LinkedOut

I have wrote a lot of advertising trends that are the future or trends that I like. I have to write something that I actually dislike. I know anybody could write about an advertising annoyance but this one will be different. This is about something that is actually misleading to people that use the product and can be very frustrating. It is something that actually hurts the brand.

Any person who has LinkedIn has most likely experienced this annoyance. I will get to what this issue is in a second but first I want LinkedIn is for people who are trying to grow their connections and help out their business profile. It is a very serious form of social media. It is a very useful outlet for people to try and become something of themselves professionally. So one thing that has become very frustrating and misleading is when I get a notification that someone has messaged me but ends up being from LinkedIn. I believe it is someone who is contacting me about a potential job but sadly it is a LinkedIn employee letting me know about a limited time offer to upgrade to join LinkedIn Premium. I get these messages a couple times a week and it has become very frustrating. I am not the only one who feels this way either. According to many other blogs I have read, these people also hate this annoying constant messaging from LinkedIn about LinkedIn. LinkedIn hurts itself because people are stubborn and don’t like to be annoyed. When stubborn people get frustrated it becomes a war. Stubborn people will refuse to buy LinkedIn Premium now just because of the never ending messages from LinkedIn. Many people want it to end, and hopefully it is not a strategy for the future.

Augmented Advertising

The growth of augmented reality has brought about many changes to the technology world and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. The market is predicted to grow to around 90 billion dollars by 2020. One big reason for this growth is actually because companies want to showcase and advertise their own products more personally to the consumer. They are tired of the boring way to advertise.

A trend that has been on the rise for companies, is the ability to produce interactive ads for their audience. They are allowing customers the ability to do more than just read words of off a billboard. There have been many concepts and ideas that have been getting proposed. As a person who is constantly being exposed to this type of technology, these ideas will most likely happen in the next couple years. We are already seeing it with different apps that allow people to virtually try on clothes to see what it would look like without actually being at the store. These weren’t the only ideas that have been in motion or used. Many ideas include being able to hold up your phone on a busy street and looking through the camera and being able to see what businesses are in the line of sight of the camera. This would advertise a countless amount of businesses so this is definitely the future of advertising. These are just a few of the thousand ideas that are out there. There are also countless of apps that have these ideas already working. So it is just a matter of time before it becomes the mainstream of the way to advertise.

Game of Ads

Game of thrones has been one of the most talked about TV series in the last 100 years. The trailer for the newest upcoming season alone has garnished over 37 million views in just 3 days. This TV show is larger than life and now has transcended fictional TV and into actual reality.

Game of Thrones fits into advertising because it has slowly been causing companies to tip toe the line of infringing on intellectual property. You may not know this, but companies have been using characters from Game of Thrones for commercials to advertise their product. Let me tell you, I am all for it. There is something so satisfying about seeing your favorite character from Game of Thrones advertising KFC chicken. I personally feel like this is a bonus to both companies because technically, the company that is advertising its product isn’t actually stating that it is a character from the show so they aren’t crossing any boundaries. Not only that, but they are helping the show advertise because they are causing people to continuously talk about the show. It causes people to think about Game of Thrones when it could be the last thing on their mind, thus growing the brand. All in all I love this trend and I would like to see it from more companies, involving more than just Game of Thrones characters.

Mercedes-Benz celebrates Bertha Benz

In honor of National Women’s Day, Mercedes is honoring Bertha Benz, wife and business partner of Carl Benz, founder of Mercedes-Benz. The Benz’s were automotive pioneers and the automaker has made a campaign in honor of her memory.

The four-minute film titled “The Journey that Changed Everything,” chronicles Bertha Benz’s journey in her automobile-like, motorized carriage, in what is considered the world’s first long-distance drive. The company celebrates Benz’s confidence and vision, which was instrumental in Mercedes-Benz’ foundation.

The ad tells the story of Bertha Benz’s 12-hour drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany to visit her parents in 1888. She did this in order to prove the skeptics wrong about her husband’s new technology.

The ad is shot like a western with modern stylization, conveying the fear of the people as Bertha comes into town, thinking she is a “witch.”

After her carriage breaks down, Bertha went to the pharmacy to find fuel because mechanics didn’t exist and fixed her carriage as the townspeople watched. Benz’s tenacity helped pave the way for the Benz Patent Motor Car, which has grown into arguably the world’s most renown and well-known car brands, synonymous with luxury and affluence.

International Women’s Day in Advertising

A 1956 print ad for Budweiser ran side-by-side in The New York Times today with a modernized version for International Women’s Day.
Budweiser

Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, let us look at how agencies from all over the world are making changes to the stereotype way women were portrayed and how they are challenging gender stereotypes to empower women!

Budweiser is reprinting their 1950s ads that portrayed women as the stereotypical housewives. Showing their original ad side by side with the new ones, Budweiser portrayed a woman who is empowered to enjoy a refreshing beer with her female pals, something we won’t be able to find in ads in the 1950s, where women are often stereotyped as either domestic obsessive housewives, selfless nurturer, sex object and just a supporting character for a male protagonist.

Budweiser has partner up with #SeeHer, an initiative launch by an ANA’s Alliance for Family Entertainment, that aims to create a more accurate portrayal of women in the media. The goal is to see a 20-plus percent increase in the accurate portrayal of women and girls in ads by 2020. Data has shown that women, although making up half the population and make most of the household purchase decisions, are not as well represented in ads compared to me, who are four times as likely to appear in ads than women. Men also received seven times more speaking time than women and are portrayed in a diverse age range while and usually only feature women in their 20s.

Dream Crazier by Nike

Nike has always been a big supporter to empower women. Their spokesperson, Serena Williams, is no doubt one of the most powerful athletic in the world, yet she often received less recognition as compared to her male counterparts. Nike decision that they did not want to shy away from the issue on how the world is making women feel. The ad was created so that the world can see that women deserve as much respect and appreciation as man in sports and in life.

While in Amsterdam, in honoring International Women’s Day, 72andSunny, wants to show people that boobs are just boobs. Women’s breast is often sexualized in ads and breastfeeding women are often stigmatised. The ads just want to show people that we all have boobs (Male or female!) so there’s nothing to make a big deal about.

Instagram continues to be a game changer of social media

Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has been the game changer of social media. Experts have predicted that Instagram will soon surpass the OG of social media, Facebook, in the near future, becoming the most popular and profitable platform on social media. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to many.

When Instagram was gaining its popularity between 2010 to 2012, many people see it as a hipster app, where you take pretentious photos of your latte and throw in a filter to make it look good. Slowly, Instagram started to add in more features. Each time when a new feature is introduced, despite the wave of uproar at the start, many users soon accepted it and embraced it. From allowing users to post videos on their feed to allowing portrait photo format to IG story and to even now, IGTV, Instagram has come a long way. But each feature was a strategic choice that makes the app better and it has succeeded at making the user spend more time on it.

Right now, Instagram is trying to grow its IGTV but since it was launched, the result has been lukewarm. Although Instagram engaged a few creators who have a significant following to engage people to watch IGTV, many people are still turn-off by the vertically-oriented video.

Instagram knows it very well that the reason why IGTV did not take off is that video rarely look nice in a vertical format (this is why we created widescreen!) and it is always hard to tell a story using it. So, the solution that Instagram came up with was to challenge some of the world’s most creative people to show users how to make vertical video looks good in a native ad on ADWEEK.

In the article, creators from all over the world dissect the reasons why the vertical format is difficult to work with for storytelling and video production. Then they continue by showing example and tips on how to shoot in vertical format. After reading this article and seeing the creative example, for the first time in my life I’m loving the vertical video format.

I started to see a lot of potential in IGTV and how it will get really trendy very soon because after seeing all these creative vertical videos many people would be inspired to create their own vertical video and be one of the first adopters of this video format and IGTV.

When creators make videos that are aesthetically pleasing, people would naturally want to spend their time watching it. The fact that Instagram has become an all-in-one app (update function, messaging function, story function, polls, live video etc. ) means that there is a huge potential that other platform can become obsolete if they don’t catch up with Instagram when it comes to innovation. In the near future, IGTV might even surpass YouTube!

https://www.adweek.com/sponsored/the-worlds-most-creative-people-show-you-how-to-master-vertical-video/?mvt=o&mvn=0556ac8f77ef4474bf61919d89dac452&mvp=NA-ADWEEKRESPSITE-11238673&mvl=Homepage+Multi+Creative

Fiji Water stumbles onto Golden Globe success

Award show season always has its share of groundbreaking advertising moments and stand-out publicity stunts, but few have captured the attention of social media like the ‘Fiji Water Girl’ at the 2019 Golden Globes.

Fiji has long positioned themselves as the water chosen by Hollywood’s stars, so it’s no surprise to see them at the Golden Globes. They’ve sponsored greenrooms of award shows, red carpets at elite events, and fashion shows around the world for years. What made this specific advertising moment reach vitality in the social media world? The face of Kelleth Cuthbert, Fiji Water Girl.

Cuthbert was hired to stand on the red carpet holding bottles of Fiji Water, but while Fiji’s CEO insists that she was given no further instructions, it seems as though the model was intentionally attempting to photobomb as many A-list celebrities as possible. Standing closely behind the likes of Jim Carrey, Dakota Fanning, and Camilla Belle, Cuthbert stole the show with her direct looks into the camera and demure smile. The model insists that the stunt was unplanned and that photographers caught her as she was repositioning herself or looking to move out of the shot, but the photos seem suspiciously intentional.

Whatever the case, social media ate up the photos of this well-dressed photobomber, with the CEO reporting over a billion impressions across all platforms. According to Apex Marketing, the brand also set a Golden Globes record for virality, earning impression numbers that hadn’t been seen in the award show’s history. Had the brand paid for those impressions through traditional advertising, they would have spent over $12 million to receive the same success.

What does the Fiji Water Girl teach us about virality? Sometimes social media success is calculated and well-planned. Other times, brands get lucky and have a model in the right place at the right time. Either way, it’s clear that the power of social media and the value of online platforms is crucial to the way brands interact with consumers today.