An Adventure with Oreo

            Motel 6, Lifesavers, Oreo, and many other brands/companies celebrate anniversaries this year.  To go along with the celebrations, the brands came out with different advertising campaigns to remind the consumer of their product and just how long they have been around.  Oreo specifically had a pretty interesting campaign.

            2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Oreo.  To celebrate, Oreo launched the "Daily Twist" campaign, which is the idea that for 100 days (it is their 100th anniversary after all), Oreo would produce a new advertisement of sorts that corresponded with something that occurred (or was going to occur) that day in history within the past 100 years.  These advertisements have ranged from the landing of the Mars Rover to the announcement of the iPhone 5.  They can be found on Oreo's website, or their Pinterest page, Tumblr, etc.

            I personally find this campaign to be quite creative.  I am not entirely sure what the creative brief might have been, other than to remind the consumer of Oreo in a creative way, while recognizing their anniversary.  This campaign definitely strays from the typical dunking your Oreo in some milk commercial.  Oreo cookies of all varieties are showcased, like the vanilla cookie and the different colors of icing.

            The campaign just ended on October 2nd, but I loved that it was so creative and not only was found in the typical print or TV spot, but social media was utilized as well.

Another Adventure with Target

            In my last post, I talked about the "Falling for Fall" advertisement that Target is currently airing.  Funny enough, in my Consumer Behavior class, a group presented on another web advertisement that Target is promoting called "Falling for You".  Target is again trying to promote the fall season's clothing in a different way than "Back to School".  As a young adult, you are no longer going back to school, so Target seems to have gotten the idea that they should also try and reach out to the younger crowd.

            The "Falling for You" campaign is a series of short episodes that come out in weekly installments as a romantic comedy genre.  At first glance, they are just short videos, almost like a mini-series.  But what makes them an advertisement, is that they are wearing and using all things sold at Target.  And as you are watching these videos, the items shown pop up in a side bar and link to Target's online store.  It is a pretty cool concept in that it is encouraging people to come back to the site to view the next video the following week, with even more product from Target.  It definitely encourages impulse buying, as well as promoting fall purchases.

            As far as the creative brief for this, I definitely think Target wants to reach a bit older audience than the typical back to school shoppers, but those that are still young adults.  They are also trying to get more shoppers to use their online store, making it much easier to find the products they are drawn to in the episode by directly linking them to the site.

An Adventure with Target

            Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that Target has launched a campaign for fall.  This is one of the first seasonal specific advertisements that I have seen.  Yes, there are the typical shopping "seasons" such as "Back to School", "Spring Cleaning", etc., but rarely do you see an advertisement for a seasonal type of clothing and house goods.  Obviously, I was intrigued.

            I thought that not only was this type of advertisement something that isn't all that common (advertising a season), but it was just a creative commercial in general.  It shows how seamless, simple, and fairly easy the transition from summer to fall can be.  And this specific transition is typically thought to be not all that exciting because it is the end of warm weather, the end of summer break, and the end of family vacations.  Though I am already a lover of fall, this commercial made me love it more.

            Being in creative brief mode, I was curious as to what it might have been to result in this commercial.  Were they looking to not only create interest for fall clothes and house wares, but also the season?  And maybe show that Target can make the fall season fun, not something to dread at the end of the summer. Whatever their creative brief was, I think it succeeded in the idea that I am now more than excited to go shopping at Target for all my fall needs.

An Adventure with Creative Briefs

            To be honest, I did not know what a creative brief was until Thursday.  Once I learned what it was, I was quite intrigued.  For those that don't know, a creative brief provides inspiration but also focus for the creative team and their advertising campaign.

            I know that doesn't sound all that intriguing, but the way my professor explained it to me was what really caught my attention.  Her first explanation:  "What was told to Michelangelo about painting the Sistine Chapel?  What was the direction given to him, that produced the result we have today?"  You obviously wouldn't want to be too specific, because you wanted to leave some creativity to him.  But there had to be some focus, because if you just told him to paint the ceiling, people could interpret that differently, and you're might end up with an unintended result.  In other words, whatever was told to Michelangelo about painting the Sistine Chapel would be the creative brief.  Some other examples that were given to us were the Great Wall of China and Egypt's pyramids.

            Having been given that description, I got to thinking about a few other things and their potential creative briefs.  One that most all of us are aware of...  What might have been the creative brief for Burruss Hall here on Virginia Tech's campus?  Was the building intended to be a central point on campus when it was built?  Or did that come after?  Was it designed knowing that it would be a symbol of Virginia Tech?  There are so many things I would need to look up before I could even begin to think about what the creative brief for Burruss Hall was.  But its still fun to think about, right?

            Thinking about actually writing a real creative brief scares me.  Luckily, we have a group assignment in Advertising that requires our group to write a creative brief and present it to the class later in the semester!  As scared as I am, I am excited to dive in and learn more about what works and what doesn't in a creative brief.