Pepsi and Uber Capitalise on 'Back to the Future day'

The most recent zeitgeist is 'Back to the Future day'. 'Back to the Future' is a classic 1985 sci-fi film in which the protagonist time travels. One of the dates in which he travelled to was October 21st 2015; which just recently passed.

This gained huge social media attention, many people commenting on which predictions in the film came true and which ones didn't.

Pepsi and Uber teamed up to capture this zeitgeist by offering a few select passengers of Uber a once in a lifetime opportunity to take a ride in a DeLorean - the vehicle used to time travel in the film.

The passengers also received a 'Pepsi Perfect', a product which was predicted by the 1985 film to be released in 2015.

This was an incredible opportunity for brands to seize and Uber and Pepsi captured it perfectly.

Oreo Halloween Advertisement

A recent Oreo advertisement has captured the zeitgeist of Halloween by creating this short animated advert, with a catchy song from Owl City.

Animated or 'computer generated' advertisements are often popular. Compare the market's meerkat mascots or recent Cadbury's viral ads for example.

'Oreo' is a brand that are still trying to become as popular in the United Kingdom as they are in the United States.

The features of the advertisement, such as easy on the eye pastel colours and child like drawings along with a catchy jingle are not typically associated with Halloween. However it conveys a friendly tone of voice from the brand.

Advertisers admit unethical behaviour

Scott Cunningham, the senior vice president of technology at the 'Interactive advertising bureau' has admitted and apologised to 'messing up' the web.

Many of the problems that Cunningham admitted to affect iPhone users in particular. For example, the often frustrating pop-up advertisements that appear whilst using apps or browsing the web. Numerous iPhone users even resorted to installing ad-blocking software to combat these issues.

In an attempt to resolve these issues many companies have developed solutions. Apple for example, has released an 'Apple News' app which eliminates the need to browse the public web in which these issues occur.

Interactive advertising bureau have also stated that they are launching a 'Lean ads program'. Basically suggesting that the advertisements we will see from now on will be less invasive and safer.

Personally, I don't mind when advertisements are targeted to me and would be something I may be interested in. However, there is nothing worse than irrelevant and 'in your face' style advertisements which interfere whilst you are simply browsing your phone.

McDonald's final days?

According to a recent survey, the majority of franchisees of the McDonald's fast food chain state that they are in a 'deep depression' and could be in its 'final days'.

Many people used to consider McDonald's as a spontaneous treat or possibly even a reward if a family member had achieved something. Nowadays many consider it a guilty pleasure, or even a last resort when they are desperately hungry.

One of the problems that McDonald's are facing is the level of competition. Fast food places like 'Chipotle' or 'Five Guys' are becoming vastly more popular. One of the reasons for this may be that these kinds of places pride themselves on the atmosphere and quality of food rather than the speedy service of food; which in McDonald's case often diminishes the quality.

Another issue that McDonald's have been facing for a while now is the healthiness of their food. With more concerns in society of tackling childhood obesity, the situation can only get worse for McDonald's. Despite their best efforts to combat the reputation they have built as being 'junk food' like including chopped fruit with happy meals, they are still just regarded as being unhealthy fast food.

It would be a bittersweet feeling to see McDonald's go if this in fact the case. Many people grew up eating McDonald's and it is still loved by many. However, it may be a step in the right direction of tackling childhood obesity and making the world a healthier place.

Emotional Wrigley's Extra Gum advert

Emotional advertisements are often some of the most successful advertisements; John Lewis for example are iconic due to their heartwarming stories around the Christmas period.

A recent advertisement from Wrigley's Extra gum is no exception to this, gaining a lot of social media attention in it's first weeks of showing.

It depicts a young romantic relationship between a couple in love sharing tender moments such as their first kiss and buying a house together. At each of these moments the female hands her partner a piece of Wrigley's Extra gum. Later on in the narrative she discovers through pictures on the wall, that at each of the moments, her partner had sketched their life as it happened on the wrapper of the gum. One of these drawings, includes him proposing to her and as she turns around he is behind her, on one knee.

As well as being a captivating and beautifully shot advertisement, the message is clear and intelligently conveyed. The message being that Wrigley's gum is with the consumer throughout their whole life and never changes. The consistency is what Wrigley's are priding themselves on and really selling to the consumer.

Barbie's new approach to advertising

Barbie have recently released a short and brilliant advertisement for their dolls in a remarkably unique way.

The advertisement consists of young children aged from 4-6 acting out everyday jobs such as professors, veterinarians and football coaches. Many of the adults in these situations, such as the students or football players find this rather confusing and amusing.

Like many recent advertisements, it may be hard to guess the product or service being sold until the very end. The end of the advertisement reveals the young children playing with their barbie dolls with the tag line 'You can be anything'.

The advertisement seems to target the parents of the young children using a playful and amusing tone of voice by showing children in every day jobs. It also has a heartwarming message that their children can become anything that they want by playing with Barbie dolls.

Targeting the parents of the children is a smart move by Barbie, because if a brand is approved by the parent, they are more likely to buy the products when their children ask for it.

The Apprentice Advertising Challenge

This weeks task on the Apprentice was to advertise a shampoo by creating the packaging of the product, a digital billboard advertisement and a short TV advertisement. The teams also had to pitch their products to giants in the advertising industry such as JCDecaux. The shampoo itself was the same for each team; with the unique selling point of cactus oil used in the product.

Both teams took vastly different approaches when marketing the product. The all-male team decided to target a young male audience whereas the all-female team chose to target the 'grey pound' (an older audience).

The all- male team were the victors in this task, their strong point being the packaging, creating an incredibly sleek bottle for the product, with the clever use of a cactus as the letter 'T' in the product name 'western'.

The all-female teams packaging was their downfall however, choosing to include a cactus flower on their bottle as opposed to a cactus. This did not communicate strongly enough the unique selling point of the product, the cactus oil.

The task manager of the all-female team was eliminated from the process as it was her executive decision to not include the cactus.

This just demonstrates the importance in advertising to communicate the unique selling point of your product or service; after all this is what a company hopes will set them apart from other similar companies and make them stand out on a shelf for example.

Clever Carlsberg Print Avertisement

In just under three hours 'Fold 7' a creative advertising agency based in London, known for their work on Carlsberg, Nike and GoCompare to name a few, created an incredibly imaginative advertisement for the ongoing Carlsberg campaign 'If Carlsberg did...'.

The Carlsberg logo.

This one in particular came almost immediately after England's ashes cricket win; with the text reading 'If Carlsberg did test matches'.

The slogan 'If Carlsberg did' has become iconic to the brand now and this specific advertisement may be the most creative yet. It features a bottle opener in the shape of a man holding his hands apart with the word 'Howzat!' This pose relates to the sport and the bottle opener relates to the product (the drink) tying the both the sport and the product together beautifully.

Spontaneous advertisements like this that capture a 'Zeitgeist' are often the most successful, and this one is no different.

Campbell's Soup Advertisement

Campbell's have released a new advertisement that features two homosexual men in a relationship feeding their son some Campbell's soup. As I'm sure they expected, Campbell's have received mixed reviews for this portrayal of a modern day family.

The Campbell's soup logo.

It is no coincidence that this advertisement airs so soon after the 'love wins' campaign in the USA in which Gay Marriage was legalised nationwide.

The fact that Campbell's fully expected to receive backlash from this but still chose to run with the campaign is remarkably admirable to me and for the most part social media is extremely delighted with the campaign too.

A couple feeding their child soup.

Campbell's soup are such a traditional brand, dating back all the way to 1869. The fact that they are happy to promote an embrace what is considered to be a non-traditional relationship is extremely brave, considering a lot of their audience may be from a different generation which may be less understanding of modern day values.

#####

Paramount launches new YouTube channel

Paramount has recently launched a YouTube channel which includes hundreds of free movies. This is clearly a step in the right direction for Paramount, in a generation which is slowly, but surely becoming almost exclusively digital.

The iconic Paramount logo.

The majority of the films are considered 'classics' with very few of them being very recent at all. All the movies are free however and there of plenty of recognisable titles already uploaded such as: Texas chainsaw massacre 2 and The Reckoning, with many more to come.

This is yet another prime example of a company taking the plunge into the digital age. YouTube is an incredibly popular platform and is a huge part of young peoples lives. If paramount can expand on this collection, this could be a remarkably successful venture for them as a company and could even potentially shape the future for them as a company moving forward.

Sexist French Advertisement

An advertisement created by French television station 'France 3' has been pulled after several complaints that the advertisement was extremely sexist.

Hoping to promote the new addition of several female TV presenters, the station released an advert featuring an untidy home with unfinished chores, using the tagline 'where are all the women'.The advertisement included a burning cooker in an empty kitchen, a messy children’s bedroom,  and an iron burning a shirt.

One of the shots from France 3's sexist ad.

The advertisements goal clearly was to celebrate the women on their station, but it backfired terribly. By including several stereotypical and old fashioned 'housewife' jobs, many women, feminists in particular were outraged.

They say that any publicity is good publicity, however an attack on a whole gender doesn't seem like it can do any good for this TV station.

'The Emissions Scandal' continued

According to a recent study Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi are all proven to emit more pollution on the road than in the emission tests. Although none of the companies have been shown to use a specific device for this, like Volkswagen did, there is clearly something suspicious here.

The emission scandal is not over...

The most likely scenario being that the carmakers have designed specific 'one-off' cars to perform better in these tests; obviously to look better than their actual cars that go on sale; some of these emitting up to 20 times more pollution than the ones used for the test.


Although these companies are not quite as at fault as Volkswagen, because they didn't blatantly use a specific device to manipulate the tests, it is still certainly a big deal and a lot of customers will feel that their trust has been betrayed.

Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat are looking for even more ways to increase their revenue. One of the ways that they are trying to accomplish this is to put brand messages on the new 'lens' feature. For example on certain holidays like Halloween or Christmas, Brands may want to add a holiday themed lens to promote themselves or certain products.

The Snapchat logo

Snapchat are planning to charge the advertisers roughly $750,000 for this and while this may seem a high figure, Snapchat is estimated to be used by 100 million people a day.

This could potentially be a huge step for both  snapchat and advertising in general. The app is incredibly popular and it could be a great opportunity for businesses to reach their consumers in a different way; particularly a younger demographic.

Heineken Bond Advertisement

Bond, James Bond

Daniel Craig has featured in a new advertisement for Heineken. The advertisement features a typical 'Bond-like' boat chase and a 'Bond Girl' inadvertently assisting Bond in the chase while simultaneously holding two bottles of Heineken.

A makeshift Bond-Girl

The advertisement is visually stunning and I can see it being very successful. Using a star as not only an endorsement but a Unique selling point (USP) is a common practice in advertising and for men in particular, there is no bigger star than Bond.

Heineken/ SPECTRE ad.

Men want to be him and Women want to be with him so in that regard the advertisement is targeting both genders. The clip also does a good job of advertising the new Bond film 'SPECTRE' too; it is practically two adverts in one.

Quirky Emirates Advertisement

Jennifer Aniston has recently starred in a comical advertisement for the Airline 'Emirates'. The advertisement features Aniston looking for a shower and a bar on a non-emirates flight. She then wakes up from this 'nightmare' to a more glamorous emirates flight which does have a shower and a bar.

Jennifer Aniston

The use of the commodity of the celebrity Jennifer Aniston provides comedic value but also an endorsement. If the flight is considered sophisticated and classy enough for a star like Jennifer Aniston, who can more than likely afford a private jet, then it is certainly a classy company.

An Emirates plane.

To explicitly target the higher class ABC1 audience like Emirates have done here is a bold strategy, but on the other hand, they are certainly more likely to fly more often than a working class audience, if they have more disposable income, or even if they have to fly for their job.

Unsafe Selfies

A selfie is something that most of the general public are aware of and that the majority have taken part in; some on a day-to-day basis. This is a trend that is slowly fazing out and it is actually starting to be considered rather 'uncool' to take a selfie nowadays.

Studies show however that selfies are responsible for more deaths than shark attacks. Shark attacks on average cause 5 deaths per year. In comparison, selfies have been responsible for 12 deaths this year alone.

A selfie with a shark.

The majority of the fatalities are caused by people falling from high places while taking selfies. Others include being hit by moving traffic, or attacked by animals.

This is a prime example of how far some people will go to 'look good'. Whether it is capturing the perfect view, showing off a cool animal you met or standing in moving traffic; some people just care more about their public image than their safety.

Channel 4 iconic idents

One of Channel 4's many iconic idents.

Channel 4 are well known for having the most visually stunning and iconic television idents of this generation. However, this week the company have decided to scrap these and introduce a more incongruous and seemingly irrelevant selection of clips which can barely be recognised as idents.

This is the first major rebrand of the channel in ten years and many don't feel it is a necessary one; their idents never really seemed dated.

In the new idents, the short clips don't even feature the number 4, which is actually the whole purpose of an ident; to remind the viewer what they are watching. Instead the short clips are incredibly ambiguous short films featuring dancing puppet-like creatures or monkeys blowing up a mountain.

One of Channel 4's new idents.

Chris Bovill and John Allison, heads of in-house agency 4Creative defended the idents saying “We didn’t want to tell people what channel they’re watching. We wanted to tell them why they’re watching it in the first place".

It's certainly an ambitious change and one that is certain to have a split verdict. I personally preferred the use of landscapes to embody the 4 logo in their original idents, but that's just me.