Its my Birthday... so wheres the cake?

So im 21 today! And I celebrate by finishing my essay. Im a dark horse. However, being accustomed to the traditional breakfast in bed routine, I decided to wake up at 8 and complete my assignment. Maybe its a sign of maturity, if not, a sign of Insomnia. Either way, the assignment is done and I couldn't feel more proud of myself. Time to fly. I feel like the course has unlocked my inner Einstein ( I guess, inside, we all have an eccentric little grey haired man, screaming for the opportunity to shine, minus the husky German accent). Back to the point, I feel a connection to Advertising. I don't wake up in the morning, dreading the journey ahead and throwing my alarm clock at the wall. Im excited. I get a rush of Adrenaline walking into my lecture and hearing Jo's monotone laugh, or discussing musical revolutions with my Tutor Steve (RIP in Peter). I want to excel. I want to learn about the human psyche inside out. I want to create visual pictures my peers can mentally paint and customise and dare I say, being part of a creative university has really enlightened my imagination. A possible reason for the morning optimism, could be due to the feedback we received on our short film. Regardless of the critical comments we received during the planning process, we refused to cut our faith short. After producing the story board and finding an ideal location, I presented it too the group, who all agreed to the idea.

Success

Good news and Bad news. Considering myself an optimistic, Il confront the bad news first and end this post with a shu-bang! The camera man who done our previous piece of footage, accidentally deleted all our prior filming. This was a major let down, taking into account all the hard work everyone went through, to make it a success. However. The show must go on. With a little hope, faith and manipulation, we convinced a new group of cooperative actors to help us commence with the next scene. This took place last night, around 9pm... in minus degrees. However, I'm sure the individually packaged group of family sized celebration chocolates I bought each helper, will delay the realisation of there likely swine flew. Were now in the process of editing the film. It looks pretty demonic! but... convincible! However, once again, I was left alone to create the entire presentation. All of Katrina's 'tangible work' was apparently deleted by an inconvenient laptop crash. However, I still lye bemused as to how she done so much work, when attending our group meetings and lectures once a week. Natalie has refused to answer my calls this evening in regards to sending her work. However, with me being an optimist an all, Il blame her mobiles network provider. Tope however, has been my shining star, he really pulled through during this project, especially with the short film. I feel, me and Tope worked well due to our constant communication and upfront honesty. The filming experience has really opened my eyes, to understanding how important organisation is. Its a skill I definitely nee to improve. Furthermore, when working in a group, I have learnt it is best to confront issues immediately, before half hearted ideas, laziness or disagreements spiral out of control. But all in all, I'm happy with what my team produced.

The first scene

Amazing, amazing, amazing! we shot the first part of our movie last night, and may I say, it went.. amazing. We fortunately managed to grab a professional filmier and editor who are in the process of editing the first clip. Regarding our short video, we have finally structured it. We are making a video with the intentions of starting a rumour that' aliens are amongst us'. It will be framed like real leaked footage, mainly filmed at night, with night vision and torches. We have 3 sequels, the first being to build anticipation, using 'a missing person' narrative and various clips from youtube promoting the existence of Aliens. This sequel will engage the audience and set the storey line. The second sequel will be filmed in the forest in the evening. If we make it out alive, this scene will be following a group individuals whom follow a noise and abnormal ambient signs, eventually leading them to an alien, however, the alien will be left unseen. The third sequel results in the group of individuals finding an abandoned warehouse and witnessing an Alien kidnap. The video conveys the message that 'Alien is here and we know how the human mind works'. We filmed the third scene last night with a group of cooperative helpers. I really feel like we all came together as a group yesterday. Im really proud of them. The second scene will be shot this Thursday. God I'm excited.

ONE CLUB CREATIVE BOOT CAMP

What an amazing experience. The creative boot camp was a four day work shop created in Newyork. We were segmented into groups of 4 to 5, and asked to create a campaign for The Peace Day. This was a project which involved encouraging countries globally to strip the colour of their national flag; Connoting the idea that the colours represent an identity which is associated with war and violence. The idea of a white flag, portrayed surrender and peace. The first day Today,I was put into my group. I was joined with a Year One Advertising student called Jess, two Second year students called Bekki and Tom and a Third year student called Lilibeth. The group seemed promising and we all exchanged numbers. The second day Today was a slow start. Lilibeth with all her prior experience decided to take the role of group leader, or should I say group Dictator. Honestly, her aggressive nature did intimidate me, it made it hard to speak up and share my ideas. Speaking to other members of the group about this, they all agreed we should get more involved, however, this was easier said then done. We ended up sticking to the idea she created "As it was the only idea which could make us win". However, although winning was a prime goal for me, I really wanted to use this opportunity to develop my team work skills... and to an extent I did. I learnt tolerance. We all decided, unwillingly, to agree to the idea of locating Peace Booths (Photo booths) around major cities within the UK. The boots would create a free vintage style photo strip promoting the 21st of September National peace day, and in addition, was connected to the most popular social networking sites, which allowed individuals to upload a pre-existing photo of themselves. The photos they uploaded would be used to create a collage of faces on the main National flag. Creating unity and brotherhood amongst those who participated. Furthermore, the booth was connected to the Peace day website, which allowed the participants to juxtapose there photo on a pre-exististing digital map. Furthermore, on the 21st of September, all those participants who's photo was uploaded would arrive at Trafalgar square to see the map there faces were on and then take part in a peace walk... My problem with this idea, was that it lacked a belief or a message. I believe it was missing something. I didnt feel the idea of tehre faces being on a flag with a million other faces, was a good enough reason for them to leave there house and get involved and in addition, it didnt link to the Peace day theme. I brought these issues up. They were brushed aside. The third day The idea was changed without my consent. They added a strip light to the peace booth to add a decoded a subliminal message on the photo strip. Then an ambiguous stretcher to reveal a digital flag. The original idea was a normal water colour flag. The idea was good. I just wish they would of told me sooner. On this day, we all created the presentation. I created a draft of the flag. Lilibeth didnt like it. The Fourth day The day of the presentation. We prepared and rehearsed. The presentation went well. However, Lilibeth and Jesse constantly spoke over each other, which led to a massive conflict after the presentation. We didnt receive any awards or recognition. However, this experience taught me the importance of speaking up for what you believe in and ensuring each member of my group gets an equal say in the creation of a project. Thankyou and Good night.

Alien presentation

This is a presentation of our agency's brand image, including drafts and finalised copies of the Logos and Typography

Who is ALIEN?

Alien Advertising Agency

What is Alien?

The Alien advertising agency aims to infiltrate and invade the minds of our audience. We are fascinated by consumer behaviour and the way people behave to brand exposure. In addition, we are aware that people and markets are not static. They are constantly growing and changing.  So to understand this, we have taken a behavioural approach to understand our potential consumers and create work which engages and infiltrates people routine in there everyday life, using a subversive and un-invasive approach to ambient advertising, we can subtly adapt to society. Alien represents a higher being and wants to introduce a new way of thinking to the public, conveying witty and unconventional messages; Without the need to glorify radical, aggressive and rebellious forms of advertising, we believe to be unnecessary, unoriginal and intrusive to the public. We pride ourselves on the simplification of our messages and generated suspense from the public, whilst attempting to decode our double meanings. We believe in keeping things simple and not distracting our audience from the main message we are trying to put across. We aim to massage the human ego by creating the right emotional and rational response from our audience.

The Metaphor-based advertising research:

We will ensure we are kept up-to-date with consumer thought processes by using traditional quantitative and qualitative research techniques, expected to enhance our ability to collect timely, valid and reliable consumer data. However, despite the significant challenges still exist when understanding consumer’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. In order to produce a versatile and memorable ambient message, we will use Metaphor-based advertising research using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation (ZMET) design, an elaborate technique to discover individual’s feelings about a certain concept or issue, by producing a picture of their mental associations. The ZMET is designed to surface the mental models that drive consumer thinking using various methodologies to access the consumers rational and emotional thought processes. We will use Verbo-centric techniques, such as: Focus groups, In-depth individual Interviews, Filmography and Photography.

6.5 Second rule

The '6.5 seconds that matter', which is the time most consumers will give a communication before they lose interest in today's mass multi channel brand bombardment. We will engage the consumer and tell them something that matters specifically to them in the short time they are willing to give.

External Research:

From our study we have discovered that:

• ·      The human mind likes to live in self-deceit and believes it is better than what it really is.
• ·    Human beings are vain; they want to be reinforced flattered and made to feel  important.
• ·        Humans Like things being straightforward, clear ,distinct and straight to the point
• ·      Humans Like to have a sense of what is good and what is bad, and likes to do what is seen by others to be the right thing to do.
• ·      Humans Like to see what they believe in as the best and only way and other opinions are wrong.
• ·      People who have a high status symbol, for example, easily impress humans: the rich, famous, older people, successful people, celebrities etc.
• ·      The human mind doesn’t like threats and wants to destroy them in order to feel safe, dominant and in control.  

We will appeal to the mass-markets by using these principles:

Techniques we will use to advertise

• ·      Emotional appeal (to the inner good in people)
• ·      Slippery Slope appeal
• ·      Appeal to an authority figure or important figure
• ·      Using facts and statistics
• ·      Playing with words and images
• ·      Subversive Advertising- we aim to use this as our main advertising technique however incorporating the rest of our principles into it.

Alternative advertising techniques we will be incorporating

- Intrusion (Using places or objects as a carrier of the message)

- Transformation (The physical alteration of something real)

- Installation (The act of installing something)

- Illusion (Communication that distorts our perception of what is real)

- Infiltration (The use of people to penetrate an area)

- Sensation (Information conveyed through the senses)

- Interaction (Any communication in which the consumer is actively involved)

- Stunt (A difficult, unusual or dangerous feat)

God almighty

So, I just done my first formal presentation of all my exhibited work. The feedback was pretty exciting. The rotating tutors all loved our idea! However.. I felt myself reaching a boiling point. Without trying to brag, far from it. I was put in charge of the group, unwillingly. The last 2 days of preparation, no-one came to the library to meet me, which ended up in hours of cyber talk, ensuring everyone had a task to do.  After spending hours giving people tasks and answering pointless questions from Katrina, a member of my group Im finding it really hard to 'click' with. I arrive at the University the next day, to be confronted with MORE stupid questions and arrogant statements from Katrina. The tasks I set them, were incomplete, or not done at all. After generating the last bit of adrenaline I could find, I told everyone what they had to do again. Whilst they were busy catching up, I spent £10 printing off the presentation and 2 page Manifesto I done single handedly! I then went on to print the A3 print AD of Alien, my draft pictures and the logo I designed AND the moon board, once again, only I contributed too. When we arrive in class to set up, I get a quick view of the work I asked them to do.... a 3 year old could of done a better job! I was fuming! They had all weekend to do this. To be honest, although I was angry, I soldiered through. But to top it all off, Katrina attempted to take ALL credit for the work. In fact, surprisingly enough, they were all very verbal about the importance of ' team work'... I wouldn't of mind contributing more to the work, if they would of been at least, the most minute bit appreciative, or honest to the tutors about it. Fortunately, I writ the feedback down, the agitation and theist clenching was a minor distraction

F**K

I arrive into my Morning Monday Lecture, to receive some uplifting news. The agency we are in the process of establishing, has to be 'AMBIENT'. To be honest, Im feeling frustrated. I was really excited about pursuing this idea and thought the team would be on board. Clearly not. Its been a bit of a downer. But, on the other hand, one of the many obstacles I'm going to face an Advertiser... I need to practice tolerance (REMINDER). Regardless. we've established a new idea. Were sticking to the theme of Radicalisation but taking a different route. After discussing other groups manifesto (All being very extreme and full-on to represent themselves as 'ORIGINAL'). We went back to stage One, the name Alien and what it means, something or someone, not from planet earth. The purpose of an Alien, to infiltrate and invade the minds of the subconscious. Alien, is now, an advertising agency whom specialises in societal radicalisation. We use passive promotional techniques, which blend in with peoples day-to-day lives. Nothing too abrupt. Leaving the consumer in complete control. We invade and infiltrate the mind of potential consumers by subtly converting conventional day to day items, into unconventional perceptions. Our emotional response predisposition is based on consumers feeling in control and feeling a sense of pride, for decoding witty messages we promote. Our USP, is we use urban surroundings as our blank canvas. We produce artistic puzzles, instead of obvious advertising tools... To be honest, I feel lost. I feel disappointed, I really feel as if i was onto something with the fourth dimensional twist. Im finding hard to re motivate myself due to my hard work being pushed to one side. I feel kind of angry. I don't really get angry. Im not that kind of person, but it feels as though I have the weight of the world on shoulders. The new concept does not make sense!!!!!! and as hard as I try to add some kind of direction to the Agency. We always end up back to point one. However, I'm having a bad day in general. A kind of day where external worries are clouding my thoughts. I feel as though I'm drowning with heavy weight words and expectations. I seriously, want to run away. Which is what I normally do when Im stuck in Limbo. I don't like to confront things. But I know, in this situation, running away is not an option... I have to deal with these problems and gain inner strength. Another obstacle Im have to learn to overcome, if I want to be a successful advertiser. I want to scream. Maybe it will help... ... back to work.

Man of many faces

ALIEN WIDGET - slide show

Over the past month, I've been drawing pictures using Led, Water Colours and Ink, to help me paint a mental picture of how our Agency will be perceived. These are samples of brand logos and drawings to help give us an insight to the direction we feel respresents our agency most appropriately.

The Print Ad, Duh Duh Duh!

So.... my over-impulsive character decided Monday was too long a wait to gain the approval of my team. So as any teenager would do (I will delay the enrolment to adolescence for as long as I see fit), I decided to aggressively harass my team via Facebook and abrupt phone calls. Fortunately, they appraised me, in a 'stop harassing me' kind of way. Nevertheless, they liked the idea. Step Two. I have created a print ad draft! Doing a bit of research into 1970s and 60s advertising ads, I followed the comedic direction, a way of creating an emotional response from viewers and in addition, a witty ad, which didnt revel to much about who we was. Eliminating long dialogues of who we are, what we hope to achieve, when we were co-founded Bluh Bluh Bluh. I figured, creating a witty print ad with little information would create a sense of involvement from the viewer and in addition, convince them to find out more information by choice, giving the viewer more control.

The ad is set in an Urban scene, with a comedic value. All traces of our identity our camouflaged into the scenery, allowing the viewer to acknowledge the print, and gain a positive first impression.

Midnight Madness

This is an image of the Brainstorm process

So I had an epiphany last night. However, the term 'epiphany' is a bit of an under-statemnt. Round 2. So I had a serendipitous moment of clarification.  The concept of our advertising agency Alien, was lacking gravity. We agreed that Alien should be based on some kind of societal radicalisation, but had trouble creating a Manifesto, an explanatory idea or foundation which described who we was. So come 12 pm, watching Darren Brown: Apocalypse part One, I felt a sudden rush of inspiration. Maybe it was   the idea that if the world were to end, what would I have achieved? or it could of been me trying to erase the dramatic visual graphics of zombies climbing through my window. Either way, I started researching Alien synonyms. The word Cyber Punk stood out to me, used to refer to a type of science fiction, in which the future is shown as a frightening society where computers control everything. Thinking back to Big Brother, I realised we weren't too far away. However, frightening? I beg to differ.  I started thinking about dimensions, Length, Width, Height and the fourth dimension, Time. My thoughts then became abstract. Alien; A Sci-fi agency, specialising is Interactive, Digital and Ambient advertising. Incorporating social media to create a futuristic and modern image, based on the concept of a fourth dimensional, cyber punk radicalisation (excuse the repetition) with the intentions to create a modern and radical change to the media industry and form a dynamic system with truthful values and a common goal to change the current practices, institutions and governmental regulations whom put a limitation of artistic advertising. 'We our the future, 4D Advertising'.  I haven't discussed this with my group, the last time we spoke, someone suggested Alien being a comedic agency, which specialise in spoof advertising. I don't know, maybe we could combine the two? Though, I have created an A3 brainstorm, with a prepared pitch to win the support of my team. Fingers crossed!

Our first presentation

Today, I done my first presentation. It could have gone better, though I praise myself for presenting in front of a large group of people! way out of my element! We received some constructive criticisms. Firstly, we were told to narrow down our ideas, to create a more specific ethos. Our presentation was over detailed. Secondly, we were advised to create more structure. Although the structure of our presentation was in depth, our public speaking was unorganised. In the future, we will ensure all members of the group have a equal amount of speaking time. The feedback has been really helpful. 

Three Point Square

So, I've got started on my Imperial war museum presentation. Myself, and the other three members of my group; Ali, Parveen and Sohphia, took a trip to the museum today. We managed to get a few snaps of the interior and artwork. However, considering the old fashioned Romanian architecture of the museum from outside, it was compellingly modernistic and airy in the main gallery entrance. It added quit a nice contrast. The trip was really enjoyable and everyone pulled there weight to the best of their abilities. I specialised in the drawing, and managed to get a few good sketches of the world war one jets and war trucks.

Regarding my Advertising agency; We were told we were thinking far too ahead, and told to think of the basic concept and image of our agency. So, we have gone back to basics. Alien (the name of our agency) connotes the invasion and infiltration of individuals minds. Alien will be an agency using promotional and engaging tools to involve the audience; It represents an unconventional agency in a corporate environment, using eccentric and extreme techniques to break the social advertising norm. I have designed two logos. One being black and white, rather gothic and the other, colourful and funky, with a more youthful and urban touch.  Im really loving my team. Especially Tope, the other group member. I really bounce off of his energy and creativity.

In addition, I've been assigned a 1500 word essay about text and picture symbology. However, I'm finding it hard to grasp the concept of this assignment, my professor hasn't made it very clear on what to involve or how to structure it. Im aware these are basic principles we should already be familiar with, but I'm a little lost. I am not undermining his teaching capabilities! by far! his an amazing professor. Although, I think I need to pluck up the courage to start asking questions in class, so I don't leave puzzled and bemused. 

ALIEN

Our next assignment was to create our own Advertising Agency. I've been assigned into a group with very opposing views, which in a way,  however, has shaped our agencies character. We all reached common ground, when deciding to incorporate a mutual belief. Radicalisation. This has become our Ethos. We then began to expand our ideas and create a brand identity. Our company name went from Dread communications, to Urban Alien communications to Alien. We agreed Alien set a more accurate representation about what our agency stood for.

As our professor would say 'keep it short, simple and stupid'. Creative genius.

Our core values are centred around Urban societies, Youth and Liberalism. We are promoting ourselves as being an unconventional agency in a corporate conventional industry, by using the city as our canvas to embrace and represent advertising tools which engage and involve people, instead of using passive messages and designs, consumers are likely to ignore or forget.

I have drew a rough sketch of what our potential logo could look like, which another team member, Tope, is going to photoshop and add vibrancy too. We want our logo to have a psychedelic 70's twist to it. We feel the 70's era was a revolutionary movement condoning freedom of speech and music. Freedom of Art. 

The Rastaman

On my way to my Tuesday lecture, I met a fellow Rastaman. As expected, we fell into a 40 minute conversation about our beliefs and world view. Youcef had recently returned back to London after travelling the irie coasts of Israel, Egypt and Holland, an opportunity to 'expand your mind and liberate your spirit'. He decided to go travelling after dropping University and now, opened his own hand-made candle store. Our conversation then strayed towards our view on money and how it defines an individuals character. Youcef told me 'Money is the root to all evil, it prevents us from loving one another, it creates injustice and war, but we need it. We all need money to get by, because were part of the system. But, dont let your love for money overpower your love for god, your love for nature and your love for your family. Go to University, get your degree and get your education. But don't let the idea of being rich, direct your future, have more important aspirations".  I didn't tell him about Advertising. After blessings our farewells, we departed.

Later that day, I reflected upon our conversation. I can honestly say, however ironic, that the hour of goodness we shared, ensured me even further that I'm studying the right course and in the right place. Advertising is something I'm passionate about, not due to the average advertisers annual income, but because its the perfect opportunity to learn more about social cultures. Advertising has the power to do more then promote a company or product, its capable of creating international unification by sending mutually understandable moralistic messages. It can be used as a tool to back positive liberal movements and organisations.  Thats why I'm here.

Today, I was told about my future assignments. My first task was too do a group presentation on the imperial war museum.  Fortunatly, the group I was assigned too all had unique talents which would benefit our result. We had a photographer, Journalist and artist. I didnt bring much to the table. I cant wait to start this!

My second assignment was another presentation about symbolism. Well, thats all I really got from the tutorial. Im sure il get the gossip next Tuesday. However, it was an interesting tutorial. I learnt that sitting in the back of the classroom may have not been the most productive of places to be based. Back to the front or off with my head! 

Pepsi advert

This was the first advert we discussed during our Friday group lecture.  Pepsi has set there Brand reputation being profoundly known as a family beverage; The advert reinforced this by using a young boy as their prime consumer, a subtle innuendo to remind the audience about Pepsis' long lasting presence. However, the young boy went through an awful amount of effort to buy a pepsi out of his depth, when there were two free cans he could have drank for free...

Firs Day inductions

My name is Charlotte Ross. Im a 20 year old ball of fun. Not so long ago, I began an epic journey to enlightenment. Part of my journey will be recorded in this blog, due to me recently taking up an Advertising course at the University of the Arts London. 

I chose Advertising to gain a more in-depth idea, about what the media is feeding us. Using this knowledge, I hope to gain a career which will allow me to travel the world and compare the media within different cultures. Although this all seems a little far-fetched, UAL encourages personal extremism, eccentricity and the ability to dream big. 

The first day of university was nerve-wrecking. Although I havn't been formally diagnosed with social anxiety, I find myself taking longer then most people to adjust to new surroundings. However, the university has an amazing vibe, swarming with like-minded creative people. I immediately felt comfortable after the first lecture, bumping into peers I've spoken to whilst social networking. This was reinforced during my first tutorial session; As an 'icebreaker' task, we were separated into small groups and told to talk about ourselves. This later resolved in various groups uniting after class.