Bodyform and the Truth

Normally I don’t see companies respond to negative social media interaction from your normal everyday Joe. Posts that usually get a high volume of attention tend to go either unnoticed or are responded back through your generic PR response, usually with an ad that tries to avoid said post. However with Bodyform and their product Maxipad, this wasn’t the case. Last week Richard Neill put up a post on his Facebook page, reveling his disdain with the product Maxipad. Expressing how he feels that he’s been lied to through the advertisements displaying women on their menstrual cycles having a “happy period” when using Maxipads. He also goes on to use his girlfriend as a perfect example, claiming that she quickly turns from “loving and gentle lady” to “the little girl from the exorcist”.

Bodyforms’ PR agency Myriad rushed out with a brilliant response video that has a humorous apology directed towards Richard explaining that there is no such thing as a “happy period”. They even go on to poke fun at his post, pointing out that he used every example of a “happy period” woman, minus the horseback riding woman. The actress portraying CEO Caroline Williams, dives into an amusing explanation of why Bodyform releases ads showing women to have a “happy period” as oppose to “the truth”. Stating that the public can’t handle “the truth” through some imaginative scenery.

I think this was a brilliant way to approach the rapidly famous post. Certainly a humorous way of showing that the company is riding on the publicity building around it. They could have just as easily avoided it and come out with a new ad that’s more adjusted to what Neill had said. Sometimes companies get called out for doing what they do, making ads that generate business for profit. So why blame somebody for creating ads that will show a better lifestyle with their product? It only means that the ad is doing what it’s supposed to do and get your hard working dollar repeatedly. But I’ll stand more by a brand that recognizes their call outs and approaches them the way Bodyform did.

Work, Work, Work

So I’m a few months from graduating and I feel like I’ve been distracted with all sorts of things up to this point. This isn’t the way I should have gone in building the foundations for what is to become my career, but the clock is ticking and I’m improving on getting rid of distractions. So now I feel like I have to step it into overdrive and work harder than I never have before. I have a long list of things I need to work on first before I send out any of my work to places, my portfolio for being the biggest, followed by research as to what companies are hiring and if they’re the kind of places I’d like to work for. So, that doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s out there. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take what I can get. But I’d like to see if what I want is out there too. So far half the places I’m finding are either out of business, are part of a conglomerate of bigger agencies, or just make me think that they don’t take the creative part as seriously. After all, isn’t that what advertising is supposed to be about? I think so. I guess I’m just being calculating, and trying to see if whether or not I would still be “Happy Go-Lucky Marty” in some of these places five, maybe ten years from now. The other half of the places though… I feel like their so creative and talented that they wouldn’t bother with a peasant like me. I know I have to get over that fear and just go for it. Better to be heard and hated, than unknown and ignored… is that a quote? maybe it should be.. Here’s to a road of trials and tribulations.

Intro Blog

So for a young student like myself, who is going into advertising, I like shows like “Mad Men” and “The Pitch”, These are some great shows with a good premise and ideas. “Trust Me” didn’t quite make the cut, it only had 13 episodes for one season. I know these kind of shows are supposed to progress with things like character development, plot progression, and story arcs. But it’s the process for creating the advertisements that most intrigue me. Not the sex, not the backstory behind Don Draper, not the overplayed line “We’re different from most agencies”, but how the process for creating some good to great advertisements are made.

            Again, these shows have some great qualities to them. I would just rather sit through an hour of watching the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency brainstorm through the creation of an advertisement, opposed to seeing Mr. Draper having an affair with one of the many women for a portion of the show. In the first few episodes of “The Pitch” I really enjoyed how dedicated the editing was put towards the agency was into showing the audience how they use their creative juices to make a “creative baby”. This was a way for someone like me who hasn’t started an internship yet, to see what an average day is like at a particular agency. Something that I can’t get out of an Olgilvy book. With that being said, I decided to write this blog as a tool for people like myself who want to know just what it is that they’re getting into. Television can only show you so much. Since a show like Mad Men is set in 1960s and we’re in to 2010s… advertising has had a drastic change with the internet age. People can now choose what advertisements they want to see on their computers and mobile devices. So what are these agencies doing to keep up with social media and viral? Hopefully I’l be able to see what’s in store for me an other young advertisers when we get to the graduation stage.

Blog Outline – Martin In Advertising

This blog is going to be about writing about of the smaller advertising agencies that are in Chicago. Some up and coming, some established but haven’t quite gotten the success of some other companies like Leo Burnett or Olgilvy. A small portion will be about their history, I will talk about some of the success they’ve had, I will even go out and look for some of their advertisements placed in the city and take pictures or find videos on youtube. If possible, by the third or fourth company I will aim to get an interview with an art director from one of these agencies and ask him some questions like, “what are some of the techniques or you do in order to create an advertisement for a client?”. I feel a show like “The Pitch” did this perfectly to let the audience know what goes on in an agency in the first few episodes, but steered away from that in later episodes and focused on character builds/trials instead. I would like to build the blog as I progress with it. Ultimately I would like to continue working and adding to it after the term, until I get picked up by an agency.

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