BYOB

Metro Monk

I found this brief response from Ben Ducke, the brief asked for an engaging personality for the brand as well as promoting it as the fastest way to get the news. "We read the news to be informed and enlightened about the world; therefore I introduced the “Metro Monk”, in search of instant enlightenment."

I feel Ben has captured a 'personality' perfectly here, everything that is stereotypically associated with Monks, particularly knowledge and speed can relate back to the publication really well, more so as its handed out free on public transport. A great overall concept from an advertising point of view.

Typ-age

Guardian

I annoyingly found this earlier today, a rather colourful advertising campaign from The Guardian, reiterating the concept that they like to acquire all angles on topics before presenting them as fact. They thrive on interactivity with regards to opinions from the public and other practising journalists and how they are free to say whatever they want. I think because they are 'owned by none' they could potentially be seen as being able to put out opinion as fact and deliver stories in persuasive ways. It is imperative for them to be seen as delivering the truth over opinions, which in my opinion, this campaign does really quite well.

My annoyance with finding this particular campaign comes from my recent experiments with the 'i' logo, creating a visually attractive identity incorporating colour and repetitive i logo's, which one could see as being heavily influenced by these! As similar as it could be seen to be, I think once the appropriate colours are used in correlation to the 'i' magazine's colour coding the outcomes will be far enough apart.

i analysis

End of Work

As gifts to their clients and staff, Sydney based design studio ‘End of Work’ produced a range of products such as wine bottles and tote bags.
The packaging to house the products was made from industrial potato sacks, typographic lettering was screen printed onto the bottles, bags, tags and envelope sacks. Each envelope sack was individually hand stamped out to reveal the name and message to the recipient. They were sealed with de-bossed logo and singer sewn closed.

Wrap-Up

Another ingenious campaign, this time from Steamboat today, the offical newspaper for 
Steamboat Springs. In the run up to Christmas, The Saturday edition of the newspaper came gift-wrapped in paper that readers can use to wrap holiday gift, brilliant.

“We hope this can become an annual tradition,” Boyer said. “It is meant to be fun and festive and give readers a little more value with their morning newspaper.”

Although we are no where near the run up to christmas, the idea could stem past simple wrapping paper designs to a somehow more useful design that could be used regardless of season?

Wrap-around

We've been thinking about a wrap-around type cover for the i magazine, considering how the visual impact of the paper might endorse a bigger student following. This got me thinking about how maybe other papers have used visual campaigns to promote the sales or persuasion towards their certain publication. It goes without saying there are some really innovative examples being put to use all over the world, a few of which I've touched on here...





















"This morning as I came out of Waterloo station there was a gang of glamorous looking women handing out what appeared to be free handbags. Of course all the female commuters crowded round trying to find out what was going on and if they were actually able to get their hands on a free handbag, which then attracted more attention."

I think this is a brilliant concept, particularly as it immidiately caused a hype around getting hands on the product, something that many brands strive to achieve. Although this was predominantly directed towards women on the whole, I think the intriguing element of the design would appeal to a slightly wider audience than first anticipated.

Papers tend to only use wrap-arounds where a national issue is concerend such as the general election or maybe one that affects a massive majority, even worldwide, 9/11, for example.

Other than this, and much like the sex and the city advertisment above, corporate companies buy a wrap-around (the logistics of which I'm severely unsure of) to take a dominant stance on the newspaper stand, with the intentions of drawing sales in by brand association and the idea that it must be a result of something important.

Prank

On the 12th of November 2008 a group of pranksters handed out more than 1.2 million fake New York Times newspapers mainly in New York City and Los Angeles in 2008 with a front page story declaring "Iraq War Ends" and dated July 4 2009. They even set up an entire website with all of the liberal fantasy headlines. Universities to be free! Bike paths to be expanded! Thomas Friedman to resign!

 

Motion

Contiunuing visual research into shape/colour/type/sound for the image module, I came across these beautifully simple motion graphic pieces from mucho studio. Both are heavily focused around shape. I want to look at how type and shape relate and what can occur when motion is introduced. The first video here could be seen as working with the letter 'o', but i'm sure they're just circles, regardless of this, video could be a very feasible outcome for my self directed brief commencing over the next few weeks.

/ Cut /

Tuatara Breweries responded to the widespread outrage in New Zealand over pricing for Adidas rugby jerseys, by running a full page newspaper advertisement offering a far cheaper version. Instead of spending $220 on an overpriced jersey, fans could buy a NZ Herald, cut and fold their own, with plenty of cash left to drink good beer. The Tuatara All Black campaign was developed at Y&R New Zealand.

Dumbar

Exciting identity project from Studio Dumbar for the internationall yacht race La Transat AG2R La Mondiale.

I AMsterdam

The ‘I amsterdam’ campaign has been up and running since 2004 and is well established and intergrated part of the cities marketing strategies, so much so it has almost become the face of the vastly cultured city. Smart is the use of the huge ‘I amsterdam’ letters which travel around the city and which are popular among tourists as a picture point (and are actually being copied by other cities…)

The website visually resounds the strong campaign and is highly navigatable, an integral part of communicating to a multi-national demographic looking to visit the area.

We are going to propose a campaign alot like this in the sense that we want a visual dominance and consistency running through, from printed media to 3D installments, the app, website and even the paper itself. Our thinking about the 3D i's being dotted around university cities sprung this particular camapign to mind and almost captures the exact visual intentions of our current practice.

The Hindu

Last week, the English-language public sphere and social media networks in India rippled with excitement after The Hindu launched an attack on its competitor through a stinging print and television campaign. The print ads, running with the common tagline "Stay ahead of the times," mocked the dumbing-down of the news by the Times with lines such as "Because government malfunctions matter more than wardrobe malfunctions" and "Read about political parties. Not Page 3 parties." The video commercials, each lasting a minute, showed a group of young people unable to answer a set of simple questions about Indian politics, business, sport and mythology, but reeling off the correct answers to questions about film stars. Then, they are asked, "Which newspaper do you read?" Their answers are bleeped out, but aren't hard to decipher.

facts?

1    Magazine readership has grown over the past five years. (Source: MRI)

2    Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009. (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first and second half 2009 data)

3    4 out of 5 adults read magazines. (Source: MRI)

4    Magazines deliver more ad impressions than TV or Web in half-hour period. (Source: McPheters & Company)

5    Magazine readership in the 18 to 34 segment is growing. (Source: MRI)

6    Since Facebook was founded, magazines gained more than one million young adult readers. (Source: MRI)

7    The average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue. (Source: MRI)

8    Magazines are the No. 1 medium of engagement — across all dimensions measured. Simmons’ Multi-Media Engagement Study find magazines continue to score significantly higher than TV or the Internet in ad receptivity and all of the other engagement dimensions, including “trustworthy” and “inspirational.”

(Source: Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study)

9    Magazines and magazine ads garner the most attention: BIGresearch studies show that when consumers read magazines they are much less likely to engage with other media or to take part in non-media activities compared to the users of TV, radio or the Internet.

(Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Usage Study)

10    Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent. (Source: Dynamic Logic)

11    Magazines rank No. 1 at influencing consumers to start a search online – higher than newer media options. (Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Usage Study)

The reliability of this source is questionable, however it does highlight some interesting facts concerning magazines. The 'I' is often reffered to as a magazine, although flaunts all the attributes of a daily newspaper. The daily production of the 'magazine' lends itself to the print process and format used, so it would be an obscure suggestion to try and change this. It could however, brand itself slightly more approachable, or less like those of its sister publications, the gaurdian/daily mail etc.

Million

The million dollar homepage was an ingenious idea by a young entrepreneur looking to pay off his uni debts and earn himself a bit of money. As simple a dollar a pixel, the minimum purchase was 100 pixels at $100. Soon after, it's popularity outgrew pixel space and the guy was a millionaire.

My attention here however, is drawn to 'The Times', consuming a rather considerable space for a UK newspaper. It's interesting to see how papers put themselves in the public domain and I found this particularly interesting as most of the content on the homepage would be considered as 'spam' by the majority of online users. None the less I'm sure it's been a beneficial move on behalf of The Times, and although advertising space on this particular website is maxed out, it's got me thinking of obscure ways to get the 'I' across to the public, more specifically students.

tweetin'

Taking newspapers viral is a thought of ours, more specifically taking them viral and aiming them at a younger audience. I found this in a Dutch publication 'DePers', promoting the use of twitter.

I'm unsure whether it's promoting the use of Twitter as part of the newspaper experience, or simply an article regarding Twitter. I would presume the latter, although any publicity is good publicity, particularly for social networking sites like Twitter. The more they are in the public eye, the more likely people are to start coming round to the idea of intergrating these platforms into their everyday lives.

Newspapers are so current and up to date by nature, it would be stupid for them to not jump on the social networking waggon, receiving comments and publishing stories as and when they happen. Matt found a promotional video for the Gaurdian, very cleverly showcasing their ethics regarding getting the whole picture of a story, stemming through public input and discussion, a term rising as 'open journalism'.

Trillion

The Trillion Dollar Campaign was an innovative way to protest Zimbabwe’s record breaking hyperinflation which reached the unbelievable mark of 231,000,000% in October 2008. The campaign was launched in 2009 with the goal of promoting the newspaper called The Zimbabwean, whom President Mugabe was giving a hard time, as well as increasing awareness of the total collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar.

Vendors

Looking at the way newspapers are distributed in different environments. Students are, in the majority, are on the move a lot of the time, especially in and around city centres and towns. Offering a method of quick and easy distribution can often influence people to buy a newspaper through pure convenience. Small, manned newspaper vendors usually sell local newspapers, of which there is often not a lot of relevant content where students are concerned.

Even more convenient are un-manned machines commonly found in America, removing the human interaction only speeds up the process and seems more approachable as one can make the personal choice to approach it without having to stop and interact.

Introducing this concept to the UK permanently, more specifically for the I magazine would incur extreme costs, most probably not a viable solution for reaching out to students. However, large temporary vendors could become an option, working as more of a promotional tool to get students interested.

An idea stemming from this was a large cardboard (or other cheap malleable materials) 'i' placed around city centres with some kind of incentive to interact with the promotional 'event' so to speak.

Beethoven

Dr. Hans Jenny