After The Course

Since starting second year in September, I feel I have progressed so far, both with my skills and also of my understanding of the industry. I have been able to stick to more targets this year and my time management skills have excelled. I am now able to stick to targets and produce work using new software skills I did not possess at the beginning of the year. Through visits to London and also having people come talk to us I feel I am getting ready for entering industry. After completing my book, me and my partner will hopefully be looking to heading to London in order to pursue our careers in Advertising.

A mobile ad network is offering to pay your mortgage for up to a year if you let them turn your house into a billboard for their services. Probably an imaginative and successful linkbait (including a CNN story) more than an actual project, considering the $100,000 budget and all the codes they might have to deal with. The company is in the process of attracting additional funding.

Nivea And Rihanna

As the 100th anniversary of Nivea gets closer, they have recently signed a $1.5billion campaign with Rihanna has the front women for it. this is includes international TV spots and sponser of her worldwide tour. big boost for RiRi! as well as this, they are placing Nivea products throughout the video for Rihanna's new video, California King Bed and in return the Nivea advertisements will use the song.

BB returns

As Big Brother returns to our TV screens this summer, channel 5 are looking for new sponsors and are even offering a vast deal for anyone who takes them up on it, including bespoke advertising and promotions, product placement, telephony deals and cross-media activity.

so whoever takes them up on the deal will be getting a lot more than idents! maybe Big Brother returning won't be such a bad thing for advertising

LONDON

Well London was absolutely amazing!

Day 1: possibly the one brief we were all abit worried about, moneysupermarket at Mother. Our idea was a comedy sketch show based around come fly with me, but it was set in a supermarket with really outlandish characters, one for each of the 8 sections represented on the website. The agency was absolutely stunning and the two creative we met were really friendly and gave us some good feedback. Although I did like the agency I don’t think I could see myself working in somewhere like that. After the crit we headed back to the hotel and, drowned our sorrows with alcohol.

Day 2: up bright and early for a visit to Y&R, this was presenting our interflora campaign for the placement team. As soon as we hit the floor, the agency instantly stood out to me as a place I would love to work in. everyone seemed so relaxed and the décor was absolutely amazing. Each team took it in turn to present our work and once again, we received some good and bad feedback and a lot of advice with really gave us an idea of what we were getting ourselves into if we wanted to move to London. After leaving Y&R it was a very quick journey over to Ogilvy where we were given a tour of the agency and a tour of the digital lab. Ogilvy was huge, and seemed really corporate, although an amazing agency I think it was too formal for me to work in. some of the technology in the digital lab was really quite advanced and striking. One piece in particular helped inspire us for a piece for our San Miguel brief. After a stressful day we headed over to Embankment and enjoyed dinner by the river in the sun.

Day 3: today we had two visits, one of the ASA and another of Saatchi & Saatchi. At first I thought the ASA talk would be very boring, but it was really interesting and insightful, learning about what they do and how they handle advertising complaints. The ASA is a really important part of the advertising world because it obviously governs what can and cannot be shown in adverts. After gaining some inspiration from the digital lab yesterday we quickly added a new part to the San Miguel brief before heading to Saatchi. Suzanne was really nice and really relaxed, which helped us relax a lot. Her advice really helped us and she even said she would meet us with our books and give us some contacts in the future. With the final visit out of the way, I think everyone was ready for a relaxed evening in Soho.

London really opened my eyes to what I was doing and has definitely made me want to be working in London, with a few more contacts and an idea of what I need to be doing, I am definitely excited to be finishing this year and beginning work with my new partner! Bring on the future

LONDON

Heading to London next week, and in preparation for it we have been given 3 live briefs to complete for various agencies. The most worrying one is moneysupermarket, which has just been won my Mother, after three other agencies failed to do it, I am hoping I can come up with something good. The others are for San Miguel at Saatchi&Saatchi and Interflora at Y&R. I have teamed up with Johny to work on these as I feel that working alone I wouldn’t have time to complete it all.

Cravendale - Cats with Thumbs

I would say this is my favourite advert of the year, its creepy and funny and just keeps you laughing! and its definitely something to think about. I know a lot of people that love this advert and I think it will be around for a while to come

PORTFOLIO

For my portfolio module I have decided to pick P&O ferries from the YCN awards. Westfield from D&AD awards, Moneysupermarket and IRN BRU from our contacts. For my own self directed brief I have chosen to do a spreadable cheese brand, although I haven’t chosen a specific brand yet, I have a few ideas floating around for the campaign.

Official Virgin Atlantic Advert 2011 - HD 'Your airline's either got it ...

This advert made me want to be cabin crew for a few short weeks! it makes the job look amazing! the advert is stylish and artistic. it completely sums up the brand! The music and the imagery used are so relaxing, which is what a flight should be like! Virgin has definitely nailed this one

The Next Few Months...

With only a couple of months left and a lot of work to do, I have to plan my time well. The next module is the portfolio module, basically we have to create a book, on top of this there is a lot going on with London coming up and our final show, as well as PPD and Digital Skills.

Happy

So after knocking out a campaign and a presentation in three days I was very happy with the feedback I received. Although very unprepared for presenting in front of the class, everyone thought I knew what I was talking about. And I did, when I talk about something I am passionate about, I think you can clearly see. Once I had completed and presented I instantly knew straight away I had done a good job, despite my time management skills.

Always By Your Side

So three days before the hand in I cracked it… I had a line but no way of executing it! With three days to complete the project I had nine weeks to do I was scared! Me and Neil agreed on a few ways on executing it and I began work on the 10 piece campaign.

After returning after Christmas with a clear way I wanted to head down on Ted baker, I presented my ideas to Neil, which he instantly dismissed and I was back to the drawing board, and told to only use one product. I chose watches as I felt there was more to do with them on a campaign, both with their shapes and the technology used to make them.

The next few weeks seemed to fly by and I was still without any ideas, everything I came up with wasn’t good enough or didn’t fit with the biref. I was stuck…