Aidal

In week 4 of the Apprentice, the teams had to design a billboard advertisement for Post Cereal.

Synergy’s advertisement (on the left):

Very amateurish. It’s not very clear what they’re selling from the picture, and the text is no help either, as there is too much of it. They should have shown the product itself in the advertisement.

Gold Rush’s advertisement (on the right):

Although the winner for this task was Gold Rush, their ad wasn’t perfect. The product is upside down. On the road, people wouldn’t have the time to turn their head sideways to see it.

Healthy McDonald’s? You’ve got to be kidding me.

According to the MediaGuardian, McDonald’s is no longer using its famous golden arches logo in order to reposition the brand as a healthy eating destination in Britain.

So a question mark replaces the golden arches. It’s as though they didn’t quite know what to use, and the question mark in their minds surfaced on paper.

I’m a business graduate, and I know it’s important to follow trends. But personally, I want to go in to McDonald’s and order a large set of fries, coke and burgers. Now I’m supposed to crave McDonald’s for.. erm, salad?

Anyway, suppose I did like the idea, which I obviously don’t.. even then, “McDonald’s. But not as you know it.” is a terrible slogan. It’s not as catchy as I’m loving’ it, which even had a nice jingle to go with it.

I’m all for healthy food, but for goodness sake leave McDonald’s out of it. The two simply don’t mix.

I wanted to review a chocolate ad today. After a quick search on google, I found this from Mergent’s website, feeling happy that I don’t have to go through the hassle of scanning a picture to put on my blog. But imagine my disappointment when I read the caption:

“Rich. The way information should be.”

It wasn’t a chocolate ad. And I so wanted to review a chocolate ad.

Business and financial information, that’s what the ad is for. It would take a genius to be able to link the two together. Business and financial information is boring, and chocolate is… well, chocolate, which everybody loves. I applaud Mergent for being the geniuses they are, having come up with such an interesting ad for such a boring topic.

Not only is this ad funny, but it also shows how life can be. Sometimes you can’t do well no matter how hard you try. Even if you fall, says Nike, it’s okay. You’ll get it right someday. Just do it!

I’m not crazy about the idea of wearing plain ugly hats. The one in the picture happens to be one of those. If we could pay $1.95 to buy the hat today, it would have been a great bargain. But back in the times when it was advertised, $1.95 was probably worth 4000% more than it is today. The caption is terrible. I would never call a hat a classmate. And the hat in the pic is certainly not ‘the hat for me’.

Scented underwear? Weird. This ad? Weirder.

Antz Pantz?! A brilliant image comes to mind with this brandname. Yep, a brilliant image of crawly slimy bugs. A brandname that you would just LOVE to associate with your underwear.

The next thing I hate about this ad is the perfume bottle. I hate seeing yellow content in a perfume bottle when the product they’re advertising is underwear. What I completely despise, however, is a yellow perfume bottle filled with… stuff. Are those coconuts I’m seeing in there?

Could this ad BE any more disgusting?

Maybelline’s got a product that’s different from what their competitors are offering: a blusher for people on the go. They’ve summed it up perfectly with the caption “dot, blend, blush, go”. They’ve got the right mix of information, color, pictures and celebrity endorsement so this ad is sure to work.

The problem with most advertisements is they put the focus on the models. Most people look at the models, but not at the product they are advertising. I like this ad because it shows a happy teenager, but zooms in on her clothes, forcing you to look at the product, and the product only. Another clever tactic they’ve used here is to use a t-shirt with the brandname on it, so even if you were to ignore the ad on the side, you’d still see the brandname. The necklace looks great, the outfit matches it well and there’s a sunny, beachy, sporty feel to the ad. Thumbs up for this one!

This ad is definitely eye catching. But the problem is, I’m not interested at all in buying the perfume on the left, but interested instead in learning more about Tia’s story.

This brand name Kadu sounds really weird. And the background has a lot of stripes which doesn’t really go with the rest of the picture. My theory is, they shot this picture in a crappy location and tried to make it seem like abstract art to hide the ugliness of it. Speaking of ugliness, no one in their right mind would purchase those horrid looking pants. The color resembles the uniform of factory workers. The best thing about this ad? The model, with her half-shut eyes and half-open mouth, looks like she was about to sneeze just as the photographer took this shot of her.