4GEE

This new Ad for '4GEE' the UK's first 4G network, uses a popular viral youtube hit, namely Fenton the dog, and remakes it into an advertisement for their network. During the ad you hear the original voice clip of Fentons owner calling his name as the dog runs loose into a field containing wild deer and chasing them, the already humorous video is edited so that more animals appear in the chase, including some bizarre ones such as a hedgehog and even a dinosaur.
The Advert is funny and I think by adding a funny twist to a viral video that people are already familiar with creates a good memory for consumers to associate with the brand. The company used other popular viral videos to promote themselves, such as 'the sneezing panda' in which a panda is caught on tape sneezing scaring its baby.

The Smiths + Penguins

Manchester artist/illustrator Chris Thornley aka “Raid71“ has created a series of book covers that each use song lyrics/titles from the 80s alternative rock band The Smiths and resemble the classic look and style of retro Penguin paperback books. Each of the covers are based upon a different song by the iconic Mancunian band whilst emulating the style of the classic Penguin book covers from the 50's-60's, which also relates well to the influences use on The Smiths album covers. This work was published and can be seen in exhibitions all over the globe.

I think this is a great idea and the overall outcome worked well, the bright blocks of colour and well thought out illustrations represents both the band and classic book covers well to create an amazing piece of juxtaposition work. 

"Holidays are coming!"

Probably one of the greatest christmas campaigns of all time is created by the infamous soft drinks company, Coca-Cola. The world wide brand has created such a successful advertisement that became so iconic they run the same one every year, along side more modern adverts, and people can automatically associate it with the brand.

The popular commercial features a train of red delivery trucks decorated with Christmas lights, driving through a snowy landscape and causing everything that they pass to light up and bring christmas spirit to towns they pass through. For many people this advert marks the beginning of the festive period, and many Facebook pages were created such as 'You know christmas is coming when you see the iconic Coca Cola advert on TV.'

I think campaigns like this one really show the power of advertising and how great marketing can really sell a brand.

John Lewis

It's that time of year again when Christmas Ads start appearing on the TV, this new one from John Lewis recently launched on our screens. Entitled The Journey and set to a cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love, the 90-second, £6m ad tells the story of a snowman who scales mountains, crosses rivers and braves blizzards in order to get to the city to bring back a present – for the snow-woman who stands with him in the garden. It was shot in New Zealand to take advantage of that country's July snow.

The Ad was created by the agency Adam@EveDDB who will be hoping this years ad is as successful as last years which went viral on the internet receiving over 4 million hits on youtube alone. I think the Ad puts a unique twist on standard christmas TV ads, the song really fits the atmosphere in the beautifully shot video. It's not instantly clear what the ad is about however the end makes it very clear.

The Printer Orchestra

To celebrate the launch of Print 3.0, Brother’s new range of state-of-the-art next generation printers, Grey London has created ‘The Printer Orchestra’. ‘The Printer Orchestra’ is a full-scale orchestra made entirely out of old, battered, reengineered machines. Printers, scanners, copiers, fax machines, hard drives, modems, and even huge dot-matrix printers – 97 dated, dusty machines, hardwired and programmed to perform an Orchestral version of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’.

I think the Advert is extremely clever and works well considering how printers generally create annoying sounds. The Ad isn't unique however and the technique has been used before, for example in the Ford Focus "Beautifully Arranged" advert from 2008. The effort and thought process that went in to this advert really stands out and will get people talking.

Dr Pepper

Dr Pepper recently launched a new Ad campaign based on the theory of evolution in which we see an ape progressing to a human whilst drinking Dr Pepper. The Ad is just one of many parodies of the now infamous scientific illustration of evolution from 1965 called "March of Progress." However this Ad has caused controversy amongst many people, particularly christians who believe the ad shows support for the scientific theory of evolution, and even threaten to boycott the company. The reality is, the Dr Pepper ad is the latest in a long line of food ads that offend various groups of religious people. Burger King offended Hindus by seating a goddess on top of a hamburger. McDonald's took a hit from Muslims when it released a Power Ranger with squiggly designs on the base that look like the Arabic word for Muhammad to some people.
This makes you question whether negative feedback on an Ad is really all that bad considering the publicity it receives and it gets people talking, which is what the Ad initially aimed to do. 
Overall I think this was a clever idea by Dr Pepper in which the majority of people will see the humorous side, and although I don't think they intended to cause so much controversy I think it definitely worked in there favor.

US Election.

Yestersay was a big day for Americans as they take to the polls to elect their president for the next term. A massive part of the elections is Advertising campaigns and billions of dollars are spent to try to tempt voters on TV and other mediums of advertising. The power of advertising plays a big part in promoting the candidates and many strategies are used. 

One popular strategy used is to show their rivals in a negative light, highlighting their bad points to make them a more liable choice. 

During the 2008 presidential election artist Shepard Fairey designed the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster which later came to represent Obama in his official campaign. The poster consists of a stylized stencil portrait of Obama in solid red, beige and various blues, with the word "hope" below. The design was created in one day and printed first as a poster. Fairey sold 350 of the posters on the street immediately after printing them. It was then more widely distributed, both as a digital image and other paraphernalia. The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign.

The infamous image also inspired many different designs and online generators were created so people could mock up their own posters. 

Roman Sakovich

London-based photographer Roman Sakovich has created a series of portraits that highlights the ‘before & after’ effects of drug use on the human body. He captures and combines the before and after images into a single photo in order to make the effects of drug abuse more visible. These are bone-chilling photo’s that let you see what the effects of drugs really do to you. 

These photos have a great shock factor and are interesting to look at. They convey a powerful message through a single portrait photograph. 

LIA

This advertising campaign for 'Aspirina' and 'CafiAspirina', the painkillers, was created by the agency AlmapBBDO and won a gold award at the London International Awards 2012. The three ads each contain a bold statement, the ad then suggests which strength of painkiller the company would advise depending on who said the statement e.g 'your 15 year old son' or your '45 year old son' asking to borrow money.

The print Advert is really clever and witty. I think the message is clear and put across extremely well. The humor makes this ad memorable and the bold statements grab the consumers attention.

iPad Mini

Apple have recently launched their new addition to the iPad family, the iPad mini. Besides the obvious feature of it being smaller this new iPad mini isn't much different to the original and appears to be just another way for Apple to make money. I think people who already own an iPad won't be too interested in the new one, however it might inspire a lot more first time buyers into buying the new smaller design.

Apple ran a TV commercial for the iPad mini, which is a short clip which sees someone playing a piano app on the original iPad before merging over onto the smaller design. The commercial is quite a simple quirky way of sparking peoples interest.