Friday, November 8, 2013

exFEARiential is mocking my research to sh*tbits — I feel


Sad to say, but ExFEARiential here is mocking my research to sh*tbits, intentionally.

Its hilarious as hell. As the world moves on to the Experience Economy, it's no surprise at all experiences are going to be commoditised just like everything else. I guess, as gets things slowly get commoditised, you have to make a satire video of it to have a good laugh before sh*t gets serious. 


Friday, November 1, 2013

Virgin America's "Glee-full" Safety Video


Stumbled upon this while filling myself up with much Ad-Juice from Ad-Age's Media News

My two cents worth is: This is actually pretty good! I love Glee. Come on. You have to be some sort of sour and glum bitter puss to hate Glee. And, making an in-flight safety video this much fun and joy, why not! I don't even need to be looking at the awkward flight steward and stewardess anymore, I'd rather have them be fetching me some Coke and peanuts as I sit back to enjoy this 5minutes flight prelude! I can't help it but "move into the stratosphere" totally got my full on attention. I simply love the wit and that strange kind of humour. In fact, as I'm writing this entry I'm watching this for the sixth time. Yes, its such shame for me to say this, BUT I LIKE IT. 

On the art direction note, I love the aesthetics of it. How this whole thing takes place in a sound stage or a hanger. How the whole plane is established by a couple of items that brings out the essences of an airplane. The lighting feels absolutely modern, and apt to the whole airplane direction. I absolutely love the cuts and quick editing pace, there's constantly something new to be looking at and something to pay attention to. 

By the way, I'm sorry, did you check out this guy's expression here? 


CLASS. I FEEL YOU BUDDY. 

Sometimes you end up sitting beside a clueless f* you just want to slap yourself and that is ABSOLUTELY the kind of clap I occasionally want to give to my neighbour. Especially when I'm flying solo in coach. 

So, on a personal note, I think the video hit me at a couple of personally relatable spots, along with the kind of wit and humor I would like my content to be embedded with.

And, if I need to be watching a couple of times if I'm a frequent flyer, true enough I will get very bored by the time I've seen this some umpteen times. But who wouldn't?

Sure this video does not work for everyone. Fortunately, it worked for me.
Before anyone escalate this matter and greet it with a burning torch, perhaps we could really sit back and think about what sort of safety video we want to be watching. So far I've seen a handful, and I'm not very impressed. 

Virgin America and team, you get my two thumbs up.

Teehehe. Behind the Scenes gets me kinda excited. I love TV sets. That's one of the reasons why I pursued my Diploma in Film @ NP, anyways.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Tour the Little Tikes Factory


I absolutely LOVE this spot by Little Tikes.
It's just cute, hilarious and just leads me to believe how much Little Tikes are so much fun. That's what toys are supposed to do ain't it? Bring about fun and more fun for the little ones. This spot just takes the cake for me. 

Quoted from Adweek:

A commercial nearly always has a leg up when it stars preschoolers in suits and wingtips spouting business-world cliches. Throw in hipster glasses, coffee mugs, co-worker trash talk and random firings? Winner!
Little Tikes helps kick off the flood of pre-holiday toy advertising over the coming weeks with a faux behind-the-scenes spot, created in-house. The full-length clip below is for online only, with a shorter edit running on TV.
Kids run the show at the Little Tikes factory in Ohio, according to the ad, though they're under the watchful eye of the company's CEO. (Insider tip: That's not really MGA Entertainment CEO Isaac Larian, he of the famous $300 million battle with Mattel over the Bratz dolls. It's just some white-haired dude with a posh accent). 
And kids, of course, come up with the best ideas, including this year's potential hot toys: the ride-on GiddyUp N' Go Pony and fluffy Lil' Blabberz. So parents, you'd best familiarize yourself with these items, if you want to know what to dive for on Black Friday.

But I need to question who is the target audience here? Parents? Children? I'm not sure.

If it's parents I'm thinking why would parents be watching this spot? Quite lame isn't it? I don't think I'll be watching this spot on Youtube as a parent, in fact I don't think I'd have the time to be watching such stuff on Youtube I'll probably be looking at other educational stuff for my little ones.

If it's kids, I'm wondering if the demography is right. After all Little Tikes are meant for toddlers to ages up to an estimated 8 years of age. I highly doubt children older than that would be enticed by Little Tikes toys, they would be craving for other toys with higher complexity and sophistication. 

Thus, as much as I love this spot, I'm wondering if this spot might be flawed if this floated about just cyber space? Or am I missing out the possibility that it might be shown at Target, other hypermarkets retailing toys, toy stores, and television during kid's prime time? And indeed I over-sighted this: Little Tikes helps kick off the flood of pre-holiday toy advertising over the coming weeks with a faux behind-the-scenes spot, created in-house. The full-length clip below is for online only, with a shorter edit running on TV.

In a nutshell, GOLD.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Nissan — Bad Asses comes in Small Packages


Feeling great to be a "small package" now, 
'cos it kinda makes me feel like an awesome bad ass.

Watch out world, 
this little bad ass gonna kick some butts
in this life time. 

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Heineken The Green Room Scenthesizer


Neatttt stuff...

The idea of using scents to heighten music experiences
'Nuff of visual of audio sensorial at clubs, bring on the scent-sation.

"Music will never smell the same again."

Proud of my little pun there. ROFL.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Expedia Inspiration? Hmm.. quite possibly



holy whut

Am I seeing inspiration coming from a wedding invite?
Seriously. Why didn't I think of relating Expedia with weddings or some shit?

Hmm... some gears turning in my head. 

The Awesome Travelling Machine


Totally experiencing money being on the move with me
and the convenience of the ATM machine

This humour is wicked

Oh lord, save me
I'm tearing up from all the laughs.

Needa thank fellow mate, Elijah for the share.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Barbie fabulous Experience


This has to be one heck of an experience! 
The Barbie Dreamhouse Experience is sure to send young and old Barbie fan into frantic mode. 

Barbie™ The Dreamhouse Experience is an interactive installation located at Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise, Florida. Barbie™ The Dreamhouse Experience™ brings the iconic Barbie™ Dreamhouse® toy to real life for fans of all ages. With interactive and personalized touches, guests have the opportunity to discover different rooms, living areas and to explore the 10,000 square feet of this larger-than-life version of Barbie™ doll's Dreamhouse® for a one-of-a-kind branded experience.
Connecting some dots in my head. Trying to use this concept to push Toys R Us further.

Mercedes Benz — The Magic Control Chicken


This video takes the cake for me.
Using a chicken to highlight Mercedes's new chassis stabilisation is sheer genius.

 

Chicken head tracking was all the rage beginning some 5 6 years ago. Same time "Chicken Head Tracking" was uploaded on Youtube, a whole string of videos went viral on the web. People, with chickens, exploiting their chicken's stabilising-move to conjure up mad hilarious home videos.

This totally goes in line with STEPPS theory I'm trying to incorporate into my projects.
i. Social Currency — sharing it made one seem like they had coolness, sense of humour and SCIENCE WIZARDRY knowledge. [dramatic music]
ii. Trigger — now every time I see a chicken, I think about Mercedes Benz's "Magic Body Control" feature. that's one heck of a trigger.

In a nutshell, not only is this 53sec spot hilarious. it's memorable.
It's easily triggered when I see an avian animal.

I can picture seeing pigeons bobbing around in a park, turning to a friend, and go, "Have you seen Mercedes recent ad on Youtube? They had chickens with a steadi-cam-heads, body-bobbing to some 70s 80s dance track. Mad hilarious!"

Brill.


Sunday, September 15, 2013

SBTRKT — imo


SBTRKT's imo is kinda inspiring my up-coming shoot, which I hope to achieve something similar in terms of shooting style, lighting and effects.

Seriously. Inspirations. Coming from anywhere. Everywhere.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Poolside — Slow Down

Thursday afternoon.
Mad illustration rush.
But that doesn't mean I don't have time for a good chill out moment with my fav track by Poolside.
Need to get that mood going to stay on track.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Not the Best, and still trying


Working on my layout. 
Not the best, but still worth a shot.  

Been wrecking my brains, trying to think out of the box in order to produce some sort of incredible outcome. Perhaps I should have done some study on how to unleash creatively and inspire some out of the box thinking for my theory studies. 

Hmmm... 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Honing the "Creative Brief" skill, seriously?

I'm always having this love-hate relationship with Creative Briefs.

Though I've started writing them last semester, I honestly am still struggling to work with it.

Whenever I write a brief it ends up so madly long, and I always find so much stuff that my little jelly-welly sitting in my skull simply can't digest. Then, I end up stuck. Seriously stuck. I feel so overwhelmed by how much I found, I'm repulsed by the whole damn project. I simply want to shut down.

There seriously has to have a better way of working. Afterall, I'm here to be honing my craft in Art Direction, so seriously why the hell do I bother?

So, I needed to find a solution for this problem I'm facing. No matter what, I need to get my shit together, piece an effective creative brief for myself so I can get going. I seriously need to get my adrenaline pumping by making and crafting stuff.

This brings about my quest to better understand Creative Briefs, which I stumbled upon Beloved Brands Inc., sharing about what makes an Effective Creative Brief.

In a nutshell,

I. Advertising is really inside the box thinking.
A Creative Brief puts them in the right box.

II. The best Creative People are Problem Solvers
not blue sky thinkers. 

one more

III. The Smaller the Brief, 
The Bigger the Idea.

The last point. My Nirvana moment. 

I found this on Beloved Brands Inc's slides, seriously saving me from pain:
A good Brief should be brief, not long. 
A good Brief should have:
  • 1 Objective
  • 1 Main target tightly defined
  • 1 Main Benefit (every other benefit can come later)
  • 2 Main Reasons to Believe

Simple. 

Alright. Gonna get crackin'.

Uprising — Reading while staying home recuperating


Unfortunately, am down with the flu.
So as my nose drips away and my head burns up, I'm reading about sparking cultural movements in this book by Scott Goodson, Uprising. 

Scott Goodson is also on TEDTalks sharing about how movements shape the world.



Feeling inspired to conjure up some mad raving movemnts
but I think I'll be side-tracking if I do so.

Perhaps this would be more apt for other mates looking to start some sort of social revolution.

Lol. Maybe classmate, Lix might find this useful, since she's advocating for urban dwellers to take on the slow life. Perhaps, this could be applicable to my research at some point, after all, I'm asking advertisers to come together to create experiences for consumers. 

Knowledge always comes full circle. 

Monday, September 9, 2013

The Public x FabCafe Supported by Korg Presents PocoPoco, an intuitive and tactile MIDI Controller


This has to be, by far, one of the coolest musical interface/ MIDI controller I've seen. It has buttons that pop up, providing user some sort of a 3 dimensional sound-wave experience. Lights that changes as you switch tracks. And seriously the audio quality that is coming out of this little box (or, I assume is coming straight out without any mastering) is sounding way over the top.

Unfortunately, as commented by IDEEA lab, PocoPoco is not commercialised as of yet.

This is what I call : AN EXPERIENCE

Can't wait for PocoPoco to hit the markets.
Seriously would love to get one of these.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

R.I.P. Teletext

Teletext will be ceasing operations from 30th September 2013.
— Teletext


Such fond, fond memories of Teletext.

Randomly keying in 3 digits to see what turns up, done most frequently when I'm bored late at night and can't get any sleep.

I've to admit the last time I've visited Teletext must have been a good decade ago; I was still in polytechnic, holding a crappy Nokia which I still could play snake on, checking the weather forecast and planning for my upcoming outdoor shoots.

Again. Who, of my age and younger, visits frigging Teletext these days? We all head to the internet. Seriously. Who, these days, cares about information displayed on some 8-bit graphic interface that looks something from the 80s. Even mom heads online to check on Toto and weather forecast. The Internet is a lot more amazing. 360degree scrolling, mad crazy coloured images with videos and nonsense adverts by the side. Teletext is flat. It's grandma.

And, there we go. One more bit of history goes down history lane.
Teletext, you have served us well.

Some imagery to remember Teletext as it is.






One minute of silence for you Teletext.






Saturday, August 31, 2013

Cadbury's Flop?

Apparently Cadbury seeded a video into cyberspace a week ago, hoping to attain some "cyber-contagion".

hit "proposal fail india" into Google and this is what pops up in 0.25seconds

Based on the comments found on the web, it's looking to be a flop more than anything else.



Shit just gets worse as DailyMail tries to write about it. I just see more and more angry netizens setting the viral video in flames, with some stamping it as "staged", "just trying to get hits on YouTube", and "fake". Dailymail has since stopped accepting comments for its article.




Kinda left a sour taste in my mouth. 
Not feeling Cadbury anymore. Perhaps a bar of Hersheys would be nice. 






Friday, August 30, 2013

"Advertising and Promotion" by Chris Hackley


Hidayah introduced "Advertising and Promotion" by Chris Hackley during Wednesday's studio consultation. 

Visited my polytechnic to check it up, and managed to find both first and second editions. Highly recommend the newly revised second edition, which includes e-marketing and the changing phase of modern day advertising — crucial to my FYP thesis research. 


Personally found this more useful than "The Advertising Concept Book". Rather part money for Hackley's instead of the other. 

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Ancient Aliens and the Mystifying Histories of Mankind...

Totally off topic from my final year research...

I've always been madly intrigued by the history of mankind and the idea of God, religion, and our origins as humans. Though I'm amidst my Final Year Project, I still can't contain my constant interest in the existence of aliens, the idea and possibility of extra terrestrials being mistaken as gods and angels during ancient times, an explanation for all the impressive man-made structures made years "Before Christ" and the explanation for humans to develop vocal chords to create language in both written and spoken form. Everything is so mind boggling. So many "what if"s and schools of thought.

An article by The Washington Post, dated 9th March 2012, explains the possibility of Atheism outnumbering Christianity in a mere twenty years time. My immediate response, "Why not?"

I made a bizzare discovery during the holidays, reading up casually on "The Ideas That Made the Modern World"; During the Renaissance period, it was considered a terrible sin to be an atheist and not have a religious belief, it was so sinful that an atheist was thought to be equivalent to a Rapist and a Murderer for not having a belief in God. The reason so, a man without fear for God is a man who is capable of sins unimaginable to man.

It's a policy which I could understand, after all. Man needed an explanation for all things uncomprehendable, and the easiest way to do so is to define them as godly, and the miracles of god. God, back then, was the central figure to keep societies and communities in check. God was the fearful figure who punished the bad, and rewarded the good. The actions of man to do good and avoid evil doings was overseen by God. A God, or Gods, that could have been misinterpreted by ancient man who could not explain the miracles these technologically advanced extra-terrestrials have introduced to them and their communities.

I've always wondered if the invention of language, development of cities, introduction of time, strange ancient structures that depicted our position in the solar system was created not by man but by highly intelligent extra terrestrial beings...

Simply love these sort of mind boggling stuff.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Social Media — is it a social success?

I am starting to wonder how effective social media is in society.

I am divided, and yes a little bit confused.

Simply because, every time we have a moment of downtime, we head online and login into our various social media platforms. This is where, I feel, social media works well and hard to get messages out to the public. The simple "like" and "share" and "repost" button is so conveniently located, it takes someone no more than one second to share a photo, an event, or a comment. It is that easy.

But as I read on (particularly this book that I am currently sucked into "Contagious" by Jonah Berger), I cannot help but agree that social media make situations seem like publicity messages are going out effectively to the masses and generating a strong presence for brands, when in fact they aren't. The reason being that the general masses have now turned immune to social media because there is simply too much information shared on the internet that people have zoned out of it. Thus, not everything shared and liked on social media translates to an affirmative brand-building or message-spreading success. It could just be a false front.

This is where I am finding I am finding traditional methods of actual tangible physical interaction from brands with customers most reliable, along with the traditional word-of-mouth recommendation. As much as we are always connected on the internet, we spend a good three quater of the time offline. This suddenly brings to mind a personal situation that recently just occurred. I believe I have just conspired another string of word-of-mouth "advertising".

Just yesterday I bought a portable hard drive. My HDD needed to meet the following criteria:

Resonably Priced
Brand Reputation
Connectivity : USB 3.0, optional thunderbolt, and firewire
PC & MAC compatible (need to consider that I might have ancients still working on PC)


With all the factors stated above, my choices narrowed down to the following:

Toshiba — cheapest, but I have no clue about it's reputation in HDD
Seagate — ranking right in the middle, have heard about Seagate's reliability
Western Digital — most expensive, am currently using a desktop external HDD and am extremely satisfied with it
(strange unheard of Chinese brands were immediately crossed out of the list)

After much deliberation, I picked up the Seagate's portable plus back up.

A pretty decent choice, I thought, after all it's price was reasonable for a 500GB HDD, it gave me the option for a thunderbolt and firewire connectivity, and it's MAC and PC compatible.

I am now an officially proud owner of a sleek looking Seagate portable drive which I named Brains Jr. (because my grand 1TB desktop HDD is called Brains, this little one automatically adopted "Jr" into its title). I am so proud of "Brains Jr." until I found out the complimentary "Nero Cloud Storage" was only compatible for PC users. Immediately, I shared this unfortunate news with my boyfriend, asking him to keep clear of Seagate drives and stayed on-board with Western Digital HDD instead.

Bottom line: I am still satisfied and mildly happy with Brains Jr., and glad to have it on board my digital family but my happiness diluted when the complimentary feature was not made available to me a MAC user. I feel segregated and forgotten.

I, Lilia, have started a potential chain-message of "Seagate being MAC-unfriendly", which I hope isn't true and lied in the fault of me the consumer who didn't understand the product.

The power and unforgivable face of Word of Mouth advertising as said by an angry HDD owner.


Saturday, August 17, 2013

Feeling stuck, overwhelmed by endless possibilities

I am feeling stuck at trying to arrive at a conclusion with my Thesis and Statement of Intent for my project. I think what is making it a little more challenging is my change in specialism. I am still trying to adapt from the fast-turn around Advertising Communication “pace of life” to Graphic Communication specialism.

It is this ability to explore endless possibilities in Graphic Communication, opening up so many doors to so many outcomes, that is overwhelming me right now. Unlike Advertising Communication, Graphic Communication allows such endless exploration.

I think what I’m looking at is this year’s Graphic Comm graduates' works to gain a sense of direction and inspiration.

 Wise words of Catbug to myself: Keep Calm and Throw a Blanket (on it).

 Shall try to keep calm, collect my thoughts, and carry on.


Monday, August 12, 2013

Jinsop Lee — Designing for All Five Senses



A classmate of mine, Lix, shared with me what she watched online.

"Jinsop Lee is an industrial designer who believes that great design appeals to all five senses." via TedTalk

Lee's approach to design was a savior; He has articulated what I have been having in mind. He mentioned that a good design looks great, yes — but shouldn't it also feel great, smell great and sound great too? True. With modern break through technology, it is not a dream impossible to achieve.

This gave birth to Lee's theory of Designing for All Five Senses.

Lee hopes to inspire great multi-sensory experiences, by creating things, objects and products with five senses in mind. According to Lee's research, the best design involves all five senses, making that the perfect multi-sensory experience amongst all activities.

Lee creates a Five Senses Graph to help aid in the design process to feed our five senses :

Illustrated based on Lee's graph. Graph illustrates my personal review of drinking a can of Coke.

Thank God for Lee's talk.

Fuel for my thesis direction and purpose has been re-discovered.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Start of all things : A sense of direction and interest

I am carrying on with my last semester’s Statement of Intent, “engaging audiences through the use of sensory experiences”.

I’ve been reading around on a bi-zillion of topics on new dining experiences, what get’s people talking, the change in societies and cultures, for starters I’ve got a long list of books I need to read on. It’s so long I don’t know where to start. From marketing, economic, anthropology to psychology, good thing about it all, it’s everything I am madly interested in.

The book that tops the list is one by Sid Lee, on how to get everyone talking.

If I ever need to pick the ideal creative agency I wish to intern and work at, it’ll be Sid Lee. Simply love their experimental styles of advertising. After all, they were the few who pioneered the thought of making commercials look stylized to a point it looks like a short film.