Betty White on SNL

I think that it's hilarious all the hype that Betty White has gotten recently. I can't exactly say I'm not on board because I honestly cannot name a single person who doesn't have respect for the woman but she's been around for practically forever.

I think it all started after she was in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds this past year. If you haven't seen the movie, you probably should. She is brilliant in it. Then it hit the fan after she was hilarious in a Snickers commercial during the Super Bowl.

It's plain and simple, she's great and we all love her.

People started to campaign for her to appear or host a Saturday Night Live show and it was petitioned on Facebook. The numbers of people who were supportive of her to host were out of this world, and they all got their wish last Saturday and NBC sure did reap the benefits with their ratings.

5 Great Tips for Making it in this World!

I know a bunch of people in this class are graduating in a mere few days, and I know like myself you are probably full of mixed emotions of being ubber excited and scared basically to death. Since we are all in the same field of Advertising, I came across an article in AdAge from this guy in the Advertising his name is Peter Madden. I don't know who he is but he has some great advice to remember and live by. Peter is a 40 year old man who has been working in Advertising for 10 years, and throughout those years he's acquired some pretty great advice, that unfortunately he had to learn the hard way. So take a minute and read what I consider to be the five best of the twenty tips hes bestowed upon to us. (Feel free to click the link at the bottom of the page to read his full article).

1. Realize what you're great at and do it all the time. Realize what you suck at and stop doing it completely (and put the right person in place to do it).

2. If you want to make a point that sticks, stop yelling. (Or keep yelling and look ridiculous.)

3. Work as hard on your presentations to your staff as you do on your presentations to prospects and clients.

4. Are you completely freaking out, nervous, worried and losing sleep over something about your business? Welcome to being alive. Now calm down, move on, and step up your game.

5. Write personal notes thanking people you meet with and who are in your life. Besides death and taxes, the only other sure thing in life is that no matter who you are, it's exciting to get a handwritten note.

These are simple, but great tips to being a successful professional and I think if you listen to just one of them you are already in a better place than you were before!

http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=143803

Sequels and Branding

I came across an article in AdAge about how movies now a days no longer have numbers in their movie sequels. If you sit and think about it for a minute you'll realize that I am right, except for the exception of Iron Man 2. The last few years we've been exposed to new Batman movies, the first movie was called "Batman Begins" and the second one was called "The Dark Knight". The article by Chris Thilk talks about the reason why the Batman movies can get away with moving out of the "branding" name because Batman is not just about the Batman, and he is known to the world to as a bunch of different names like, "The Caped Crusader", "The Dark Knight", "The World's Greatest Detective", "The Bat", and all of the viewers may just simply call him Bruce Wayne. Since all of these names are so well known, it really doesn't constitute as going against the brand even though the name of the most recent "Batman" movie doesn't even have the name Batman in it.


I actually think it's kind of obnoxious, but in a way I kind of get it in Batman's situation or even Star Wars, and it's probably because there has been a million previous movies before the newest ones, so it would be technically incorrect to call them 1, 2, 3, etc. It just gets me thinking about maybe instead of remaking, or having prequels to old, historic movies maybe the movie industry could produce their own, new, original films?

http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=143697

Uh- Good Luck Explaining That!

So I came across this article about how angry parents were when there were half naked girls displayed on a huge poster outside of a baseball stadium on "kids day". Even though I am not a parent, I would have taken notice and would have been bothered, because I am a person who is usually surrounded by kids as babysit all day everyday. To be an outsider (babysitter) presented into a situation of an explanation in an instance like that makes for an uncomfortable conversation, and potentially dangerous because every parent is different from the next and I can honestly say I don't always know what each parent thinks as "too much information" or "inappropriate".

This makes me think of advertisements that during television commercials that are risky especially since children could be watching. The commercial that comes to mind when I think about this is the commercial for His and Hers KY Jelly. It's funny to an adult, but to a kid it could only cause questions, and how do you explain to an 8 year old about His and Hers KY Jelly and why they are in bed with explosions? I just think that people who are in charge of placing advertisements like that one need to think more about where they are placing it because just because you seem nothing wrong with it or youre past that phase in your life- doesn't mean everyone else is.

False Advertising

I've been house siting for the past couple days and have been watching an annoyingly amount of television lately, and with that an annoying about of commercials. Since I've been trying to think about something to blog about I figured this is a good thing to discuss, that being said I've been getting annoyed at the amount of ridiculous infomercials about erroneous products that claim to do next to impossible things. According to Wikipedia, false advertising is defined as the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. People who are desperate to lose weight, save money, or looking younger. People get tricked everyday by buying something that will perform in a specific manner, and then when they get the product they are greatly disappointed by what it exactly doesn't do.

Infomercials are kings of the false advertising, especially the ones on late night. Whether people are promoting a product that cleans or a product that magically disappears your wrinkles, or even a daily ingested pill that miraculously sheds away the pounds. I do not understand, nor respect people who advertise products that disappoint their customers, its simply wrong and discrediting to all involved. I wish I could think of a way to get people to not buy in to these false advertising methods, but sadly, people become desperate for a quick, easy fix and let their guards downs which ultimately empty their wallets.

Movies in Advertising..wait I mean Advertising in Movies

I came across this article about movies that basically revolve around advertising. This article kind of reminds me of a previous blog I wrote a while back, about advertising in video games because it practically gives me the same feeling, which is being annoyed. Its bad enough that products depict the class of the character but what really gets me thinking this isn't the best of ideas is the ever growing movie ticket prices. Now production companies have to pay for the usage of companies like Chryster, or McDonalds so they basically have to compensate for that, by hiking up ticket prices. I for one live for going to the movies whenever I'm home from school I attend movies with my mom once maybe twice a week, and now it's getting harder for people to afford regular tickets.

With movies like Harold and Kumar, its about their adventure in reaching the destination of White Castle. If it weren't for that movie I probably wouldn't have ever heard of White Castle, and to this day I still have yet to go, but I definietly still want too. I wonder how much the movie had to pay to use not only the restaurant in the movie, but also in the title itself. I've seen Harold and Kumar, and have to admit I did enjoy it, but I do kind of get annoyed at the logistics behind the movie itself, would the movie have been nearly as successful or would you have seen it if it were called Harold and Kumar Go To Burger Town? Probably not.

This is a question I believe worth exploring, because now having a product like Progresso Soup or BMW getting associated with a movie, may ultimately determine the success of the movie, it may come to that it is no longer about the story or the actors involved in the film.

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/04/05/who-wants-more-advertising-in-movies/

Who Influences You?

I was sitting here trying to think about something to blog about that as far as I know hasn't been discussed yet, so I was surfing the the internet and came across this study on BizReport.com called "Do Female voice-overs influence more purchases?" and you know it really got me thinking about all the thought that goes into all the voice over decisions companies make. What type of product do they consider to be a females job or a males job to voice over? I remember in my persuasion class learning that people tend to find that men are more persuasive, so if that's justified why do company's even get women to do voice overs? But you know, come to think of it I can only think of one instance where a woman's voice is advertising a product (obviously, there are more I just can only think of one). The commercial I am thinking of is a Cadillac commercial, with Kate Walsh doing the voice over.

There are hundreds of different advertisements out there and most of them are done by men's voices because according to BizReport "48% of US adults find male voices to be more forceful, 46% of adults found female voices to be more soothing and 19% found female voices to be more persuasive." That means that out of 100, 81% believe that a males voice is more persuasive than a woman's. I guess I can see where this comes from because some people may believe that men know what they are talking about, especially when it comes to something they are unfamiliar with like cars or technology.

Personally, I have to agree with the part of the article that says that "Some consumers don't care what type of voice is used - they listen only for the message and not the male or female tones." To me, I don't care who is promoting it, or advertising the product, because I either want it or I do not want it, and no male or female will all of a sudden make me crave a product I didn't want before.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/03/study_do_female_voice-overs_influence_more_purchases.html#