I clearly need to make friends with a good art director.

I've never been more disappointed with how an ad of mine came out then with this. These are some of the best headlines/tagline I've ever come up with, but the art direction is horrendous. This was an assignment I did for my Copywriting Print class last year where we could completely make up product and write an ad for it.  I actually came up with the headlines before I even came up with the product and just went with it from there. My teacher actually loved this ad, but he also agreed that it needs stronger art direction. So, to you all of you artistic visionary people out there that may be reading this, get at me!

The advertising for McDonald's makes me hate McDonald's even more.

First of all, tell me one benefit they're selling here. Good customer service? HA! Have you ever been to a McDonald's in North Philly? You'll definitely not be able to pull off a stunt like that at those McDonald's. Other that Exxon Mobile, McDonald's is probably the most corrupt company worldwide. Not only do they sell the most nutritionally invaluable and disgusting food out there, but they sell to our emotions (not to mention the emotions of young children). That is exactly what the commercial is based around: selling the "I'm lovin' it" tagline as if their food makes you happy. Again, HA! It's all just inane, fabricated marketing tactics to sell something that's hardly how it is. And the worst part- people actually buy into this crap and keep them going. Damn you, McDonald's. The world would be such a better place without you.

As much as I don't like corrupting the youth, this is a great campaign.

I just learned about the sweepstakes when I looked this up on YouTube, and now I like it even more.  First of all, let's be honest here, anyone interested in this game or any other gore-riddled shooter adventure game wants gory violence all throughout.  So, they made a game that features this gory violence as the main benefit and selling point, and marketed it that way.  Second of all, the "your mom hates this" thing is so awesome. Not only does it make people laugh and gamers want to buy it, it also spreads awareness to mothers that are strict enough to restrict this game from their children and makes them keep the mature rating in check.  Sure, this may take away a faction of profit, but it is a good ethical move by the game creators/marketing team.  Lastly, to connect back to what I first said, the sweepstakes idea is brilliant. In doing this, they're basically making their fans market for them in a funny, entertaining (and free) way.  Overall, the campaign is super smart and shows how mature we all show be about a game like this.  Though, I still wouldn't let a child under 10 play this game, but they shouldn't be able to anyway.

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."