Greentomatocars in online and outdoor push

Having worked with large scale projection advertising in previous occupations, its an area Im naturally interested in, and am always looking for new ways to use it. 

I stumbled across this on the campaign website this afternoon, and I was blown away by it, a really good example of some guerrilla projections. 

Fantastic Projection Campaign

The campaign is for Greentomatocars an environmentally friendly taxi firm based in London.

Planning director Beeker Northam said: "We wanted to bring to life greentomatocars' sleeves-up but sophisticated approach to creating a cleaner environment. It's an inventive brand full of optimism, charm, inspiration and integrity and we wanted to make a film that embodied these values."

It's an innovative approach to the brief and I think it's an effective way of communicating the brands values and defines them from other taxi firms. Its the most creative advertising campaign I have ever seen for a business of this type. 

I really like they visual aspect of the campaign, modern technology allows designers to be hugely creative when constructing these campaigns, but they have left the visual element quite simple. The laser tag set up allows them to hand draw images onto the buildings, apposed to a polished, clean cut graphic. It's a quirky approach and I feel it really complements the brand values. 

Pre-Pay Pizza Hut

Fast food giant Pizza Hut were in the national press this week, after being accused of racism towards a group of black football players who visited their restaurant.

The Sun: Pizza Hut Story

 I don't agree that this was a racist act by the member of staff involved, nor do I want to dwell on this aspect of the story too much. However, what really shocked me was that Pizza Hut said they had recently introduced a policy of asking certain customers to pay in advance but this was up to the discretion of staff. 


Are they serious?
We are all taught from a young age not to judge a book by its cover. Now we have a global brand that are making decisions on who should pre pay for their food based on appearance only. I think this is a terrible message to be putting out and if they are not careful could lead to detrimental effects for the brand. 


Tut tut tut Pizza Hut.

Amnesty's guerrila campaign

I advise all to check this link out: 


http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/december/amnesty-guerrilla-campaign-makes-the-invisible-visible


Fantastic campaign launched by Amnesty International, to raise awareness of Amnesty's work seeking justice for unfairly treated or imprisoned people around the world.


The man in the image is Troy Anthony Davis, who has spent 19 years in America on death row for a murder he always said he didn't commit. 


Its a fantastic use of the urban environment, the railings look almost like prison bars which is an effective way to highlights Amnesty's work. 

Calvin Klein Christmas Window Displays

I read an interesting article this morning on the Campaign website. It was about the new Calvin Klein window displays that were unveiled this week. 


The article explains how Calvin Klein decided to drop the Christmas cliches and work with an installation artist for this years window displays. 


I watched the video on the Calvin Klein website, if people could check it out and post your opinions that would be great. As I found it quite interesting. 


http://www.calvinkleininc.com/cktv.aspx


I found the video quite dark, haunting almost. 


The music and pale use of colours, coupled with the dim lighting makes the video look very artistic and interesting to look at, but nothing connotes festivity to me. Its almost something that looks like it would be more at home in the V&A.


Having said this, could it just be that after seeing 23 years of red, green, gold and silver in window displays, I just don't know how to react to this visual interpretation of the festive season?


I wonder how many people will feel the same as I do? Its a risky approach for Calvin Klein. 


The window displays will be unveiled at selected CK Calvin Klein, CK Jeans and CK Underwear stores worldwide.  

The Sun - Dangerous Editorial

I like most people, was disgusted when I read the news story about the members of the "Muslims Against the Crusades" group that were demonstrating in London (The Sun 12th Nov) their actions were utterly disrespectful, and cannot be justified in anyway. 

However, I feel that in future the press should be slightly more tactful when reporting on subjects such as this. 

Firstly, let me show you a screen shot of the tab that comes up in your browser when you click on this story. 

Ok, so to some extent this is true, the people demonstrating were of the Muslim faith. But you are talking about a very VERY small minority who has this extremist view. 

BBC News tell me there are around 1.6 million Muslims in the UK. The 'Mob' however, was made up of 40 people... 

I think it’s a total disrespect to the Muslim faith to have their religion associated with the terrible behavior of 40 people. If you want to report the story, fine. It sells papers. But surely "Angry Mob" "Extremist mob" would have got the message across just as well?

This brings me to a quote: Mohammed Shafique, of the Islamic Ramadan Foundation, said: "They are a vile, evil minority who do not respect life and certainly not Muslim life."

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3223873/Muslim-mob-burn-giant-poppy-and-disrupt-Remembrance-Day-silence.html#ixzz15sERR0Ih

After all, no one likes a stereotype. When we play in the world cup, the whole county is behind our boys 50 million odd of us! If 20 lager filled lads smash up a bar in Cape Town that makes us all drunken hooligans then? 

Shorty after this story being published and aired on the news I checked my Facebook, where I found some uses had left their own very 'colorful' opinions on the story. Yes everyone was very angry about it and wanted to voice their opinion, but most forgot the mention that it was 40 extremists, and stuck with the Muslim tag. 

I think this is very dangerous, a story about 40 extremists in London has now been directly related to the Muslim faith, where we can see from the quote from Mohammed Shafique is not fair at all. Not only is it now related, but its been blown out of proportion on the largest social network site on the planet. 

'With great power, comes great responsibility'

The Sun is currently the highest circulated newspaper in the county. The mass media plays a hugely important role in shaping our attitudes and perceptions towards modern society.

Making such narrow minded links like this could have terrible consequences and I wish that the editorial team at the paper could show a little bit more social responsibility. 

Queen to launch British Monarchy page on Facebook

Facebook's global domination took a step forward this week when it was announced the Monarchy would have a Facebook page created for them. 

The aim of the page will be to inform it followers of about royal events and ceremonies, searchable on a UK map. We will also be able to add her majesty as a friend and virtually 'poke' her. 

Its seems there is no stopping Facebook, from a university students way of contacting his friends, Facebook has become almost religious to some of its users. Nowadays after a night out, the pictures are uploaded before your hangover kicks in. Statuses are updates hourly by some, and we now know more about our friends than ever. Consider this: Before Facebook I could have told you one of my best friends works for a radio station in Manchester and studied at Salford university. Now we have Facebook, in the click of a button I could tell you one on my best friends works for a radio station in Manchester, ate a marmalade sandwich for breakfast this morning, likes Lynx deodorant and is about to cook a pizza for dinner, amazing ay! 

The only criticism I have to social networking in general, is that I feel it is impeding real contact with people face to face or by phone. I no longer need to call my friend from Manchester, I know EVERYTHING that he has done today, the anecdote about the ticket inspector on his train this morning would probably have made for a good conversation, but as it is now his status, no need. 

But still, nice to see Her Majesty getting involved with the digital age, before long the next G8 summit will be held over Facebook chat!

Anyway, off to up date my status: Gary Rivers is: Just updating his blog. 

River Island - New look store

Whilst in Reading this weekend, I noticed that our River Island store had had a refit, I imagine that this is the new look for all the River Island shops nationally. 

While on a trend spotting trip in Manchester it was apparent that the 'urban' look seemed quite popular in store displays. Bare brick/plaster, industrial style lighting, scaffolding were seen quite often, all of this was used in the new River Island store. 

It looks much better, there is more to look at when you enter the shop, a vast improvement on the previous white walls-no decor look. 

I would compare the look of the store to All SAINTS, as you walk into the shop it looks very similar, even the signage outside has been changed. Lights spelling out the store name... where have I seen that before? 

Inside Store

Outside Store

Fantastic Virgin Advert

On Saturday night most of the UK tuned in to watch the first of the live X Factor shows.

What really caught my attention was this advert by Virgin Airways during the first commercial break, it was relatively long at 1.30 but I was mesmerised by every second of it.

It screams James Bond, like the intro to one of the films. Its cool, smart, sexy and really stood out to me.

Hope you like it,

Gary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbib-A6NpW8

Interesting Link

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Space-Tourism-Success-After-Virgin-Galactics-Enterprise-Makes-Successful-Test-Flight/Article/201010215755888

X Factor - The Gamu Backlash (The Sun Oct 7th)

I had to admit that when I first read the article in The Sun regarding the threats Cheryl Cole has been receiving for her decision not to keep Gamu in the competition, I laughed, I laughed a lot.

The main bulk of the story was centred on the fact that that one 'angry' fan had sent a Blackberry Broadcast to 89 of his friends bragging the fact he had made threats towards Mrs Cole, and that she was so distressed about these events she drafted in specialist firms to up the security on her home.

Cheryl Cole is possibly the most famous person in the country at current, she apparently lives in a £3.5 million mansion and has homes overseas. When filming the shows she is always followed buy a group of burly men, ready to snap the necks of anyone that goes within 10 feet of her.

I agree the young man that made these threats went a bit over the top, but was she really that 'distressed' and 'freaked' out? All seems a bit too Max Clifford for me.

Also its worth mentioning, that even though this is a very serious matter The X Factor branding was piled on every page that the story ran on. Hmmmm

Welcome to my blog...

My name is Gary Rivers, I am a student at Staffs University studying Advertising and Brand Communication.

As part of my first semesters tasks, I have been set the challenge of creating a Blog.

Some of  my posts will be related to advertising and branding, but other's will be about ideas I find inspiring & interesting and feel the need to share.

To get the ball rolling, I picked up this from a fellow blog site: http://blog.guerrillacomm.com/

Very cool business card solution:
http://vimeo.com/14252441

The above is the best solution that I have seen in trying to make your business card stand out, and the
brand be remembered.

I think this is great as it would appeal to a wide audience, sure kids love to play with miniature aeroplanes, but there has to be some nostalgia for us adults in there?

Come on, given that card, would you build the plane?

Gary