Billboards

As outdoor advertising goes billboards are pretty effective. No matter what is being advertised, I always stop for a look. Probably due to the pure size of the thing. I guess it would be pointless if it was small.
Bus shelters are fine if youre walking but in a car it is too small and you cannot always see what is being advertised.
billboards really do the trick. They are very over-powering and in some cases, unsightly. But they make you look.
the concept is thought to have originated from egypt more than 3000 years ago and was used to advertise a reward for the capture of a runaway slave. the invention of billboards was an important one as its main purpose was to communicate a message to illiterate people.

because of the size of todays billboards there are so many creative and different ways in which to portray the brands message. much more creative than ordinary print and tv adverts as you can use any medium etc. below are examples of creative billboards .

Slow the pace

the new kronenbourg ad is really good. it features lemmy from motorhead- one of the most legendary rockstars in the world and instead of playing his signature Rickenbacker bass guitar he plays a harmonica. the ad is basically just phil campbell (the guitarist) and lemmy playing 'the ace of spades'- motorheads most famous song and one of their fastest and loudest- but they are playing it slowed down and accoustic... quite the opposite of everything motorhead. the advert was realeased october 4th 2010- 30yrs to the week the ace of spades' was first released'
throughout the ad you see shots of lemmy and the pub locals- the old boys drinking kronenbourg and playing cards and talking while motorhead start playing. it is set in a french bar as kronenbourg is a french beer and at the end of the ad it jsut says 'slow the pace' relating to the song and to the drinking of the beer.
i think this advert works well as the setting and the music and the tagline all fit with what (i imagine) kronenbourg to be. although weirdly kronnebourg is very french and motorhead are very english.. maybe it is to show the british that the french do make a good beer and are showing this by using a great english band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJKq_kJK7Q

Just showing off one of my favourite photos =p

easy jack

we live in a world of consumerism, now more than ever. everything is about buying and having the latest in everything and as a result the quality of the things we buy is gettin worse and worse and the products arent getting much cheaper.
as an example, i had to change the tyre on my mums car but we didnt have a jack- well, we found one in the car but it was so confusing and flimsy-looking that we didnt bother and borrowed one from my boyfriends grandad. it was very old fashioned. its basically a solid bit of some kind of metal, very heavy, nice shape that you place under the car and turn the circular handle with a screwdriver or something of the sort in the hole. it takes a bit longer than a modern jack but at least it worked and was easy to use and it was definately solid- there was no way it could have broken (not that a jack is meant to break). our modern jack had no appearance of a jack and was made of part metal, part plastic with a random spring amongst it.
although alot of modern products arent confusing and are there to make life easier, they are very bad quality and quite often break- laptops, new phones, dvd players for example. compared to computers, old phones and vcrs.
clothes and shoes too are made extremely cheaply and sold pretty expensive (for the quality) and they really dont last. of course this is all so you as the consumer buy and buy and buy.

Phone

This week's something 'well-designed' has got to be my trusty cell phone. It's a Sony Ericsson C902, simple yet brand new last year or the year before, it serves its purpose. The screen is quite big (or so i thought so last year) and it has a 5mgp camera which is good quality for a phone. It works quickly, comes with games and looks snazzy- so much so that James Bond had the exact same phone in his last film.
My opinion of my phone was not quite as loving last year however as when i first got it, it was slow and broke a few times for no apparent reason. I sent it away and luckily it was replaced for free (I should think so too!) However, fourth time lucky this one has lasted a while and the reason i am writing about it is because I happened to have dropped it in the toilet last night (luckily before i went). I left it to dry, as you do and put it back together this morning and it worked. Yay! Obviously my little phone but doesn't compare to the app-ridden, touch screen, ultra fashionable Smartphones of today but how fragile do they seem? I doubt the iphone would have carried on working after such trauma. This isnt the first time i dropped a phone in a bog but its definately the first time it has continued to work... but lets not jinx it now ay..