First ads I've ever written.

These were ads from my final project from my Intro to Advertising class during my first semester of freshman year.  This class was literally my introduction to advertising.  Going into it, I hardly new anything about it and kinda just thought it would be a fun major to try because I loved funny commercials and print ads.  After this class, I was pretty confident in my decision of sticking with the major because of how much fun I had creating the creative for these ads.  Anyway, the product my team and I chose was Ben & Jerry's, and after doing some research, we found that they're a very eco-conscious brand.  So, in our project we tried to expand on that.  The top two images are a guerrilla marketing idea we came up with to be placed around the city and college campuses.  As for the print ad, first ad I've ever written.  I know, not the best, but hey, it was a start.

Damn it, AXE. I really wish you were a smarter, more creative brand.

A thank you goes out to copyranter for providing this ad for me to borrow. He also added how the pink O should be on top of the blue X to show the "AXE effect" like I'm guessing they're attempting to do. I completely agree with him and it makes me hate this even more. Overall, this ad is one of the worst print ads I have ever seen.  The layout is lackluster and uninteresting. The concept is simply atrocious and not understandable unless you're very familiar with AXE's advertising. But even then, it's a big stretch. They're simply trying WAY too hard to illustrate the "AXE effect" without showing girls hanging all over guys, like they usually do. Really though, what association can you make between cheap cologne and tic-tac-toe? Can't think of one that truly makes sense and would sell the AXE strategy well? Yeah... didn't think so.

A great ad for an ad agency.

So good, so funny, and so smart.  In all of my advertising classes, my professors have always told me that if you're going to make it in advertising, you have to sell yourself.  This commercial is doing exactly that.  What better way to show that you can create great advertising than to create a terrible advertisement to show everything you won't be?  I think it's phenomenal.  Though, I do think they could use a voiceover at the end where they introduce their company, but that might just be me being picky.  Otherwise, this almost makes me want to move to California and work for them.

To ANYONE who might be reading this, I would really appreciate your feedback on this one.

So, this is an assignment for my Advertising Portfolio class that is due tomorrow morning.  As you can see, my group members and I chose Degree deodorant to be targeted to young and teenage women.  The bottom two are what we plan on turning in tomorrow.  As for the first one, that was the comp we made and brought in last class to get the opinion of our professor.  Although we're targeting young and teenage women, he felt that the layout was a little too kiddy and that we were further limiting our target with it that way.  In a lot of ways, I can agree with him, however, I still liked the idea of presenting the image as a polaroid.  The art director I'm working with has abandoned the idea in these new comps, but I still liked it.  I'd really like to know what you think about that.  Anyway, I wrote the body copy for the spread and was a big part of the ideation for the concept.  I hope you all (and my professor) like it.
P.S. please disregard the minor typo in the last paragraph of the spread.  The art director overlooked it when he was making it and is in the process of editing it right now.  It's supposed to say "been known," not "been know."

Best movie ad ever.

Forget the commercials in between.. And the movie.. And even the trailer itself. The strategy of using the creepiest bookends anyone can make, in my opinion, is brilliant for a horror movie like this. I remember seeing this my freshman year late at night and being thoroughly impressed. Outside of the two people I saw this with (that also thought it was damn creepy), everyone I tried talking about this with had never seen it. The next day I looked it up on YouTube and found this video of the exact moment that I saw on Comedy Central. So, that just goes to show you the memorability and stopping power a strategy this strong can have on a viewer. I never saw this commercial(s) or this bookend strategy again since then, but I will always remember this ad. The movie... not so much.

Please disregard the fact that I'm white and let me rant about how awful this is.

First of all, the worst kinds of ads are the ones that blatantly sound like ads. In this 15-second spot, the word "meet," a word that is in the website title, is said 6 times. So, basically they're saying, "use, use, use our website," as much as they can in 15 seconds. Second of all, is this really convincing anyone to use the service? Look at how low budget it looks. And listen to the writing... "meet exciting black people who want to meet other exciting black people." Really?? That is the one line you're using to sell this website in this little mini-commercial? C'mon. Theoretically, if I was a black single, I'm sure after seeing this commercial I'd think to myself, "Well, I'm an exciting black person, and I would love to meet other people like me... Where's my computer?" NOT. If anyone is actually convinced by this advertising, I'm sure that these people that use it are not the most exciting people you could want to meet.

Here's my attempt at writing an AXE commercial targeting women.

I wrote this commercial in my Creative Thinking class last Spring.  The assignment was to pick a product that has been known to target a specific audience, and write a commercial for it targeting an opposite target.  I found this to be pretty difficult to do, so I tried to find a middle ground between the extremes of a masculine brand, like AXE, and advertise it to women.  So, naturally, I used a transexual.  The concept of this ad is still a little unclear when I read it back to myself, but I think it might have some potential.  Also, I think it would be hilarious to exploit RuPaul's sexuality like this.  So I did.