The League Against Cancer created this ad to warn people about the dangers of passive smoking.  I decided to parody the ad to create a piece of ambush marketing.

Their ad:

My ad:

This is my first attempt at creating some packaging to accompany my smoking campaign.  I will also try to address the issues which will arise if the plain packaging law is enforced.

 Here are a few more ideas for my "ethically unethical" adverts...

My question... finally!

Finally I have finalised my question... I think.  It goes a little something like this:

"Exploration of Visual Persuasion in Advertising"

Here I was playing around with the idea of some guerilla marketing.

The idea was that I would make street bollards look like cigarettes to make people think cigarette.  After I did these I realised that a petrol station I use already paints there bollards on the forecourt like this.  They always reminded me of cigarettes but I never concidered it guerilla marketing until now.

This is a video I made for my pro-smoking campaign based on the smoke lungs poster I had created previously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO2Jdc4XL9g&feature=youtu.be

Forgot to post this before...  This is the logo I created for my pro-smoking campaign.  I wanted it to be simple and easily recognisable.  I put the O and the K of the word smoking in bold to subtly suggest that smoking is OK.

Ethically unethical

I am quite keen on making my campaign "ethically unethical" and created the following posters using "facts" I found on the internet.  I hope that these examples will appeal to the viewer's emotions and make them question what they think they already know about smoking.

I seen this anti-smoking poster and thought I would attempt to use the same technique to create my own ambush marketing pro-smoking poster.  Rather than using the smoke from the cigarette to create a noose I decided to use it to create a scarf which will hopefully appeal to the viewer's emotions as we approach winter.

This is the first draft of the poster I created.

AMAZING!!!  These ads for Old Spice are epic.  I want some Old Spice... NOW!!!

A Cigarette A Day...

Here are a few examples of old tobacco adverts where they actually claim to be healthy and carry endorsements from doctors!

 

Another example of ambush marketing.  Here Pringles take advantage of the hype surrounding Wimbeldon.

Guerilla Marketing Examples

A marketing technique which relies upon energy, creativity and imagination rather than a large budget to generate interest.  The aim is that the campaign will go "viral".

 I really liked this example from Fitness First gyms.  Very publicly and cleverly displaying the weight of the person sitting in the seat waiting on a bus.

Cult Cola is a Danish alcoholic cola.  They donate a small amount of the profits from each can to a breast cancer charity.  In this ad they show a woman who has been a breast cancer sufferer.  In doing so they appeal to our sense of empathy and our fears engaging with us emotionally and we almost feel obliged to buy a Cult Cola and help fight breast cancer.   What the ad doesn't say is that alcohol is one of the main causes of breast cancer...

These are more examples of Nike's 2012 "find your greatness" campaign.  I find these ads so inspiring to the point where I become emotional.  Love them!

In this example Nike use the story of a 12 year old boy named Nathan.  Nathan is far detached for the elite athletes that we would usually associate with an ad promoting sporting equipment.  However, although Nathan may not have much in common physically with professional athletes he displays mental attributes such as determination and courage.  This ad inspires the viewer to better themselves and again helps Nike to relate emotionally with consumers.

In this ad Nike uses the story of Mark Cavendish to inspire the viewer.  Mark himself tells us how self-belief and determination helped him to rise to the top of his sport when people around him were telling him he couldn't succeed.  The ad encourages the viewer to have determination and self-belief themselves.  Once again forming emotional bonds. 

I was really inspired by this "ambush marketing" campaign from Nike.  The ad features amateur athletes in different places named London around the world attempting to "find their greatness".  It is clearly a dig at the elitism of the Olympic games and their multi-million pound corporate sponsors.  The ad encourages the common consumer to aspire to a higher level of performance and helps Nike to relate emotionally with their customers.  The timing of the ad was perfect also, coinciding with the start of the London 2012 Olympics.

I am interested in branding and will likely create my project around this interest.  A few ideas I have are:

1. Experimenting with the use of marketing in an attempt to make a bad product/idea/brand attractive.  I might for instance attempt to rebrand cigarettes.  Everyone knows the health implications of cigarettes, however I think it might be fun to create a marketing campaign which attempts to rebrand the habit, make people forget the obvious risks and make cigarettes appealing.  Obviously I would never genuinely encourage a habit like smoking but I think it would be interesting to see just what effect a marketing campaign can have on peoples decisions.
   
   I could utilise the media such as: posters, flyers, stings, ads, website, ect..  I am also quite interested in researching guerilla marketing techniques and could attempt to incorporate some in the project.
   
2. Basically the oposite of the previous idea.  I would take an existing product/idea/brand, such as healthy eating, which has an appealing identity and attempt to use marketing to make it unappealing.
   
3. Simplifying information.  I may look at techniques which would allow me take information and communicate it quickly and efficiantly using simple visuals and sounds then attempt to apply these techniques to large project.  This could involve creating a short video which communicates a well known story using only basic visuals and sounds without losing any of the important information.

We had our first practical session for our honours project on Tuesday.  We split into small groups to discuss any ideas that we might have had for our projects.  The results of my group's discussion was this messy looking sheet of paper.  To be honest I'm struggling for inspiration at this early stage so hopefully I can actually look at this and develop some ideas...

HI!

I will be using this blog to record the development of my honours project.  I will display my ideas, research and progress throughout my honours year on this blog.

Please feel free to comment on any of my posts.  I'd appreciate the feedback.