Store dis(play!)

IMG_0097, originally uploaded by dishi54.

strange sign- supermarket wisdom

supermarket wisdom, originally uploaded by Dale Anderson Mason.

After 74 bands, 100 movies...

The Virgin Digital "Exercise Your Music Muscle" contest has already become sort of a legend in viral marketing. The well crafted image contained graphical representations to 74 music bands which the viewers had to identify. Challanging enough to provide endless hours of amusement and head scratching! Click here for the full picture and the answers.

Now along the same lines, lovefilm.com has launched a contest celebrating 100th edition of their weekely newsletter. Click here for the full image, and the answers. Lets see how much buzz this's able to create, n how many movies you can spot.

What I have learnt in Advertising

I'm on the threshold to join Advertising. Here are my learnings from observations in life & teachings. These are not laws but my beliefs, many of which waiting to be busted..

• Advertising is the second oldest profession in the world. We all know what’s the oldest one. (Maybe advtg got triggered by the increasing competition in the oldest one..!)
• There are no rules in Advertising; only trends. Trends, waiting to be reversed.
• Advertising in one word: PERSUATION
• God lies in detail. Even a lame idea can go places if executed well. Execution plays the most important role after the idea.
  
• Women have been used to sell anything & everything under the sun.
• Audience’s state of mind: Yaa that people are leading busy lives n nobody cares for the odd 3000-5000 advtg messages he’s daily exposed to. But hold, its also true that gradually people have developed a taste for ads. Good (read ‘creative’) ones are noticed and discussed like fire. Interestingly, when we are sifting through the pages of a magazine or newspaper, we’re as well seeking ads that stimulate & thus entertain us. There are websites that cater to this particular need gap.
  
• Collection of experiences: Advertising is all about exaggeration. And its not amplification to say that all ads are based on real life people & experiences. (Ya dont believe..?) Thus what one needs is to keep the observant eye open & analyze it with a few ‘ifs’ thrown in.
• Ads that don’t seem like ads: Determined to get consumers' attention, advertising has taken its creativity outside the box and into new dimensions. No-Copy Advertisements offer a solution in the form of messages without the messages. They employ an indirect approach by placing visuals that represent single strong proposition, and cutting out unnecessary copy. This does breaks clutter by being unconventional, and is currently the flavor of the season.
• Involve the audience for gaining retention (visual vs copy): Advantage with No Copy ads is that they are indirect ads led by visual information posing a puzzle to the audience. Now the audience gets involved in trying to find out the intended message and finally when he cracks the ad, the process and the brand gets registered in the memory. While, traditional approach simply lays down the verbal claims and hopes for the brand to reach the consideration set of the audience.
  

Posting more soon...

Wanted Steve

Steve, originally uploaded by McK74.

Found tis interestin one on Flickr...

Blast from past: Axe Viral

Told you about the 'hot' Napster viral here.

Now, here's the hugely popular Axe Feather Viral. Its been circulated umpteen number of times , but still holds the audience.

The user has to tickle the female with a feather & she makes different gestures (oomph!). She is highly motivated, n even yawns if you're boring her.

Clever use of imagination coded into flash action script. Goes absolutely well with the Axe philosophy of tickling the male libido..

Water Bears, the world's toughest animal !

Oh man, what if this thing was comin' straight for ya! Too bad you wouldn't notice it - the biggest one would be a millimeter and a half in size, and you'd probably find it on a lichen or moss.

They are apparently the World's Toughest Animal. You can shoot them into space, take them to the deepest ocean depths and let them go, deprive them of air, water, and food for years and they don't care. Send them into the core of nuclear reactor. They'll be fine.

Check out wikipedia's take on these 'bears' containing more amazing facts such as : They can hang out at 150 degrees C, or close to absolute zero. They found a living one that had been hibernating for 120 years...etc.

Uh... I'm not impressed. Do you have to be so small to be 'eternal' or invincible ?!

For St. Valentine's Day: The famous love sign!

Nobody can deny from the famous, omnipresent double-lobed heart symbol: the symbol of love; & must also have wondered about its origin. The heart shaped symbol is definitely not inspired from the shape of the heart. (Alas!)

Well, the symbol traces its origin to the famous 'pair' of the female anatomy(as you rightly guessed!), but hold on, its not those curves which you're thinking of..

Read what the history & research work says, & links it to the Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite's 'assets'... (Agreeably!)

Advertree

..'m sure this tree wud be makin lotz of money..!

Some fun with ads!

found at flickr

Skype Device!

Ok, so we used & felt glad that there are some free applications that can enable real time talking over the net (read:Skype). But now they have gone a step further & got a handset which is Skype enabled! Checko!

Top Ten Moments in Apple's History

We all know a lot about Steve Job, iMac & iPod. Here's an interesting reading of Top 10 events in Apple's life- right from its inception to OS X to G5. (..like it all started on April Fool's Day!)