New Blog!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I switched to a different host for my blog, so I will no longer be updating this site. Please follow me at http://emethot.wordpress.com/ !!

The Client

A brilliant portrayal of client-designer relationships in real life situations. Yo ho, yo ho a designer's life is not for me. This is why I'll be sticking to the accounts side, so I can tell them who's boss!



For more hilarious accounts of clients behaving badly, check out http://clientsfromhell.tumblr.com/

Go Holiday (PC)

Is it just me, or is this Gap Holiday commercial a rip-off of the Hillshire Farms meat ads with a cheer team twist? There is also the obvious connection to the FOX hit Glee, combining singing & dancing with acrobatic stunts. Throw in some Christmas sweaters and you have a recipe for a holiday commercial on Adderall.

Love the Hanukkah and Kwanzaa shoutouts, but Gap is getting heat for not making the campaign "Christmas-centric".




Either way, I'm loving all these holiday commercials :)

Twitter Legitimized

It's been an exciting year to watch advertising tactics transition from 360 degree marketing towards heavy social media influenced campaigns. As an early fan-girl of Twitter, I loved watching the mainstream catch up. Early Nielsen reports showed that a negligent number of college students used Twitter. Now it's become the ultimate buzzword, with phenomenons like #Mileycomeback trending topics lasting for days and brands like Zappos.com reaching 1.5 million followers.

Now my dream agency, Razorfish, has released their 2009 FEED report that has got the internet all a twitter, pardon the pun. The face of the report, Garrick Schmitt, authored this Advertising Age article that peaks at the future of consumer experiences with a brand. I particularly enjoy how Red Bull has created an entire lifestyle, it seems, to suit their ideal consumer. Creating an experience campaign that focuses on social media outlets, with supportive traditional media, seems to be the innovative concept of the near future.

Every bird should get to fly

For anyone who doesn't live in Washington State, you should take a moment to watch this commercial. Both spiritual and uplifting, this ad for WA State Lottery created by Publicis in the West (one of the few larger agencies still pumping out great work) won the ADDY Award for 2009 Best in Show. Enjoy :)

Another Failed Experiment

Being of descent from a variety of races that boast dark features (French, Czech and Native American to name a few), I am constantly battling with unwanted dark hair. I tried Nad's when it first came out but realized I couldn't put myself through the pain nearly weekly to keep up with the growth of the hair on my arms. The wax certainly wasn't strong enough for my leg hair. I picked up a bottle of Jolen's, which is still sitting in my drawer. I fear that going from dark hair to bleach blonde will be a bit too much of a contrast against my skin.

I was curious when I saw the commercials for Smooth Away. I decided to try it out after reading a review in Glamour magazine (or was it InStyle?) that recommened it for use on arm hair.

The texture of the pads are very similar to a nail file, and that's what it smells like as you buff away your hair, and some skin. I saw no immediate results but after a few minutes of intensive swirling, I finally began to see the hair disappearing. I must say it did remove a great amount of hair from my arms, much easier than using a razor that is quickly clogged up. But I soon realized that there were some spots that would just not go away, no matter if I used the large or small pad (the box comes with both). Eventually I decided to just go over those spots with a razor, which left my skin raw in some places. I tried it out on my upper lip with the smaller pad and saw pretty good results there with minimal pain.

In the end, I will probably continue to use this product on my arms and face, but I was not as pleased with the results as I would have hoped. The amount of effort required to actual remove hair should lead this product to have a name like "Scrub Away".
*Note: I bought mine at Ace Hardware for $9.99 but it did not come with the lotion. Any lotion could work as a substitute.

Calling all Mad Ave worshippers!

Being that I'm majoring in advertising and have a love of fashion, its expected that I am a complete die-hard fan of Mad Men, the AMC drama about advertising agencies in the late 1950's. The name "Mad Men" comes from the start-up of advertising, real advertising, on Madison Avenue when men were the only ones who ran the biz. Those who have seen the show know what the women are often the ones pulling the strings.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw an opportunity to appear on the show as a walk-on extra by entering a picture of your favorite 50's inspired outfit, a la Joan or Peggy. The show teamed up with Banana Republic to hype the premiere of Season 3, August 16th at 10 pm. All you have to do is go to BR and pick up a Mad Men-inspired style guide, and enter the code on their website along with your best outfit. Long live classic fashion!