Movie Magic

If you still believe that a movie's success is based on how well it was made, cast, directed, produced, or any other measurement, you might want to reevaluate your current thought process. Granted, some of those things can really make a difference. However, it is no longer about how good the movie actually is.

It has gotten worse over time, but this trend of movie marketing equaling blockbuster success is one that is boiling my veins this week. Although there are many examples of terrible movies being successful in ticket sales, due to successful marketing campaigns, one in particular has stood out so much, that I thought I should write about it. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Are you serious? This is actually real, and by the looks of Twitter and Facebook, it is going to be seen on a mass scale. It's cheesy. It's disgraceful. This is a man who was an integral part of abolishing slavery, and we are abusing his legacy to sell movie tickets? The thing that kills me the most is that people are actually going to see it, have their friends see it, and perpetuate the success of awful movies at the box office.

How are people okay with this? I wish people realized how much they are being manipulated by marketing. This movie has an awful premise, a seemingly awful plot, and an extremely cliche style of filming. If you fell for it, I don't mean to insult. I just hope you see what I see in this film. It is a garbage film, with great advertising, nothing more.

Shame on you Fox, as if you could feel shame in the first place. The entirety of this whole project from conception, through marketing, and on to the movie hitting theaters, is trash, in my most humble of opinion.

Trash indeed.

Love and Hate: Athletes in Commercials

There is nothing worse than getting older. One of the inevitable side-effects of getting older is watching your favorite athletes exit their sport. Sometimes, the way in which they leave is bad enough. However, it doesn't end there. One of aging's cruelest jokes is the retired-athlete endorsed commercial. They are just awful. With the exception of a few gems, the world of awful athlete ads is filled with awesome awfulness. Did I mention they are awful? Here's a few examples to really drive my point home.

Troy Aikman and Hulk Hogan(as if that isn't awful enough):

Still not getting it yet? That's fine. There is much to display, Kimosabe. Let us continue.

Emmitt Smith, Keith Hernandez and Walt Frasier(I'm sorry it had to come to this):

It gets even worse when they do the local ads. This next one hurts me deep in the core of my being. It's bad enough if you retire prematurely. Then you go and own a Honda dealership, that's fine. You didn't have to go and be in the commercial. I'll try to remember you as you were Barry.

Barry Sanders(I can't watch):

The least you could do is try and be somewhat classy in your endorsement endeavors. There are few ads, in which retired athletes are required to speak, that go well. It is usually more of a reflection on the company, not the athlete, if the athlete does poorly. I vote to end it all together, retired-athlete endorsements. However, I feel as if it may never end. So, if you're going to do it anyway, please do it something like this.

Charles Barkley:

Yes! There you go. Admit that you are ridiculous, and continue. Don't try to be serious. You are an athlete, obviously not an actor. So, play on that, and we can all live in peace. Don't even get me started on Aaron Rodgers' ads. That's a thesis, not of appropriate length for this discussion.

If it's not the same caliber of an endorsement as you were as a player, just don't do it. Please, don't do it.

Adidas is Awesome

Okay, so maybe it's just me, but I love everything Adidas is doing right now. Products, advertising, soccer, basketball, you name it and I'll like it. That is, if it's Adidas. You could say I'm "All In." You could say I'm part of the "Smart Soccer Revolution." Any way you put it, I'm fascinated by Adidas.

All In:

Smart Soccer Revolution:

I mean, come on! Innovation in product development and marketing? I'm loving this. I hope this sneaky marketing team keeps it up. They also came full swing for the NBA Finals this year. Another area they are just tearing apart. They are putting their money where their mouth is, literally. NBA Finals ads don't sound very cheap to me. 

Crazy Light 2:

They are coming from all angles, and I like it. They are developing a serious global presence, and without the blabber that usually comes with it. Marketing done simple, but done right. It's vivid. It grabs your attention. You enjoy a commercial.

I have seen these Crazy Light 2 commercials one hundred times, but I still love them. Adidas is getting me, and my generation, at least for now. That is really hard to do. As a generation, we are demanding change, we are demanding innovation. They are actively responding to what consumers want. That is very simple, but it is also effective, and it's working.

I'm shouting from the rooftops with this one, I love Adidas, and I can't help it. 

The T-Mobile Lie

Okay, to set the record straight, I might have a little negative bias towards T-mobile after years of poor service, reception, and customer service. However, if I'm a customer, I'm entitled to that opinion through my experience with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile has awesome advertisements, and really cool approaches to connecting with consumers. They do a great job of getting you interested in the company and its offerings. Then, once they've got you, they start to show their ugly side. No reception, anywhere, dropped calls like crazy, nearly inept customer service, and hidden charges and fees that stack up quite a bit on your monthly bill. To be fair, they do offer great phones, but that's about it.

Take last year's awesome Angry Birds ad they did in Barcelona:

How cool is that? It is an awesome idea, and it played on the success of an app. If they played off of how well their service is, or how "great" their customer service is, the ad would have flopped. So, they use these great ads and great social presence to gain customers. Then, once they have them, they can keep them with their ridiculous contracts that hold tighter than handcuffs. I can't wait to leave T-Mobile. AT&T offers so much more, and here's the kicker: They actually do what they say they will. I mean come on, how can T-Mobile keep up with AT&T? The only way they can is to use these visually enticing ads to get customers to unknowingly sign up for two years of annoyance.

Their new campaign puts them up against AT&T with the "Test Drive" campaign where people will test their 4G speed versus the speed of AT&T's. Good luck T-Mobile, you might have just signed yourself up in a competition that you will lose.

Here's the new ad:

T-Mobile has become one of those companies who honestly believes they are great. Just ask a T-Mobile customer how happy they are, the response will most likely sound something like this blog. Any person I've asked, in preparation for this piece, about their satisfaction has echoed my own feelings. That's what drove me to write this. T-Mobile, to be frank, you're terrible.

Here's how one YouTuber felt about their test drive section on their site:

You're not fooling me T-Mobile, I'm on to you.

PVH: New Marketing

This last Superbowl, I witnessed a campaign that totally peeked my interest. It wasn't a Superbowl commercial, but it was a campaign designed around it. One of PVH's many brands, Van Heusen, launched a campaign called "The Institute of Style" featuring Pro Football Hall of Fame's Steve Young, Jerry Rice, and Deion Sanders. It was based on a survey conducted by GQ and Van Heusen. The survey was conducted to discover the truth about male fashion, or lack there of, in the United States. What it found was there is need for improvement.

“We felt the men of America were lacking when it came to style and the survey with GQ confirmed it,” Mike Kelly, PVH Corp. Executive Vice President of Marketing. “We are launching the Institute of Style to help guide American men in a way that is also fun and interesting. We are bringing them trusted voices from GQ, ESPN and Van Heusen to help them get their style back.”

Here's the institute of style ad: 

Van Heusen doesn’t stop there; they used the website to challenge men to use their stylistic transformation to win a trip to the Super Bowl. By documenting the before and after photos and submitting them to the “Schlub to Swagger” section of the Institute of Style, they could enter to win. There was a special panel, including the campaign ambassadors Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders, as well as style experts from GQ, Van Heusen and ESPN The Magazine, that selected and rewarded the best entry.The winner and four friends got to fly in a private jet; attend the most exclusive VIP parties, experience a full style makeover, and sit in a suite watching the Super Bowl with Steve, Jerry and Deion. 

I think there is something really special about a campaign that doesn't demand anything from the customer, but rather it invites them to be a part of the brand. The campaign established a bond between Van Heusen and its customer. It connected the audience with the brand in a way that is not invasive, and is actually quite welcome. I can't wait to see what PVH comes up with next.

Nice work PVH, nice work.

Don't trick my kid

I recently went to an outdoor mall to get some stuff for my mother's birthday and Mother's day, which is quite close to her birthday. That went fine, Yankee Candle is a lifesaver for late present purchases for moms, who like candles. However, while my son's mother was finishing up paying for her candles, me and my son, Ki, came outside to check out some stuff. Right next door was a shoe store, Stride Rite, on the outside there was a poster advertising their new Marvel, Avengers-based shoe line, for kids.


Now, that's all fine and dandy, until my son asks me if we can get them so he can,
A.) fly
B.) stomp green cracks in the ground
C.) manifest a shield from his mind
D.) shoot webs from his wrists.

This stuff drives me nuts, as a dad. If I have to see the look on my son's face when I tell him he cannot fly, stomp green lines, present an imaginary shield as actual, or shoot webs from his wrists, one more time, I might lose it. My boy loves the avengers, loves super powers. So when he saw this, he wanted them, naturally. However, it wasn't because of the shoes. He wanted the powers, being falsely advertised to the unexposed mind of my son, Ki.

In the words of my son Maleki James Meyer, "Stop tricking me! It's not fair making me think I can shoot webs. I'm mad!"

Now, don't get me wrong, yes it's effective, but not at the expense of the hopes and dreams of my son, or anyone else for that matter. In the five minutes we were standing there, at least three other boys asked their parents the same questions. "Can I get those? I want to fly like Iron Man." Obnoxious!

Now, my son refuses to wear or buy Stride Rite shoes, and I'm joining him. He understands at four years-old, that they are deliberately trying to trick him. You lost a good one Stride Rite.

Shotty call Stride Rite, shotty call.

The United Way of Greater Milwaukee

Last semester, at Marquette, I had the privilege of creating a 360 degree ad campaign for the United Way of Greater Milwaukee. I was to select a currently existing campaign, and then create a new one that would continue the success of an already existing campaign. The campaign I chose was in regards to one of their programs, Healthy Girls. This is a program designed to educate young women in Milwaukee about the dangers of being a young woman in today's world.

The ads for this campaign are incredibly good at grabbing your attention, and drawing you into the ad. From their bus shelter signage, to their posters, and their billboards, it is all aimed at the ultimate goal of keeping young women informed. They do a great job, but there is one area of affect, that they might not have considered when creating the campaign; they "Villianize" men.

I felt they had done an incredible job at gaining the attention of young women, and the statistics associated with teen pregnancy and infant mortality have shown this to be true. However, I do feel as if the ads have the potential to damage the self-image of young men. So, when I made my campaign, I focused on encouraging young men to be gentlemen and women to be lady-like. As opposed to demonizing men in order to educate women.

Here are some of their ads:



They're great, right? Yes, but if we look a little close at the message being communicated, it sounds less constructive towards increasing the positive relationship between young men and women. For example, in the first ad, the bottom caption assumes that young men aren't aware of statutory rape laws, and that they do as they please with underage women. This isn't true beyond a small percentage of men, who give the lot of us a bad rap. I feel the most effective marketing targets both genders, and definitely doesn't demonize one side or the other.

Now, mind you, I am not a pro at ad design, but I wanted to share a few of the mock-ads I did for the United Way of Greater Milwaukee. My campaign focused on iterating the fact that, condom use, is common sense. Therefore, Condom Sense was born.

I feel that they did a great job, the goal they were after was accomplished, and is still effective at ultimately reducing teen pregnancy and infant mortality. I just wonder how the negative portrayal of the expectations we have for young men will effect the young men who are touched by the ads.

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for the day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life." -Anne Isabella Ritchie, from her book Mrs. Dymond