Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Calbury eyebrow ad

This is the ad that everyone talks about. Feedbacks are quite extreme I would say, either they like it 
or "it doesnt make sense!". My opinion? I think this is what you call a strong brand. Who else can sell 
chocolate by playing with eyebrows? The purple dress on the little girl subtly reminds us of Calbury 
chocolate, while they entertain the audience with their tweaking brows. Hahahaha.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Amazing..











HAHAhahah.. KFC




made with watches...






Brilliant paper-cutting!






Cute Bentos!!




   
Drooling? Food that look too good to be eaten.
Aesthetically pleasing food always increases appetite.
 Japanese are really creative, look at the colour combinations! 
And they're all natural ingredients. Cool.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Previous Reflective Blog Posts

Post on September 13 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Sunday, 09/13/2009 10:01 PM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 
Updated on Friday, 09/25/2009 4:35 AM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

7 weeks passed just like that. Time really flies, I enjoyed the weeks spent on the IAA project. I got to know new friends and my group mates are really nice people. Nice people doesn't guarantee good team work, but we really work well together. Efficient and harmoniously. It was really great job. Even if the presentation didn't go well, I would be as proud of ourselves like now. What matters most is we both strived to do our best as a team. Funny enough, I felt a little disappointed when everything ended. I think I'll miss the regular meetings we had, and also the images of Assistance Dogs Australia. :D

We worked at a consistent speed which was good because we had nearly a week to prepare for presentation. That gave us sufficient time to edit again and again, rehearsing our slides together. Even celebrating Jess's birthday during one of our rehearsal. Haha. 

What's coming up next? Join the competition and see if they like our campaign. ( Fingers crossed)

 

September 25 updates

We are really glad that we got selected for entry into the IAA competition; and the plans book was compiled smoothly after various edited versions. After we each did our part for the plans book, it carried the same style for a consistent look.
I would say that our group had just the healthy amount of stress (or maybe it is because everything’s over now) for us to work productively while not over-stressing ourselves. Working out the target audience profile using psychographics was challenging; rationalising strategy was quite a process too. I think our media planner did a really great job.

The most that I learnt was actually from my team members. I like the way they work: work hard, play hard. We set ourselves deadlines and sticked to them. Notes were taken during meetings, no matter how random the ideas are; and we discussed openly, making things easier for everyone to understand. We had a few causal meetings where we got to know each other better, it helped in our working relationship as well.
I feel that there is a need to improve on my communication skills (especially language), which will benefit my future teams and myself.

Deadlines were uncomplicated; our consistency pulled us through the unnecessary worries.Although punctuality wasn’t much of an issue, one thing was always in my mind. It may seem like you were late for one minute, but you actually wasted six minutes of the whole team. That is very true.

Overall, I have to say again: Love working with my team, the Gig rocks!

In future, I strongly encourage the self-pitching to be continued, because it provided a fruitful experience for me. Working with people outside your comfortable zone is a great way to learn.




Post on September 4 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Friday, 09/04/2009 6:24 AM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

i haven't experienced spoon fed learning since we entered polytechnic, our school insisted that we should be trained to adapt to university and working life. No more spoon fed was the first thing they 'taught' us. During the first year in poly, we have little guidance from lecturers so we wont dont stray too far. As the second year approaches, we were basically all on our own except for feedback during consultations. In fact, I quite enjoyed the freedom to work by ourselves because it gives me flexibility and air to breathe when my mind is just not in the mood to work.

We joined in this second semester but we adapted quite well. It takes self-discipline to balance work and play, especially in a place far from home. These experiences help us to mature quickly, having to take care and cope with everything by ourselves. This IAA project is the first group work we have, and it is really good learning  experience for me. Through this project, I get to meet new group mates/friends, understand local culture and most importantly, have the opportunity to work with different people.

I still think that our group is brilliant. Self-direct learning might be a chance for students to slack, but our group makes the best out of every meeting; have regular meet ups to check our progress, even a drinking session to chill out and understand each other better. Regarding project work, we delegate tasks and set deadlines for consistent progression. Research/strategy side works hand in hand with the creative side in order for the campaign to be successful, and also to speak in one single voice.

We have open discussions during meetings and everyone is free to voice out their opinions or ideas, in fact the best ideas came out while we were bouncing off random ideas. I have strong confidence in our group-The Gig, we are able to produce work harmoniously and effectively. And I am quite proud of ourselves. 




Post on August 21 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Friday, 08/21/2009 5:59 AM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

Actually our group carried out moderate research as a team before we started the creative process. We had a specific profiling of primary and secondary target audiences, main objectives for creative brief to ensure creative process follows the

Further in depth research, research and strategist and media planner continued from there, whereas the creative side kick start brainstorming for the big idea. It is good as well as they can get their minds of the massive research process and just let their minds go wild with ideas. Too much research can limit our creativity, especially when we ‘think too much’. We came up with random ideas every meeting, even before we started creative process, we jotted down and leave it till we got the creative brief settled. From then on, we could always refer to see if the ideas match our objectives/campaign.

Well-defined target audience profile is really important; it determines how the entire campaign goes. Direction, tone, objectives became totally different once target audience changes. We spent quite some time profiling our target audience with physiographic factors, which was worth the time because it became much clearer once we sorted out.

We didn’t use the cannibals play cards as our tutorial meeting went very smoothly with the creative ideas. Feedback and discussion were good and we created steps for the different phases of the campaign.

We often refer back our creative ideas to ensure we are on the right track, basically each of us managed to drag us back to the brief when we sidetracked occasionally. The phone call with client was extremely useful and the lady is very kind. We are going to Docklands to check out the assistance dogs’ training this Sunday; I am so looking forward to it. Hopefully this will give us more insights and inspirations for the campaign!




Post on August 18 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Tuesday, 08/18/2009 12:51 AM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

We tend to bury ourselves with tons of research and get confused with irrelevant details. This might limit our creativity as we preset a box or determine the “over defined” direction before creative process even starts.

Research is based on what has been done before, whereas blue ocean strategy is about opening a new market and attracting new target audiences; thus the more research you do for existing cases is just going to limit your creativity. Right brain thinking/creativity should be well explored; too much research (using the logical left brain) might take over our right brain eventually. We have to focus on the big picture and not dwell on minute details on research that might not even help in producing the BIG idea. In conclusion, we should spend more time in analyzing and see what is unthought-of, this is where creativity takes place.




week 3 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Tuesday, 08/18/2009 12:40 AM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

Difficulties we faced:

Have to touch consumers with emotions aspect, instead of selling product benefits. Advertisements cannot be too extreme nor too subtle, it has to be just right for target audience to absorb effectively. We are not selling anything, because the target audiences are not buying anything, except the ‘feel good’ factor. On the client’s side, they hope to show every service details they have which can be problem.

I presume we would be worrying about the media planning later on. Why? Because there is no budget at all! Organization’s image has to appeal to target audience, as this will directly affect the recipients when sponsors and donations are little.

For profit brands you can put down other brands, but for non-for-profit, you are supposed to help recipients ultimately. Their competitors are actually organizations with similar service. Campaign/advertisements cannot try too hard to gain themselves a superior position.

Most people are skeptical towards charity and tend to shun from ugly truths(even myself). Non-for-profit campaigns have to move people to action, changing behaviour is the hardest thing to achieve, especially when they are buying nothing.




Post on August 7 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Friday, 08/07/2009 9:18 PM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

Is there any discussion topic for this week? I guess not, so I shall talk about our group's progression. We met up on Monday to agree on the questions for clients, shared research and insights we gained through the weekend, and we compiled the creative brief. More in depth research on target audience and non profit organisations. During the tutorials, we realised our target audience have changed to Average Australians and a lot of confusions occured. We were lost for almost an hour, our discussion went around in circles till the creative side said they had to get started with their parts. The media planner and I tried to sorten our our thoughts, it was good that he pressed on the issue and insisted we should clarify with you. It became so much clearer after that. Workload increased as well because we chose the hard way. I met up with the media planner today to settle the target audience profiling, it is always better to work with someone. I tend to confuse myself with the tons of research I dig into.

Hope the creative side is doing great, I really hope to join in the fun after these research and strategies stuff. Arrgh.




Post on August 1 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Saturday, 08/01/2009 3:03 PM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

Before I read the tuckman's model, I recalled the situational leadership model learnt from my previous classes, reason being that our group meeting has been extremly productive. I think that we were already in the norming stage when we first got together as a group. Instead of telling us what to do, our CEO has always taken a partipating position, maybe it was due to everyone being highly committed in this project.

The explanation of norming stage is just the description of our team. I do not know whether it is a common trait that every team is supposed to be as nice as ours,but my previous group experience in polytechnic was not as smooth as this. We would have encountered several issues like group members missing meetings, need to be driven to work at times, or often drifting off work topics. I guess this kind of picking members to form an all rounder team is great, really. We might face other issues along the way, but till now I am quite impressed by the way we work. During the tutorial, we shared what we know about the assistance dogs and tried to figure out a clearer brief. We were confused at first though, until you came over to bring us back to the right path.

After listing down what we have to do in order to clarify the brief, we delegated tasks for each of us for the weekend: breaking down brief, research work on organisation and target audience, get to know more the receipents, preparing development booklet etc. Everyone was keen to take up the research work although I am the researcher and strategist for the group. Likewise, I am excited about the creative process that will take place next week. Love brainstorming! But first of all, we need to get good background research before plunging into ideas exploration.

Ways to help my group? Well, as long as I turn up for all the meetings and do my part, I am postive our group can produce great work. Sometime I help to clarify confusion in our group, because I am able to see the differences they are thinking, like when one person says A, but the other person thinks its B. I will double check whether they are sharing the same thoughts.

Hope we can get objectives and everything else settled on monday's meeting!




Post on July 28 2009 (permalink) -edithistorydelete 
Created on Tuesday, 07/28/2009 9:19 PM by Charmaine Cheuk Man CHOW 

First week entry delayed

I didn't realise we had to start reflection from week 1, sorry I am late. Professional practice has been what I expected it to be, in fact it is better than I thought. That is because we can have the opportunity to work in groups for an IAA competition, following ad agency's procedures. I reckon it would be a good learning experience for us where we get to interact and work with different talents.

Regarding areas that sound like a drag, I could not recall for now. The listening part was a bit of struggle for me though, I had to get used to some of the fast pace english speaking. Especially when someone 'eats' or strings up words while talking, I have to focus really hard to understand. Well, I guess we will get used to it very soon. Wink

In my opinion, our group seems to be the best mix of people, it is well balanced in gender and races. Although I did not get the creative director's position, but I am glad to be the research and strategist for my group as I am pretty good in the area. I believe good research generates better creative ideas that are appropiate. Anyway, my group intends to work together as a team, regardless of whatever positions we are in.

Interpersonal skills and insights to how ad agency works will be the best things I will be able to gain from this course. Looking forward to it!