50 Most Recognisable Brand Mascots

It is not a coincidence that some of the most iconic brands in the world also have some of the most iconic mascots, in fact some brands are famous due to their mascot(compare the market). These characters instantly connect you to the brand. I came across an infograph that I will post below that shows a visual representation of all the brands as well as giving you an insight into the brand as well

Font of The Week CreativeBloq

A fantastic idea from CreativeBloq and one that I only just recently came across is the idea of sharing their favourite font every day of the week. Each font is unique and different and could potentially help designers across the globe. Here are the Fonts that were included in the final week of November. Although some are free you do have to pay for some, here is a link to this weeks font of the week: Font of The Week November

Google Live Advent Calender App

Google had a great idea for an advertising campaign to raise awareness for their "watch this space" campaign which promotes the value of web media spaces and their invaluable traffic analytics. The campaign was simple, based around the child's game hot or cold in which you try to find objects, Google placed a prize in various places in London and you had to use an app to try to find them. Every day there would be a new prize and the launch would be at 12 every day. 

The app was very successful and the campaign raised had a very good social media reach with a lot of people tweeting about it. Google have shown again how advertising should be done with another very simple yet innovative idea

RL Grime new music video

Daniel Swan and David Rudnick have collaborated to create this amazing music video. There is so much going on in the music video with such attention to detail. The music video is perfectly in sync with the song as well as telling a story of a war creating some exceptional visuals. There's swarms of helicopters, tons of jets and some huge tanks to create an interesting battle scene. It has a really cool interface and looks like it would make an hardcore video game. Swan and Rudnick have shown that they have a lot of skills in their chosen field.

Baptiste Virot - Artist

Baptiste Virot is really coming up in the comic world with his amazing pieces which include aspects of surrealism. He is a master of illustrator, his work is very colourful and he is a very visually appealing. Here is some examples of his work

I really like his style of work because he has a very unique style that I haven't seen before, his work also has hints of Man Ray and Salvador Dalí.

Coca-Cola Christmas Truck

Coca-Cola are sending their iconic Christmas truck up and down the country to celebrate the start of the festive season. Having been to the event first hand where they give out Coca-Cola cans for free and have a choir singing Christmas songs, I can say the general tone of the event is a happy one. The choir continuously push the social media aspects of the campaign by telling you what hash tags to use on instagram and twitter.

Aldi Black Friday Print Ad

Aldi have come up with this clever swipe at other supermarkets doing special deals for black Friday and the tweet has had over a thousand retweets and favourites. A spokesperson had this to say “Aldi customers enjoy consistent everyday low prices, while shoppers elsewhere face confusing and ever-changing discounts and offers. Our commitment to value means we do not need to price match – we price lead.” This is definitely an advertising/marketing win for Aldi.

Shake Shack Clever Marketing Technique

Shake Shack is a burger bar in the heart of London's Covent Garden but originally started off in America having several shops over there before opening shop in London. They have a very unique selling point one that I have never seen before in that they give you a device that will start to shake once your food is ready. This is a great way to get customers talking and get more customers through word of mouth. This is the device that shakes and it is an experience for the customer rather than just sitting down and having a meal they are experiencing something and this is essential in advertising and marketing as people want to talk about stuff they have experienced

The Apprentice Advertising Task

I am an avid watcher of The Apprentice and have been for many years and was excited to see them given an advertising brief for a soft drink in New York. The task was to come up with a brand name, logo, digital ad and TV advert all based around a soft drink they had created. 

One team came up with the brand name Big Dawg and the brand logo which is shown below. I think the name and logo match together as it is very outlandish and shows a strong brand identity as a exciting new energy drink and would definitely catch people's attention in the supermarket. The only thing I think they failed on is the advert the advert was boring and involved someone standing talking about the drink, almost like a news bulletin. It wasn't energetic and failed to convey the brands identity as an out there bold new energy drink.

The second team came up with the name aqua fusion an idea of mixing water with fruit to create a health drink, which if the american market is anything like ours i'm sure Americans have seen something similar many a time. The branding, shown above, on the drink is poor it doesn't stand out and you can barely read the writing at the bottom. It looks like something straight out of a kids show from the 90's and in my opinion as aimed at a much lower target market maybe between the ages of 3-16. The advert on the other hand was a success as it told a story and had some real feeling and emotion behind it, a very stereotypical story but a story none the less which helped consumers engage more with the product.

In the end Sir Alan Sugar went with the Big Dawg and so would I as although it had a poor advert it had a strong brand identity where as the other product aqua fusion had a good advert but nothing else to back it up. What's the point of a good advert if you don't have a strong brand to advertise?

Human Body's With Animal Heads (interesting art)

I was unable to find the name of this artist but it is very unusual and very visually appeasing. All of the photo's look similar so this would suggest it is all done by the same artist, I am very interested in surrealist art and this definitely comes under that category. Surrealism is my favorite type of art because for me it is the most thought provoking and within its category has some of the most influential artists of our time such as Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Hans Bellmer and Paul Eluard.

"a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be -- the greater its emotional power and poetic reality." -Pierre Reverdy (Poet)

Apple Watch Launch

Time and time again apple come on top when it comes to design and their new Apple watch is no exception. With the new trend of smart watches Apple have made sure that they are leading the market with this state of the art smart watch that they recently released the designs for. "The new apple watch is not a single object, but a whole range of products enabling millions of unique designs and unparalled personalization, both in appearance and capability." This in my opinion is their biggest launch since the iPad came out and their reveal video has some stunning images to stimulate the brain showing in detail the amount you can personalize this device. Set to come out in March 2015 I'm sure Apple will have no problem selling this.

Volkswagen Mates Rates Campaign

A very unusual marketing campaign to say the least but it has definitely caught my attention. Volkswagen have taken it a step further this year with their annual spring sale in partnership with curumbin wildlife sanctuary and decided that they will continue their sale until two koalas called Trevor and Irene(part of the curumbin wildlife sanctuary) make a family, or until November 30th arrives.

The video is funny, short, snappy and definitely catches your attention. It also makes the consumer more engaged as you are intrigued to find out when they do start the family and is a clever way to hook the customer into being involved with the campaign, especially for animal lovers.

PhoneBloks Social Media Reach Campaign

PhoneBloks is a concept idea that when a part of your phone breaks, like for example your camera, rather than having to buy a whole new phone and produce a lot of electrical waste why not simply replace the camera on the phone. PhoneBlok created this video to explain their idea further

This video was very successful as the Youtube video has 20million views and the campaign had a recorded social media reach of 388 million people. This made phone company's aware and now PhoneBloks is in partnership with Google and Sennheiser. It goes to show that a company's social reach is valued very highly now a days, because this campaign had a great social reach the idea is now becoming a reality. What started off as a promo video has now become a multi-million pound idea that is sweeping the nation and this is all due to people sharing the video via social media outlets. In todays age having a large social reach can earn you money.

Youtube's Richest Stars

Since the introduction of adverts to the Youtube videos we watch (even if it is very annoying) there have been numerous Youtube "stars" that have made a killing from the advertisements at the beginning of their videos. The Youtube channel owners get a percentage of all adverts played through their channel (usually around 55%). Here are 3 of the most popular Youtubers and their estimated yearly income according to business insider for the year 2013.

1. PewDiePie

Youtube Screenshot

$825,000-$8.47 million estimated yearly income after YouTube's 45% cut.

23.9 million total subscribers.

3.69 billion total views.

2. BluCollection

$660,000-$6.38 million estimated yearly income after YouTube's 45% cut.

628,000 total subscribers.

1.38 billion total views.

3. DisneyCollectorBR

$505,000-$5.06 million estimated yearly income after YouTube's 45% cut.

1.05 million total subscribers.

1.51 billion total views.

Having a Social reach is something that big company's now find desirable as the more people that can be reached through social media the more people will view the advert.

Moments of Warmth Duracell Ambient Advertising Campaign

Winter in Canada can reach up to -30° C which is why Duracell thought it would be the perfect place to launch their moments of warmth ambient campaign. Their campaign included a bus shelter with heaters in them that only turned on when commuters completed a circuit between the positive and negative symbols on either side of the transit shelter. This creates a very warm and touching moment that many people would want to share via social media helping the advertising campaign reach out to more people making it more likely to go viral. This makes the brand look really good in the eyes of the consumer as it is a nice gesture and is a change from your standard print ad. To add to this Duracell have said every time a circuit was completed they would donate $1 to Habitat for Humanity Canada.

North Face Never Stop Exploring Campaign

Filmed in a pop up store in Seoul, North Korea, North Face have come up with a brilliant way to get customers to interact and feel engaged with this amazing stunt. The floor would disappear with the walls being able to climb, a North Face jacket would fall down and a message would say you have 30 seconds to grab the jacket and the time would start. This is a very unique way to engage with customers and is certainly something that would stick with the consumer. Great piece of advertising really promoting the "never stop exploring" message, which they have based their new advertising campaign on.

Social Media's Dominance In Our Lives

Social Media is coming more and more apart of our life and here are some interesting facts to prove that:

- Facebook tops google for weekly traffic in the U.S
- Facebook had over 200million users in a year where as the TV took 13 years
- If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest
- Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more twitter followers than the entire population of the following countries Sweeden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama

Social Media is apart of every day life which is why advertising companies are now increasingly targeting online adverts and often have an online collection of their work

Shepard Fairey Artist

Reeling off his success for his recently launched OBEY work, which in his own words "has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker", Shepard has had a piece of artwork go viral. 

The artwork went viral and was widely described as an iconic representation of the Obama campaign. This was one of the first artworks to go viral globally. The poster was inspired by social realism and by october 2008, Fairey claimed to have printed 300,00 posters this is not including the individuals who had printed them off as he put a digital copy on his website.

Samuel Silva Artist

Samuel Silva is an artist that re-creates images using just a ball point pen. The pictures look so realistic that it is very difficult to tell the difference between them and real photo's. Here is one he drew of a lion I think the fur looks amazing and very realistic, the glint in his eye is also very convincing. 

Samuel Silva has numerous pieces of art like this which are all listed on his deviant art: http://vianaarts.deviantart.com/ or his facebook https://www.facebook.com/VianaArts

Here are some more examples of his work:

Paddy Power Banned Adverts

This advert pushes the boundaries and you can see why this advert was the most complained about advert in 2002 in the UK. This advert was banned although in doing so helped it go viral which might not be seen as bad in Paddy Powers eyes.

Keeping to brand values of pushing the boundaries they also managed to get the most complained about advert of  2010 as well with this advert. They have a strong brand identity which involves a dark sense of humour and I am sure they will continue this in the future and we will see more banned adverts.

Specsavers Goal Line Technology Print Ad

Another great topical advert that Specsavers created came out shortly after Frank Lampard's goal (when England lost 4-1 to Germany) was disallowed. Keeping to Specsavers values in including humour in their Ads (as seen with the parody of lynx's billion advert) they have continued to show a strong brand identify that comes alive in their adverts. In advertising there are many opportunities for topical adverts and Specsavers are a company that time and time again capitalize as their adverts often go viral

Samsung Print Ad

Advertising works a lot better in my opinion when the adverts are topical. After the release of the iPhone 6 and it came out that these in fact bend in your pocket, the advertising team at Samsung jumped on this and made this print ad. The advertising team at Samsung didn't have long to create this advert to make it topical so did a great job in this. Its funny, simple and catches the consumers eye and has a good on-line presence because loads of websites have shared it because of its humour.

John Lewis Christmas Penguin Advert

Although I personally prefer the Sainsbury's Christmas Ad as I have far more in common with a soldier wanting to call a truce with the Germans on Christmas than to get involved with my imaginary pet penguins love life, I still think that John Lewis' advert is very heart warming and is certainly the advert i'd imagine more kids find interesting and being the main target audience of Christmas I believe John Lewis may have got one over on Sainsbury's this year.

The slogan at the end of the John Lewis advert is very clever as it encourages you to buy everything your kid has been asking for this Christmas. When talking about giving "someone" the Christmas they've been dreaming of John Lewis are mainly talking about kids and this is reinforced with the picture of the kid playing with his two penguins as John Lewis know as well as we all do that the majority of money spent on Christmas is spent on kids. The advert also has a very clever twist at the end again reinforcing kids being the centre of attention as something as simple as a toy penguin that you buy for your kid can be turned into something magical (through the use of some CGI special effects of course). The song is very catchy and using the #MontyThePenguin they have created a great online presence.

Sainsbury's Christmas Advert

After John Lewis' Christmas advert had hit 15 million views in just under 2 weeks, Sainsbury's knew they had a lot of competition this year. Although the Sainsbury's Christmas advert has caused a great deal of controversy receiving up to 250 complaints in the 2 days it has been online, due to using a snapshot of war to increase sales, it also manages to catch the emotion of the Christmas spirit and those who were trapped in the trenches on Christmas in 1914 through great use of camera work and choice of music. It is also a story that the vast majority can resonate with as who would really want to be shooting at the enemy in a time which is solely based on the good nature of humanity? The advert has clearly been successful and influenced what the consumers are buying as Sainsbury's started selling the same chocolate bar featured in the advert and are reporting sales of around 5000 an hour. This is a great story for an advert and what better time to tell this story than around christmas, I think think the advert works brilliantly and the proof is in the pudding as sales have rocketed, I also think the publicity causd by the complaints that were made might not be all bad as any publicity is good publicity