Competitive Analysis

Sally Hansen's competitive brand is OPI Nail Lacquer. They are one of the first brands in the nail industry that started off selling to and through professional beauty or nail salons only. "From a contemporary perspective, one can easily see that there are many factors involved in why a consumer chooses one brand over another..." Advertising by design, Robin Landa pg. 4) Being known as a salon brand, OPI easily draw customers and clients. Customers tend to think that salon brand products are the better brands since they're used by industry professionals. They also have instructions for all the product they sell. Clever names are used for colors for each of their collection which draws attention.

OPI has foundations that donate to health-related charities and children's education. "One of the main strategies touted by the twentieth century ad pioneers was 'reason-why copy,' which essentially means that you provide a good, sensible argument." (Advertising by Design, Robert Landa pg.4) Some of their foundations are: Weiss-Fischmann, and Miriam Schaeffer, and the Schaeffer Family Foundation. They've also helped the American Red Cross after hurricane Katrina and fighting against diversion of professional beauty products. On top of that, OPI doesn't use animal testing.

Some of the complaints from consumers that have used OPI are: the high price even though the colors do chip, the colors are hard to get off your skin, has a strong odor, and some even say that the bottle shapes are a bit problematic. They also have issues of diversion, other companies “bootlegging” their products and copyright infringement.

OPI is very serious about diversion. They recently filed a lawsuit against TransDesign, a website that sold cosmetic prroducts, for illegally selling OPI nail products for a cheaper price than usual. They will file lawsuits for companies that they catch illegally selling their products.

Sally Hansen: You don't need them anymore

A lot of women get their nails done at nail salons or spas. "Drawing upon life experience may be one of the richest techniques for finding ideas. There is nothing funnier or more interesting than the actual way people do what they do. Ideas can be based on the tiniest things we do: how we eat a sandwih dookie, how we tug at our underwear..." (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa pg. 72) Others do their nails themselves. A couple reasons women get their nails done somewhere by someone is for the convenience of having someone do it for them and the colors tend to last longer. "In advertising, when you draw upon common experiences- funny, sad, bittersweet- people usually relate. People should react: 'Yep, that's how it is!'" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa pg.72) In my ad, I'm going to try to get the message across to my viewers that women don't need to go to the nail salon or have nail artists do their nails anymore to have long-lasting nail colors, they can just use Sally Hansen nail polish and Sally Hansen nail art pens for design. "Advertising differentiates brands and causes, ultimately sells brands, and calls people to action." (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa pg. 34)

EOC Week 8: Really Good Example of Chapter 8

“Using the product as the main visual usually puts the potential consumer on alert… if you see an ad where the most dominant visual element is a striking metaphor for something soft or strong, then you might be more likely to look at it.” (Advertising by Design, Robert Landa pg. 142)

Most ads have the product that their trying to sell as the dominant visual component. If advertisement is as simple as that, then why not just take a picture of the product and call it an ad? If the ad looks like other ads that people always see, then people probably wouldn’t take the time to stop and pay attention to it. In this Toyota ad, the main visual component is the geometric outline of a Toyota car, but not the car itself. Below the car, to the left, says “We see beyond cars.” The car is see-thru and you can see the view of a town beyond it. Instead of an actual car on the ad, they used that image to represent their employees building a great relationship with their customers and the community. Even though it looks like they’re not trying to sell their cars in this ad, they are trying to let people know about the good things that their company do for the community, which makes people like them a lot more so people buy their cars.

“If you have an unusual verbal message (one that is humorous, odd, curious, zany, or shocking), then the visual should be straightforward… If you have an unusual visual, then the verbal message (the line of copy) should be straight forward.” (Advertising by Design, Robert Landa pg. 159)

This quote clearly supports this Toyota ad. The visual is obviously unusual because they only show the geometric outline of the car, and not the car itself. The main verbal message in this ad is “We see beyond cars,” which is a pretty straight forward message. In the image, you can see what’s “beyond” the car, which is a town or a community. They support the verbal message by explaining with a short paragraph on the bottom of the page. Then, they put the logo on the top right corner. They used the color black so that it stands out with the light blue sky background.

Overall I think that this is a great ad. It delivers the message to people very well and it creates an emotional connection.

EOC Week 8: Authority

Reading tips given by agents from different advertising agencies is pretty helpful for my final project. Since I will be doing Sally Hansen (nail polish products) for my project, I will definitely be using some of the tips that the agents gave on the book. Carlos Segura from Segura Inc. in Chicago says, “Explore. A lot. Even after you think you’ve got it. Start again. You’d be surprised at what comes up. Even better, have several people look at the same problem. The solutions will astound you.” This tip is really helpful because many people would stop trying after they think they’ve got an idea or they know what they’re doing already. They become close minded after that. Another tip from Carlos is, “Seek opinions. This is hard, I know, but it does help.” Some people can accept constructive criticism well and some cannot. If you’re in the advertising industry, I think it is important to find out people’s opinions of your work so you know what you need to work on to do better in the future. Another agent, Deborah M. Rivera from Alexander & Richardson in New Jersey, exclaims “Do your font research!” It is important that one uses the appropriate font for the ads. So don’t favor one type of font, be open to using different ones and explore.

EOC Week 7: Exciting Ad

VISUAL HIERARCHY: This is an advertisement for Woodland Shoes. When you first glance at this image ad, you look at the brown boot that's on top of the billboard, which is the focal point that you eyes will be first drawn to. Your eyes will then follow the shoe lace that's hanging from the boot down to the billboard. Since almost everything else is white, your eyes will then shift to the right where that green spot is. The green spot is the brands logo. This ad is effective because they used visual hierarchy so one will look at the whole ad.



POSITIVE/NEGATIVE SHAPES & SPACE: If you just quickly glance at this ad, it will make you look twice. This is an Ursus beer ad. There's a bottle int he middle that's upside down, and on each side there are two upside down bottles that are a little closer. The positive and negative spaces in this image creates an illusion of a backside and a male body part. The positive spaces are the body parts, while the negative space is used to create that illusion.



BALANCE: In this ad, you see six Dove girls. Three girls on the left are dark skinned and the three on the right are light skinned. This creates a feel of balance so that viewers can have a sense that the design is complete.



RHYTHM: In this anti-cigarettes ad, the smoke coming from the cigarette creates a circle around the woman's face. The circle of smoke creates rythm for this ad because it is repeating an element.

EOC Final Project: First Thought

For my final project, the company that I will be advertising for is Sally Hensen. Sally Hensen is a brand that sells beauty products from head to toe like facial creams, hair removers, tweezers, etc. My ad campaign will be promoting specifically their nail products, which they are most popular for. Nailene will be my competitive brand. For my images, I might do a few photos. This is just my first thought for the project, I might stick with this idea and I might change it.

EOC Week 6: Make 'Em Laugh

This is not just ONE of the funniest commercials I’ve seen, it is THE FUNNIEST commercial I have ever seen, yet! I literally teared up from laughing just by watching this commercial. It is a commercial that’s trying to sell Pro-Line, the most popular sports betting game in Canada’s Sports Select.

The commercial starts off with a guy mixing a jug of Gatorade. He tossed a towel and leaves the room quickly. Unaware, the towel that he tossed caused numbers of muscle relaxers to spill into a whole football team’s jug of Gatorade. Then, the commercial jumps to the football game. The whole football team that drunk that Gatorade are all drugged up and ‘high’ while playing professional football! It shows them laughing, laying on the ground, caressing the referee’s face, and other dumb stuff that people do when they’re drugged. One drugged up player catches the football. Not paying attention nor worried about the game at all, he caught the football and started tickling it like it was a baby, so he gets tackled. After he got tackled, the whole crowd was silent and probably in awe about what they have just seen in the field. Everyone was silent except for one guy who starts screaming from the top of his lungs. Then it shows his ticket that says “Pro-line” on it. Apparently he placed a bet against the drugged up team and he just won. The commercial ends with the line, “Because anything can happen, anyone can win.”

I think that this commercial is hilarious because of the fact that they accidentally drugged up the football team and showed how they act in the field. It was also really funny that only one guy was screaming after watching what happened and he was screaming because he won a bet against that team.