an article loads, often completely obscuring the article itself. Advertising like this is countered intuitive. The obvious response to ads like this is to close it as soon as possible and get back to the selected article. It has long been held that annoying advertising has an effect because its very nature makes it stick in the mind. This fails to take into account the fact that many potential customers will avoid products that are promoted by ads that annoy on principal. The same applies to annoying television and radio commercials; while they might influence some on a subliminal level they drive away a great many in droves.”

From:

http://www.liamalexander.com/blog/annoying-ads-do-they-work , 31, Jan, 2009

Work cited: the author is not published, nor any other info, the only found is the webpage:http://www.liamalexander.com/blog/annoying-ads-do-they-work , which was posted on 31., Jan., 2009, and I accessed it on 16.,May ,2010

Web related article #1- "Using Humor In Advertising"

Web related post #1

-by Profesional Advertising, an article :Using humour in advertising.

This article is done by a company that apperantly does advertising. It breifly explains the positives and negatives in humor related advertising. At the very begginig there is subtitle that says advertising is not a funny bussines. And supports it with three examples:“that everyone does not have sense of humour, that people can misinteprate or simply not get the joke, and that the jokes often can ofend someone“. These three examples are most commoly shortening shortening the targeted public. On the other hand there are many examples and explanations how can humour in advertising help and how it works on people.

I like this webpage because it is very clearly said and truelly aiming at particular areas in advertising, even the first time I approached this webpage I was quite shocked by the primitive and almost not ordered look.

For the article please use the following link:

http://www.myprofessionaladvertising.com/Humor%20in%20Advertising.htm

and the homepage is at:

http://www.myprofessionaladvertising.com/

Humor vs. Annoyance in Advertisement

Humor and the advertisement go together really well. Have you ever seen a commercial so annoying that if you would see it one more time you would just get up and go to buy the product to understand what the big buzz is about? Or commercial that was so funny that you had to get up and call your closes friends to share the great joke? Funny and annoying advertisement not only plant a bug in your head but also selling the product to you at the same time because with out you even realizing it, when you will be in the store and you will catch the product from the advertisement by just corner of your eye the bug that was planted in your head explode. Humor and the advertising make more than just selling the product. It makes people remember the actual commercial and if it funny and people will be interested and remember it they will spread it farther and farther for long period of time and the product will sell it self even way after the last commercial left the broadcasting because it will still run the minds of people, in the brains of consumers.

The point is that the commercials are here not to only sell the products, but to also break the boundaries and come up with something new. It is extremely challenging topic and it is almost never ending race for the popularity in the audience. Creating the real advertising in any kind of media for instance: TV, newspapers, flayers, billboard, radio or even Internet is not about only selling the product but mainly about attracting people to look at it and remember. Truly funny adverts are going to be here with us forever.

The annoying kinds of commercials have a big potential they that the annoying habit to stay in your head for extremely long period of time, and sometimes they will never even disappear. It is important to realize that it does not have to be a whole annoying advertisement it could be only one little part of even the funny one. It can be a jingle of an image but still it falls into category of annoying because you hear it over and over again. Only problem with the annoying advertisements is that if you really cross the line and make it extremely annoying adverts it can turn against you because the broadcasting companies will start to loose their audience.

The fight of public’s attention between the annoying advertisements and the funny adverts is a winner by far the funny one. The main problem with annoying advertisement is that you do not have any hard feeling or concerns about forgetting the advert because it just made your life miserable. And studies show that if a person has a bad experience with a product or in this case commercial they share it with approximate average of fifteen people. But this has a catch, the question is if the discussion about this negative experience will profit into the companies aim or the group involved will just state that this commercial is bad and that is the end of it. But on the other side the funny advertisements of any kind can be passed from person to person and it takes some to disappear for good if they even ever will. And from my own experience the funny ads are often replaced by newer ones and current ones. Humor and advertising belongs together.

Annoying Advertisement

A lot of companies bet their money in advertising of short annoying spots that will stick in your head. But if I am saying annoying, I really mean those ones that bother you for days and stays in your head and you just wish that there could be a way how to get to the court and charge them with disturbing the peace in your home. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about these advertising they are all over the media and we as a consumers have get use to it.

The question is if these adverts even work? Surprisingly they do work but not in all the cases like in example of funny advertisement. Even the annoying adverts can be ruined by the lack of information presented for the consumers. For example this would be a case of web-side click4sky.com, which is selling online fly-tickets. They came out with several short commercial with little drawn guy who just can not believe the prices that the company offers and because he believes that it is just a lie he says: “if this is true than a lightning will strike me”.

There were several versions of this ad. It was just so annoying commercial and it had one big mistake. The guy, to whom something always happened, totally took away focus from the name of the company. People remembered the guy but not what for he stands for. After all it was really annoying commercial which did not have even any effect. Waste of time, money and many people’s nerves.

On the other hand there are advertisements that are extremely annoying but still they are successful. Great example would be radio advertisement for company Mobelix that sells furniture. They made hundreds of radio advertisements, which bothered the drives more than the traffic, but what this company did differently than in the case of click4sky.com was that the main theme of the advert was the name of the company. Listening to it over and over made you to remember the name deeply in your mind and it worked I have sofa from there. Unfortunately for us annoying adverts works and they still will be here but again you have to be careful the way how it is used.

Can good idea and humorous sense make a great advertisement?

Advertisements with good idea and humorous sense can be easily ruined. They can work perfectly for you or against you and pretty much instead of making losing the money. Especially in case of very successful adverts, because people will talk about it, but one little detail can change the idea and whole point can disappear.

Good example would be Axe, the deodorants, Axe has always tried to make the advert interesting and as entertaining as they could. More specifically there is current commercial in Czech TV’s. This advert has a long history and there are many versions of it. Just to briefly explain the idea: a man walks into the elevator and uses Axe deodorant, then he leaves and younger man walks into the elevator. Next there is a seen when attractive woman walks in and smells the deodorant. She presses the stop button and next seen is when she’s leaving and both of them are tiding up.

This ad is very well done, it has a humorous effect and it is well structured and supported with great music. I do not know any one who would feel annoyed or angry about this commercial. So therefore I would say that it’s a hit and great commercial.

The point is if the producers would choose some other theme, situation or unattractive actors, the commercial would not have such a big effect. Or could ruin the advertisement. As a opposite example which does not have this funny and interesting idea are usually the expensive perfumes for men, they are also effective but it brings this ideas that if you are rich and want to be cool you need this “special edition” product. But with the Axe you get a different sense about product. The situation is set up so it does feel natural. For instance the situation in the elevator can happen to anyone. But on the other hand not many of us probably use the deodorant in the elevator.

The important thing is that people remember that it is advert for Axe because it is original and there is no connection with the rival company or anything else that could confuse the consumers.

Links for the commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL6ADmYGK2w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YpEJpSYRus&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vSPSKLNoAI&feature=related

Introduction

Advertising is at its peak, which is constantly growing into larger scale. The world is recently full with different kinds of advertising all across the media in different forms; newspapers, flyers, radio, Internet and television. It is a trend that we cannot stop because people produce more and more ideas and of course all of these products have to be somehow sold or made into a profit.

But how in this world, which is almost drowning in advertising, can your advertisement be the one that the people will notice? What makes people to notice the advertisement? Is it the color,the theme, the sound, the idea, design, the joke, the words that are used or is it the other way around, the fact that it is everywhere and annoying? I believe that the humor sells even there are funny adverts that do not work, on another hand there are so many good advertisements that are just unforgettable and sell the product. Even after that the advertising leaves the media. I would also like to mention the annoying ads that are trying to be funny but it does not do the trade.

That is what I would like to focus on this blog, to find out if the humor is really making us remember the advertisements and if we remember what it was trying to sell.