People-Lord sugar

Alan Sugar also know as Lord Sugar is an icon in Britain and all over the world, he has made a massive impact on the home, computer and electronics industry and has brought so much business to the UK. 

He started from nothing when he was in school he had a little job at a green grocers and then when he left school he spent his entire savings £50 on stock which he sold out of the back of his van.

He then went from selling car aerials and electronic goods to selling house hold goods and he's built a name for himself from nothing, he also runs a big TV show The Apprentice which had become really popular over the past few years and this year is the tenth year the show has been running so it is clearly successful.

Although Lord Sugar comes across as quite hard faced and a bit of a bully, I think the reasoning for this is that he has come from nothing and he doesn't like people who try and be fake or aren't what they claim to be. Lord Alan Sugar today is worth £900 million that is amazing considering he was an assistant at a green grocers.

Content creators - Jack Harries

Recently I viewed this speech on YouTube by Jack Harries, other people may now him from his YouTube channel called JacksGap. In this speech he talks about how he can call himself a content creator and the reason is because of his audience, like many You-Tubers he started out as just a "voice amongst millions" when he first started he enjoyed being on YouTube and then he started university and stopped making content for YouTube, he found himself unhappy and made a big decision to leave university and do what made him happy, he wasn't sure if the whole thing would work out but he took that chance.

Link to the vid

The reason for You-Tubers being on YouTube is to connect and make a name for themselves and through this they wish to communicate and inspire others. The ones on YouTube that are most popular and who are well known got there through, luck,desire,hard work and dedication, but along with the popularity on YouTube there is also a fair share of hate such as hate comments or hate mail.

There are also people who are on YouTube for the wrong reasons people who just want to be famous and don't want to put in the work for it those people abuse the power that YouTube has but they wont last long in the YouTube world. It's amazing the way that YouTube is now this huge community of people and the audience is the only reason its successful, it's great because it changes and the content is adapted to coming and going trends so they are always up to date with what is current. Thr Video is really affective because of the person he is and how he has made the video, the setting is simple, the music is subtle and it connects to the audience.

Design- Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen is one of the UK's most famous fashion designers known all over the world, his work is well known for being of the highest quality, big celebrities such as lady gaga who was a friend of his wore his designs. He is an amazing artist when it comes to clothing design, he some how manages to capture the juxtaposition between "fragility and strength" 

His work has grown in popularity over the past few years since the death of the designer, but still in his death he continues to make his mark on memorable events such as, the duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton's wedding dress was designed by Sarah Burton who was partner to Alexander McQueen. You can see that the dress was inspired by and has aspects of his design throughout. The lace bodice worn by the duchess is a signature hallmark by Alexander McQueen. He has created quite a name for himself and also gained a hefty price tag the duchess's dress alone had a price tag of £250,000

  

http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/experience/en/alexandermcqueen/biography/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_dress_of_Kate_Middleton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McQueen

Design-Doodle car

A woman from the U.S shows some amazing skill and talent when she transforms a boring silver car into an impressive piece of art, her husband who owns the car which is a Nissan skyline asked his wife to cover up some scratches on the bumper by doodling over them and once he saw her work he then asked her to continue and cover the whole car in her intricate drawings.

You can see that her work is incredibly detailed and she just used a Sharpie, its really amazing what you can do with a permanent marker. It took the woman over 100 hours to complete the car. It was then sealed with a few coats of a clear sealant to protect her work.

http://www.awesomeinventions.com/nissan-skyline-art/

Adverts- The Cog by Honda

Honda made an advert in 2003 called The Cog the basic concept is a chain reaction using all the different parts of a car, from the nuts and bolts to the windscreen wipers. The advert is quite long at nearly 2 minutes so they would of had to put this advert on a time when people are actually going to be sitting and watching it, which would probably be around tea time. And the obvious target audience would be male adults ages between 25-40 as the car advertised is quite practical and suitable for a family car.

The agency that worked on this ad was Weiden and Kenedy they worked with large companies such as Nike, Coca cola, Facebook and Microsoft. This was an amazing advert and won a large number of awards in 2003 and 2004.  During the making of this advert you may see that they where not able make everything happen so perfectly so they used computer generated imaging to fill in the gaps, things like making the water spray show up where the main concerns. Overall I think that it was a well made and thought out advert, although later on Honda and Weiden and Kenedy faced accusations of plagiarism  but there was never a law suit against them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo

Online Retail

A while back I came across a website called Etsy, the basic concept is an on-line shop where you buy directly from the seller, the sellers are usually small businesses that want to widen their audience. The website is international and converts into all currencies anyone with a small business can sell their items on the site. 

Their design is nice and simple, but at the same time it's easily recognisable with the basic font that's almost identical to Times New Roman. The orange is quite attractive as there arent many well known brands with an orange logo.

Their website fits really well with the brand it's nice and clean and I like the way that the products are laid out in a collage kind of way, The navagation is really clean and easy so anyone can use the website. I like that the website has a large range of vintage and antique items, it brings in a whole new crowd of people.

Advertisments-John lewis Christmas ad

The past few years John Lewis have created really amazing adverts, they did the snow man one a couple years ago and last year they did this one with the bear and the hare. You can see that a lot of thought has been put into the story of the advert the way that the bear almost misses Christmas because he is hibernating.

It's inspiring the way they can grab at your emotions, it takes you through different stages because you see the friendship between the bear and the hare and as the winter comes the bear starts to get tired and the hare is sad because his friend has to go away. As the story develops you see that the hare is sad because the bear wont get to spend Christmas with him and so the hare brings him a present while he is sleeping this turns out to be an alarm clock, which wakes him on Christmas day so he doesn't miss it. It's one that really touches your heart and makes you feel all sentimental. 

The music goes amazingly well with the advert the song is called Somewhere only we know by Lily Allen, they chose this song really well because it has that nice soft almost sleepy tone which fits really well with the bear and also then there is the chorus which is more like the hare. I also think that the whole advert fits really well for a Christmas, because this is the time of year that you are around your family and close friends more. They just captured the essence of Christmas so well.

John Lewis haven't just stopped there, they also made it so there was a full story that people could read of read to their children, you can download this for ipad iphone and android, so again appealing to a wide range of people on many platforms.

http://www.johnlewis.com/inspiration-and-advice/az-of-christmas/bear-and-hare?tmad=c&tmcampid=50&source=BR8112013Christmas_YT

Advertising campaign- Coca cola

When it comes to late October early November time Coca cola start putting their Christmas adverts on, Coca cola are a brand that everyone knows of and that a lot of people like. It's such a well made brand the signature logo is easily recognisable and has been around for 128 years.

 

Every year they put out the Christmas adverts, these make Coca cola into a family brand. They also have the Coca cola truck which tours round the UK and this promotes their brand further, people go and see the van and get their Coke, I did this last year so it is something that works, it's inspiring because it brings people together to celebrate their brand and Christmas. 

Television-BBC Top gear

Top gear which is a very popular show presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, Top gear has been in the news many times with controversial stories about Jeremy Clarkson saying things that people may have found offensive.

There have been a lot of complaints to the BBC about top gear and yet Jeremy Clarkson remains a presenter on the show. This is because people like the show and who presents it, if they got rid of Jeremy Clarkson the ratings and amount of people who watch the show would go down tremendously.

Here it is him who has all the power because he is so popular, a lot of people find the show comical because of some of the crazy stunts that they do. Some of the things that have been on the show that people have found offensive have two sides to them, in some cases I think that the media has twisted things and in some cases he was generally in the wrong. What I find interesting is that Clarkson has managed to stay on the show throughout the mistakes and complaints made.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/clarkson-racism-row-10-top-gear-gaffes-132305011.html#1MGyr9R

Advertising- Confused.com

Confused.com have created a character for their adverts, this is Brian the robot. The makers of Brian have made him so that he is comical, comparison websites aren't the most interesting thing in the world and I am sure there are people who would prefer to do other things. Insurance can be a hard and quite boring thing to sell, so they needed to create a character in order to get through to people, they have made Brian's problems into a constant search to save people money on their insurance and to do this they have used a series of different adverts.

Firstly the one where he passes cars and names how much they can save, second there is a journey to find a person who he tried to speak to before and then there is the adverts that are of Brian doing silly things. They somehow manage to get the audience to connect with the robot.

Advertising- Audrey Hepburn Galaxy

Galaxy made an advert in 2013 using Audrey Hepburn as the main character, it was an advert that has a classical, romantic feel to it with the setting and the song choice.

Most people will know that audrey Hepburn was an icon of the 50's and 60's, she was a fashion model and also an actress.

This advert was new in 2013 and some people might remember that Audrey Hepburn died in 1993, so how was this possible. It is pretty impressive the process of making this advert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx9eDoS76LM

At first Frame store the company who created the advert, thought that it would be as simple as getting someone who looked like Audrey and then with make-up they would make it all look real, but it wasn't that simple, they needed to recreate all the characteristics and for this they used a process called FACS which is facial action coding systems, this is so that they can record all possible facial moments. They then did the locational filming and took imaging from all angels to ensure they captured as much of the models face as possible. The team working on the recreation of the model scoured through her entire feature film catalogue and then they where able to reconstruct the face of the model with CGI.

I find it amazing how realistic they have made her look, it took a lot of work to get the iconic look of the model that people recognise today.

http://www.framestore.com/work/galaxy-choose-silk-chauffeur

Music/visual arts - Celebrity endorsement

Everyone likes to listen to music and watch music video's and now the creators of music video's are doing something more than they have ever done before, advertising within music video's. 

This is where celebrity endorsement comes in a company will go to the producer of the video or even the singer themselves and ask them to feature their product  in their video. 

It can be seen in many examples such as Party rock anthem- LMFAO. This is cherrytree cola which is a soft drink that they have promoted in this video, the drink is also linked with cherry tree records.

The next one is a song that CLEARLY advertises LG phones in a clever way that it has based the video around them, its All american rejects- I wanna. I think that it's really clever the way they have used the phones as a sort of video collage.  But as you can see from the photo's they are all different makes of LG and the video they shove the fact that it's LG in your face.

In some ways I think that celebrity endorsment is good if done right, like in the All american rejects video. They have done it so that it makes sense and looks good with the song. I don't like the way they have used it in the LMFAO's video, because it is kind of out of place. They are dancing in the middle of the road, there wouldn't just be a bottle of cola sitting there. If they had made it in a way which it made more sense, such as opening a fridge and it was on the shelf. 

Now we see this kind of advertising all the time and it's more like subliminal messages because we don't always realize it's there.

Brand design - Lush

 I really like the way Lush's website has been made, it has a really sleek design to it, everything is really clear and easy to navigate, they always put up really nice photographs and they are just a great brand. On their website the way that they set out their products is clear and spacious, I like the way that they have put the best rated products larger than the others.

They have a good clear logo and it is easily recognisable they have good morals which work in their favour people really think of this company as friendly and they have all sorts of campaigns in place such as the animal testing one and the gay rights campaign. Things like this really help their custom because all people whether gay, straight, vegetarian, vegan or if you don't like products that have been tested on animals. it appeals to them.

They are also really consistent with packaging and the way their shop looks, it all fits together well to make a well put together brand. The design of lush's website was made by http://method.com/  they specialize in design integrated brand, product and service experiences.

Images found on Google images or from the lush website.

Advertising- for perfume

Looking at perfume ads they are all quite similar in the way that they are advertised, first off you have the perfume bottle in the corner of each of the ads, second they have the two people in each which is subliminally trying to say "if you buy this perfume you will be irresistible to the opposite sex. 

They both send the same kind of message and in a way they make it so that although you are buying perfume, you are also buying sex appeal. 

With the Paco Rabanne perfume it's saying that this perfume makes you seem wealthy, you get this from the simple black and white tones and then that flush of gold colour, it makes the product look like a classic similar to chanel. The target audience here is for men between the ages of 18 and 40, it's for people who seem ambitious because it represents that high class style.

The DKNY advert says that this will make you smell delicious but also gives that same message. The colours are kept quite neutral, with green tones. The designer of the perfume is Donna Karren New York, the concept in a way is clever because New York is known as the big apple hence the apple shaped perfume bottle. I would say that this would be aimed at women aged 18 to 40 because it seems like it would be quite a young fresh scent by the adverts representation.