Why We Should NOT Ignore Advertisements

Nowadays there are so many different types of advertising and we are coming up with just as many ways to ignore each one. A lot of people record TV programmes they want to watch, like The X Factor, and then fast-forward through the ad breaks. In magazines people often skip the first couple of pages because they know they're normally 'just the advertisements'. Billboards and poster boards (especially the small ones on escalator walls in London tube stations) are so commonplace that most of us don't even need to ignore them - their constant visual bombardment creates a blur. But advertising is all about consumerism and obstructs our daily lives, so it's right to ignore it, yes?

No. That's my simple answer but if I stop with just that this will be a very short post. Advertising is important in many different ways and it can add a lot more to your life than you think. You might be thinking, she's just saying this because she wants to be in advertising or maybe she just weird. But hopefully after reading this you will start to consider the uses of advertising and will have a more positive view of the industry.

Firstly, not all advertising aims to drive sales. There are actually lots of different motivations behind different advertisements. For example, public services commonly use advertising to instruct others or create changes in behaviour. In November 2012, Metro Trains in Melbourne, Australia commissioned the campaign 'Dumb Ways to Die' to promote rail safety. They wanted to remind people how important it is to be careful around trains. They were not trying to sell more train tickets. This campaign reports to have contributed to a 30% reduction in "near-miss" accidents which is clearly a positive outcome and a great use of advertising.

Similarly, at the end of 2011 the British Heart Foundation launched a TV advertisement staring Vinnie Jones showing viewers how to perform hands-only CPR. This has saved at least 40 lives and has a really worthwhile purpose. Advertisements like this prove that there is more to advertising than people realise.

However, lot advertising is about sales. But, so what? If it's a great product or service that could improve your life or someone else's, does it really matter if you were persuaded to buy it? Without advertising there is no way you would know about all of your possessions or would have bought them. A lot of advertising can be really awful and annoying. With so many different TV channels and YouTube, advertising space is certainly becoming more widely available. But just because there are are some rubbish ones out there doesn't mean you should ignore the rest. If you went shopping for trainers, there might be loads if styles or colours you don't like, but that doesn't mean you'd stop looking for them and never buy a pair again.

Some advertisements are truly inspiring and amazing. Even if you decide you're not interested in the product or brand, the advertisement can still have an impact on you. Nike's branding is an example of this. Their tagline, 'Just Do It' resonates with many consumers. They believe in seizing the moment, going for something big, doing more than you ever have before. They aim to motivate people and being motivated is always a positive thing. Their ' Just Do It - Possibilities' (2013) advertisement inspires you to take things to the next level. After watching this advertisement you feel positive and empowered. The marketing is unobtrusive which allows you to enjoy the advertisement without feeling like you have to love Nike as a brand.

The 'GoPro HERO4: The Adventure of life in 4K' advertisement takes this idea of ads that inspire to a whole new level. Visually there is so much going on in the 4 minutes of this video (clearly it's meant for YouTube not TV). It is perhaps one of the best advertisements for a product that I have seen in ages. It shows you things you have never seen before, from a behind the scenes angle. The footage is simply breathtaking and gives you so much more than the idea that you should go and buy this camera. This is a fantastic example of why you should not ignore advertising. If you ignored this one, you'd be missing something great. It really give you a chance to be a part of their adventure.

Good advertisements aren't thought-up in a 5 minute brainstorming session. They can take weeks to reach their final concept and this is before they even start to be made. There are people in creative departments worldwide who dedicate substantial amounts of time to making their ideas great. There are loads of really good advertisements out there, it's just that they are swamped by the irritating, unoriginal ones. But the truly creative advertisements deserve to be taken notice of, especially the ones which make you laugh. Evian's 'Baby&Me' (2013) is really cute and funny.

Watching these babies dance like their adult counterpart is a unique idea and the costumes really make this advertisement. If you let it, this advertisement can really brighten your day and change your mood. It's not forcing you to buy Evian water right this second. It just trying to make you happy, so why are you trying so hard to ignore it?

Likewise, O2's 'Be more dog', although is clearly promoting is brand, attempts to make you laugh while doing so. It's inventive and quirky, and like Nike's advertisements, motivates you to try something different. It's especially entertaining if you have a cat because you know it's so unlikely for a them to do these things. 

Basically what I've been trying to say is, not all advertising is bad, annoying, forcing you to buy its product or love its brand. There are different purpose for different advertisements. They can teach you something new, inspire you, show you things you've never seen before and above all they can entertain you. I'm not suggesting we should love all advertisements and never fast-forward through ad breaks ever again. All I'm saying is we should give advertisers a break, because some of their work deserves our attention. 

Love Dressing Up?

Someone said to me recently, "I hate costumes; I hate putting all the effort in to make them". This could not be more different to my opinion. I absolutely love dressing up! Whether it's just a new dress for a night out or a spooky halloween costume, the more effort I put in the better I feel when I pull it off. I think a little review of the fancy dress costumes that my friends and I have worn, mainly to Red Leicester (our sports and societies night-out at university) over the last year fits perfectly with the name of this blog. When you're in a costume, you have the chance to be a different character too. It's like acting without a stage!

Starting the year off with Celebrity Social, I dressed up as my all time idol, Jessie J! I can't believe I didn't get a full length photo but I still have all the parts of the costume so there's nothing to say I can't transform back into her! 

This was a reasonably easy costume to make although it was very time consuming and I didn't managed to add as many bottle caps as I had initially wanted. I bought a plain pale blue jumper-top from Primark, collected a lot of bottle caps (over Christmas and from local pubs) and either painted them with nail varnish to make them standout or left them as they were if they had a cool logo. Then I pierced two holes in the top of the caps with a screwdriver and and deodorant can as a hammer, and sewed them to the shoulders of the top like buttons. Other than this, I bought a black wig and wore some wet-look leggings. Overall I was pretty happy with this costume and now that I have finally managed to get the cherry VK stain out of the top I might start wearing it just for casual.

Me as Winnie the Pooh in first year

Next comes Disney social - a personal favourite. My costume for this was not as adventurous as Winnie The Pooh (which at the time was great except when I needed the toilet) in my first year of university but still a bit more unusual than the normal Disney characters. 

My friend Grace and I decided to go as Kim Possible (Grace) and Shego (myself). 

I only have a group photo but this is what it turned our like

This is what I should have looked like

I'd like to do a massive shout out to my friends Aimee, Kat, Sully (as mentioned in my last post) and Sophie in the picture with me for their great costumes. I'm always amazed by the creativity in all our outfits on such a budget. I mean really someone should employ us! 

I wore one leg of green tights with a black hockey sock on this leg and a green on the other, reused the wet-look leggings and then wore bright green hot pants over the top so you couldn't see where the tights were attached. I also glued half a green t-shirt onto one side of a black long sleeved top. I decided to re-dye my hair, which was long and brown at this point, a slightly darker shade of brown so as to look as close as I could to the villain I attempted to emulate. 

Next was Cops and Robbers, which was made successful mainly by buying a decent hat, fishnet tights and lots of cheap accessories in a pound shop. My pictures of this night are awful thought so you'll just have to imagine it! 

After this costumes took a bit of a break with varsity, hockey tour, easter break, exams and summer holidays! 

But they really started up again with an awesome VK costume with my friends from hockey. Grace and I had seen someone in a similar costume last year and thought that it would be easy to do ourselves in a day and on a budget.

Aine, Grace Georga, Me and Amy as VKs 

We used paper plates for the bottle caps and attached them with string to cheap headbands. We then bought long tops/short dresses from H & M which we all gave to Georga, the master artist, and she painted VK logos on our tops and caps. She then made us labels to tie with string around our necks. This was one of my favourite costumes of the year and I think we looked great! 

Me and Grace as Winky and Doddy

After this my friend Aine had her 22 birthday party with was Harry Potter themed (YAY)! Aine picked which characters to we were to come as and Grace and I got assigned Dobby and Winky respectively. We didn't do our costumes together which would probably have been a good idea but I think we looked good anyway. If you haven't heard of Winky (she's not in the movies) here is a quick factfile of her character http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Winky. I went for a dirty, depressed look with make up smeared down my face and a fraying dress. 

I ended up sewing the dress myself on my sewing machine after losing out on ebay three times for blue dresses. I didn't use a pattern I just decided what I wanted it to look like and went for it. The material was initially cut into one long strip like a sports bib. I then realised I would need more material around my hips so I added a triangular side panel to each side. After this, I read on the internet how to make a Peter Pan collar. This was good fun and something I might do again (I love collars), and then I attached this to the neckline by hand. I added a button at the back on the neck to conceal the ends. 

I wore my old brown boots and made ears out of card and attached them to another headband. 

To do the make up I patted on fake tan for the dirty (I couldn't face putting real dirty on my skin) and drew thick lines of black liquid eyeliner around the top and bottom of my eyes. I then wet my fingers and spread the black down my face. I think this covered the 'depressed' look I was going for. 

Me as a corpse bride Halloween 2012

The most recent costume I've done was for Halloween. Whatever I made it was going to have to be pretty damn good to beat last year's corpse bride with handmade veil.

I decided that I would actually buy a child's clown costume (aged 11-12yrs) from Morrison's and focus of the face paint side of things. My brother had bought me some expert face paint brushes for my birthday in March which I still hadn't used so I was determined to make good use of them for halloween. And although I knew I'd decided to go as a clown I still wanted to look nice! I search the internet for 'pretty clown make up' and the such like.

I decided on this image but changing the colours around so as to go with this outfit. I did a couple of sketches then decided on pinks, reds, oranges and golds would be best. I also added glitter to my lips which I saw on a youtube video. Mine didn't look as amazing as hers do but I think that was my glitter quality. 

Here is a close up of my make up and then a picture of my outfit in full. 

I was very happy with this costume even though I had bought half of it rather than made it. The face paint still took me about 2 hours and I thought it looked pretty much as I had imagined it. The only issue I has was with glitter. The triangles were supposed to look glittery like in the professional picture but I didn't have time to find the right cosmetics. Instead I used an old eye pallet I had picked up in first year from Primark. This was a massive error as it was such bad quality that it reacted with my skin and made it sore. This is a note to anyone out there trying the same look or simply wanting to have glitter near their eyes, get the right products as the wrong ones leave you with puffy eyes and people asking you all day if you've been crying. 

I'm sure I will have another update of more costumes for the rest of the hockey season. I hope you've enjoyed reading this post - it's a bit different from my normal style. If you need any help recreating any of the costumes or are just generally interested in finding out more, leave me a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible!