The hardest thing

The hardest gift to give,
is one that is unrequited.
The hardest gift to keep,
is one that is likely to be rejected.
The hardest gift to receive,
is one that is undeserved.
The hardest gift to have,
is one that is the most beneficial.
The hardest gift to look at,
is the one that will never be noticed.
The hardest gift to hold,
is the one in your hands as you wait.
The hardest thing to do,
is to linger just outside your sight.
Am I even seen?

Germs and Gibberish: Soyjoy commercials

Here are a couple of TVCs for this brand of food bars (???) called Soyjoy. I thought that they were quite funny... on the first few views. Quite evidently, these bars are targeted at women. But still, I think the general population would get it. I think these are done by an agency in Singapore and I feel are some of the more creative TVCs seen on local TV.

This is the TVC that ran first, if I remember correctly.



Followed by this.

DHL rocks my socks

Yay! My package of Obenauf's Heavy Duty LP, and my new belt and wallet is here! DHL really rocks my socks. It took only 3 days to ship my stuff from USA to here! Over the weekend to boot! And the pricing is quite reasonable, especially when you consolidate shipment. Woohoo! And they try to deliver twice a day. I missed the morning delivery and they made another round to send my stuff to me at night. :D Thank you Borderlinx and DHL!

Germs and Gibberish: Creativity

Now, most of us who are in COM 443 would know creativity is very shy and elusive. One can take hours, or even days to think of something that barely resembles creativity. But when it comes, more often than not it comes in a flash, a flash of brilliance. That is why sometimes, I feel like kow-towing to people working as creatives. They have to come up with something fresh, engaging, interesting, tasteful and impactful day in and day out. As the saying goes, 'There are no longer any more original ideas.' I agree wholeheartedly, after trying to come up with creative ideas again and again for the past few weeks. However, I realised that sometimes, the most creative ideas are the most simple ideas. These websites have some interesting advertisements that made me go, 'Now, why didn't I think of that...' when I saw them. Also, quite a number of the advertisements are outdoor type advertising. Too bad Singapore is not really into outdoor advertising. Without further ado, enjoy: Here. And here.

New stuff

Woohoo! Finally, ordered a new belt and wallet from here. Supposedly they are excellent bang for buck. We shall see if that's true or not. I reckon it would take 2 weeks to get to Singapore. Photos and review when they arrive, and when I have the time...

Germs and Gibberish: 13/10/09 In times like this

Only in times of adversity does one see the depth of character, the fighting spirit, all the things that make us human and individuals.

Melodramatic, I know, but this is somewhat I am feeling right now. We talked about highs and lows while doing our print advertisement assignment in class today and so now, I will try to organize my thoughts into something coherent.

First of all, I can't say that I am all that pleased with the grade we received. While it doesn't really bother me much that we are close to or even at the bottom of the class this time round, I felt that we were somewhat more deserving of a better grade, all things considered.

While I do concede that our execution left much to be desired, with the blurry photo and the 'dirty' knife and the drip of 'disgusting' blood, I felt that given the restrictions that we had in terms of lighting, time restrictions, and the fear of imposing and asking too much of people who had a job to do other than posing for our pictures, we did a more than acceptable job. That said, I know nothing we say now could change our score, and honestly, that's not my main concern right now. I just feel that the grade did not reflect the painstaking effort that we all put into this advertisement.

I understand, however, that at the end of the day, execution is everything. Like what was mentioned in class by Professor Armstrong, some groups stuck to safer graphics and it paid dividends for them. We took a risk and it didn't pan out as well as we hoped it would. But all things considered, I am proud of the advertisement, it being not our initial creative concept and that we had to work with what we had. But still, a painful lesson here: Effort does not equal results.

Something that I am even more proud of, however, is the cohesiveness and camaraderie that I sense within our team. Working with this bunch of people, although things could get testy at times, I can say from the bottom of my heart that at the end of the day, there is unity. I daresay that we are one of the top, if not top, groups in terms of unity. And that's saying something.

One lesson learnt from this whole experience that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life is that we should not try to wear hats that are too big for our heads. Ideas, creative concepts, the big picture is all fine and dandy if we were God and had unlimited resources, but we aren't. Looking at the other teams' work, I realised that it's not about the effort, nor the creative concept, but it's about working with what you have, and within reasonable boundaries. That, perhaps, was the downfall of our team this time round; we bit off more than we could chew. As the mantra goes (this is supposedly my life's motto), 'Keep it simple, stupid.'

One thing that I have to apologise to my teammates publicly is that I feel that I have to shoulder a large portion of the blame for insisting that we go with our initial concept without developing a backup plan. In the end, this led to us scrambling and wasting precious time trying to fit a concept into our resources, instead of the other way around. If we had a backup plan, maybe our execution would have been better, much better.

So to my teammates out there, now that we are already midway through this module, if you have any dissenting opinions or comments, please feel free to speak out. In fact, you have to speak out. If not, we are handicapped for the lack of an opinion that has value. That said, as mature people working together, I hope that we all understand that dissent doesn't mean dislike, and that we can take criticisms and not have our relationships harmed.

Not this:

With all that said and done, I believe that this setback will be more of a stepping stone, rather than a tombstone for CheckMate. I feel fired up for the next assignment, and I can't wait to deliver a counterpunch the other teams after taking such a hit. Yes, it is on. You better be sure it is on. But as with any counterattack, it may not work out. But still, I am ready for a fight, and that's what I am going to give, and that's what the other teams are going to get. Figuratively of course. Or not.

Germs and Gibberish: 02/10/09 Simplicity

Today's class session for COM 443 has opened my eyes up to how subjective advertising can be, as expected of an art, or at the most an imprecise science. As the adage goes, 'Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder' and in advertising, I couldn't agree more. For something, in this context advertising, to evoke a response from us, there has to come together multiple factors that will precisely touch something in us, be it an emotion or a nerve.

We learnt from the textbook that one of the first things that advertising has to do is to cut through all the tasteless clutter that is surrounding us in our everyday lives, like overly muscular men in bikini briefs posing to showcase his house (and more likely his 'masculinity'), to 'energy' drinks which basically give you a sugar rush trying to draw attention by attempting to be cheeky and naughty. Gee. But has advertising become mere attention seeking? I hope that the person who coined the phrase, 'All publicity is good publicity', be condemned to an eternity of watching a loop of attention seeking antics from people or organizations.

A saying goes, 'Simplicity is indeed often the sign of truth and the criterion for beauty.' Well said, well said indeed. I am pretty sure that this applies to advertising as well. All too often, we see advertising trying to do too much and in the end, the message that was supposed to be brought across is distorted or even lost in the sea of the so-called creativity. But often, in chasing after the holy grail of advertising, creativity, one forgets the basic foundational rule, simplicity.

However, simplicity doesn't mean boring, or conventional, or simplistic. Albert Einstein said that 'everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.' I find that we, as human, have a tendency to try to make things as complicated as we possibly can, perhaps to discourage other intelligent life forms from understanding us?

Leonardo da Vinci said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and words truer have never been spoken. I remember that in Professor Armstrong's media effects class, I was asked what was my life philosophy. Although it didn't come out right at that time and people found me weird, I stated that I try to live my life as simple as possible. I try to take a more utilitarian approach to life by trying to get things that are well made and lasting so that I can reduce clutter. I am by no means an ascetic; I am still tossed about by the tempestuous waves of fashion and trends.

But I try to keep things as simple as possible. And I hope that this philosophy will carry into the way I approach our COM 443 assignments. I acknowledge that I have a tendency to try to cram as much things as possible into a 'space' and that sometimes doesn't work out so well, perhaps due to this little thing called information overload.

Anyway, back to advertising. For me, what will really catch my attention, besides skimpily dressed beautiful women (I said catch my attention, I did not say for me to find it well done), and great layout, and graphics, and creative concept, is the copy. Of course, nice pictures and all those emotional, touchy feely stuff affects me too but the copy is the icing on the cake for me. The copy, essentially, is the wording of the advertisement. Being a word person, I appreciate the precise use of words to convey something, the elegant turn of phrase, the humorous word play, the clever build up and punchline, the unexpected phrasing. For me, the copy is the deal clincher, the knockout punch that seals the deal.

But to others, different components of advertisements would be what they look out for and to them, that is what makes a good advertisement. One man's meat could be another man's poison, so to each his/her own. You may find someone's idea of a great advertisement not to your liking, but remember, you are just one person. If the advertisement managed to get circulated around, there are definitely more than one person who liked it enough to risk finances on it. Either that or companies just have blind monkeys randomly tossing darts at proposals to decide which concept gets done next (Hey, blind monkeys need to eat too, no?).

With that, I leave you with hopefully, thoughts about advertising, and definitely, a picture of a cute monkey.