my own ad school

This pretty much cracked me up.

(via: junior planner i am)

I found this interesting post at Interactive Marketing Trends. This is a pretty clever idea to put the word out about an internship.

(for the complete campaigns: Heinz Ketchup, Slim Fast, Wheaties)

Take a look at these ads. What do you notice? They all have something in common. Each ad is using a strong visual to sell the product instead of using words. There’s barely any copy on them, and if there was, it would either be the brand/product name and/or a simple sentence or phrase.

As I was brainstorming for ideas on my first spec ad, some of the ideas followed the same approach as the above ads while some had an emphasis on the copy with a simple image. From what I’ve gathered, if one element is the main emphasis of the ad, the other element should be as simple as it can be so that it won’t take anything away from the other. Otherwise, it would all just be too much for a consumer to take in. So, if the ad is relying on the captivating copy, the image should be plain and simple (if there was one). And if the ad had a strong visual which tells the story, then the copy should be simple and short (or none at all).

Here are some ads where the copy is the storyteller:

(for the complete campaigns: Adidas, Dove Pro Age, Pause & Play Festival)

Ernest Hemingway was write when he called the empty page the “white bull” - it is intimidating.

Good thing Luke Sullivan’s “Hey Whipple” wrote this to make me feel more at ease:

… being stuck is a really good sign. Really.

Being stuck means you have moved through the easy stuff. You’ve waded through all the crappy ideas, through the okay ideas … entering the outlying area of big new thoughts. Being stuck is not only unusual, it’s what you want … You can spend whole days, even weeks, trying very hard and coming up with diddly. But I’ve found it’s only after you’ve suffered these excruciating days of meat loaf brain that the shiny and beautiful finally represents itself to you. The trick is to stay with it. Suffer through it. Remember, the only way out is through.

I did manage to come up with ideas and I wrote them all down, but after sleeping on it, I didn’t find too many that were close to great. But I knew this was going to happen - I mean, it should. Everyone needs to get their crappy ideas out of the way, right?

What I really need to do is to get into the habit of letting myself go just a bit more during this creative process because sometimes, I feel like I’m holding back (as if I’m trying not to come up with anymore crappy ideas). And this is a problem I need to fix because holding myself back will do more harm than good and it’s better for me to fix this now rather than have this habit grow stronger. I just really need to get used to writing whatever comes to mind on paper without pausing to think about how great or bad of an idea it is.

But despite having some trouble coming up with ideas, I’m still enjoying this. It can get frustrating and annoying, but it’s the challenge that’s still keeping me in. Besides, I don’t think it would be as much fun if the whole process was that easy.