Lego Print Ad

One of the case studies in Ads to Icons described an ambient marketing campaign for Lego in 2005. The campaign was simple: select buildings in Santiago, Chile were made to look as if they had been built out of Lego blocks. This was accomplished by hanging posters on the buildings that exactly matched the real building facade with one small exception: each poster had a small segment designed to make it look like a portion of the building was missing. Visible in that empty space is are the "Lego pimples". To anyone passing by, it appeared as if someone had constructed the building out of the plastic building blocks and then removed one of the blocks.

If I were to convert this campaign into a print media format, I would change the approach slightly. I would use images of famous city skylines (New York, San Fransisco, Boston, etc) and remove one building from the shot. The building would then be replaced by a building of the same shape, but built entirely out of Lego's. Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge made out of red Lego's or the Empire State Building made out of blue Lego's.

This approach does not have the same "is it real" response the buildings in Chile had, but it still accomplishes the goal of linking Lego's with the everyday world. At first glance, the images will appear familiar but having the one building made out of Lego bricks will cause the audience to stop and take another look.

Census Data

According to the US Census Bureau, the average family size for a married couple with children in 2007 was 4.17 people. Within that same household, there was an average of 1.91 people under the age of 18. The average household size dropped to 2.77 people for a single male parent household (average number of people under 18 was 1.52), and 3.07 people for a single female parent household (1.78 people under 18).


Source: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2006.html
Table AVG3.
Average Number of People per Family Household With Own Children Under 18, by Race and Hispanic Origin, Marital Status, Age, and Education of Householder: 2006Excel (28k) CSV (5k)

Super Bowl Ads

My favorite Super Bowl commerical was the Coke ad where the two Macy's Day Parade baloons, in the shapes of Under Dog and Stewie Griffin, faught each other for the giant Coke. There was a carefree atmosphere to the ad as the baloons bounce off each other and the buildings in downtown New York. Charlie Brown catching the Coke at the end was cute; just desserts, in a way, for all those times Lucy took the ball away.

My second favorite commercial was the Tide commercial with the man in the job interview, though I will admit it DID take me a minute to figure out what was going on in the ad. As soon as I realized the stain was supposed to be distractig the interviewer from what the man was saying, I thought it was a clever way to draw the audience's attention to the stain on the man's shirt.

If I were to pick a third ad that I found particularly enjoyable, it would be the Bud Light commercial with the guy breathing fire. I had not seen an of the other "Bud Light superpower" ads, so I did not know what to expect, which made the ending more unexpected and funny.

The only ad I was familiar with with any "buzz" before hand was the Pepsi commercial with Justin Timberlake. I read at least two articles online that played up the first appearance of Justin at a Super Bowl since the infamous Janet Jackson-Wardrobe-Malfunction Halftime Show. The articles did proceed to describe the advertisement, but they used the Wardrobe Malfunction reference as a hook to entice readers to continue reading the article.

Maurice Lévy

Maurice Lévy is the president of the French advertising agency Publicis Groupe.

Lévy began his employment with Publicis in the early 70's as the company's IT director and was instrumental in saving the company from ruin following the disastrous fire September of 1972. Knowing that all the company's client data was stored on disks and magnetic tape in the building's computer lab, Lévy did everything possible to gain access to the building and retrieve the valuable information, even going so far as to disguise himself as a member of the fire brigade.

With the help of members of his IT team, Lévy salvaged the data on the damaged disks which enabled the company to return to business in just one week following the blaze. His undeniable loyalty to the company earned him the gratitude of Publicis founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. It is said that Lévy's actions on the night of the fire is what prompted Bleustein-Blanchet to appoint Lévy his successor as head of the company.

Ad Class blogs

Question: how has Amazon.com used traditional marketing techniques? How have they used New Media?

In the past, Amazon.com has utilized radio advertisements to reach consumers. When the company first started, they ran a series of radio ads featuring an employee searching for a place to store all the merchandise offered by the site. He tries such places as giant football stadiums, but in the end deems the space too small to house the millions of items in Amazon's catalogue. The idea was to give the sense that the array of merchandise Amazon has to offer is extensive enough that no matter how obscure the item the consumer is looking for, Amazon is the best place to find it.

Amazon has also used print ads in magazines such as Parenting Magazine which features pages of magazine approved products for kids (toys, DVDs, books etc). At the bottom of the page is a tagline stating that the products are all available at Amazon.com and displays the Amazon smile logo.


Recently, Amazon.com has bgun using New Media to lure consumers to their site. They have placed banner ads on the social networking site Facebook encouraging the predominately college-aged users to buy their textbooks from their site (as well as music, movies, electronics, or anything else a college student may need). The site also offers its own blog (called "Amazon Daily") written by "editors all over the comany" about various topics ranging from TV shows, video games, cars, and everything in between. The blog is customizable, allowing users to choose wich topics they would like to appear in their blog. My blog has not been customized yet, so I am receiving information about cars, a topic I have no interest in. If i so choose, I can go in and unsubscribe to the car entries (here is a link to my Amazon Daily blog: http://www.amazon.com/gp/daily/ref=cm_dly_gtwaypost#postPMCASDQOJGOVEX58at1200705109 )
Amazon Daily also offers the reader to subscribe to the RSS feed, so that as content of the blog is updated or edited, the newly updated iformation is downloaded directly to the subscriber's computer.

Blog question one

Question: How is Marketing Communications changing for political candidates?

With the success of such websites as You Tube, political candidates now have more easy access to their potential voters, especially younger voters (say 18-30 years of age) who in the past have been reluctant to vote in local elections. In times past, a candidate's only contact with their voters was only through structured appearances such as a debate on TV, a press conference or any other form of one-shot appearance (in other words the public has one chance to see their candidate and if they miss it they have no second chance). Now, a candidate can record their appearance and post it on You Tube where the voters can watch at any time of day for several days (or even weeks or months) after the televised event. As I said before this enables candidates to reach the younger voting public because the majority of You Tube users are high school and college age kids who under normal circumstances would not watch a televised debate. Put something on YouTube, however, and they can be persuaded to watch virtually anything.

You Tube has also been used in reverse, allowing the voters to communicate with their candidates. In a recent presidential debate, voters were asked to tape themselves asking questions for the candidates and post the videos on You Tube. By structuring the debate in this way, voters are able to participate in the political process probably more so than they were able to in years past. Since You Tube is not limited to one region, a person in Idaho can conceivably participate in a debate in New Hampshire. In short, using YouTube has opened a new channel for candidates and their voters to communicate with each other.