Beginning Thoughts: What?

"In order to get full credit for your blog posting, you will need to prove that you have read the material."

Reading? In a studio class? That's preposterous... WHY ARE WE BEING TORTURED?

At least this book isn't too bad. Like most textbooks, it has an introduction. The introduction was, well, an informative bit on what advertising is and why we need it. Advertising is everywhere. People encounter these adds and hopefully buy the product.  To put it simply, advertising helps businesses make money. An interesting point from this section is the emphasis on telling the truth. People don't seem to enjoy being lied to, and when the company is honest, they can make more money.

Chapter one is where it started to get interesting. I'd describe it as a chapter full of advice to people who are new at this whole creating clever advertisements thing.  It looks like there is a lot of things to take into consideration when coming up with an idea for a successful advertising campaign.  It's important to know the audience and to know what you want to say and how you want to get the message across. Once you know those things, say it in the simplest way possible. I liked the acronym KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. If an ad is simple and to the point, there's a better chance that the viewer will notice it.  That's something I'll need to remember. I have a tendency to over-think everything from the meaning of life to what kind of coffee to buy. Another acronym to remember is SLIP IT: smile, laugh, inform, provoke, involves, think. That's the response the advertisement should create and it keeps the KISS from being super boring. After the acronyms, there are some examples of advertising campaigns and some brief reasons why they work.  Some of them had great headlines while others had creative visuals. The rest of the chapter consisted of important things to take into consideration.  For example, using the word "best" is not a good idea because it's generic.  Symbols are good to use as well as anything that makes the viewer think for a second. Other boring things include using people in everything (good, I hate drawing them), and blatantly showing the product (because this is not memorable or creative). Good ads tend to find other ways to show what is going on with the product without using people or showing the product. Of course, it still depends on what the product is as well as the target audience and what you're trying to say. The chapter concludes with something we've been told since fifth grade: don't plagiarize. It's lame and uncreative.

Huh. That's a lot of information. Alright, I give in- this book is incredibly informative. It even references the movie "Elf."

Still doesn't change the fact that we're being tortured.