#25 Where/How I find inspiration

I always find it interesting to hear where people find inspiration for their creative ideas, so I figured that I would share mine.

1) Stumbleupon.com
Spend 30 minutes stumbling and you will find at least something you like, something you laugh at and something that is just plain cool.

2) Nature.
If you believe in a God, then he must be the ultimate creative director. If not, then we got really lucky with the arrangement of all these molecules. Whenever I need some inspiration, I head for water. I love hearing the ocean, it clears my mind and helps me to focus it on creative tasks. The sound of rain works well too accompanied with some soft music.

3) Pop Culture.
If you’re creating stuff for the general public you gotta know what they like. It’s always good to take what people like and take it to a new level.

4) People.
I love to talk things out and bounce ideas off people. Even if they don’t contribute it just helps me to have to talk things outs.

5) Ad Age, Comm Arts, SXSW etc.
Of course looking at ads and things in the industry help me to realize what good material looks like and gives me something to emulate.

Here’s my portfolio website. It’s only a shell right now but I will hopefully soon have some material to add to it.

Just in case you missed it:

www.cargocollective.com/brandonturner

#24 Ideologies and Advertising

This past term I took a class called Gender, Media and Diversity. It takes a look at media and explores the ideologies, stereotypes used in media. It is really eye opening. It’s crazy to see how much stereotypes have been infused into our lives.

Unfortunately, these stereotypes have numbed us to somethings in our culture. We don’t realize that goblins are portrayed as Jews, that the vampires in Twilight reinforce white supremacy and that ads create an unreachable standard for women and their bodies.

That’s why I think brand thinking is so great. It helps us to reduce these. Brands create relationships with their consumers and you can’t build relationships on stereotypes and ideologies.

 

So I’m now making this a part of my manifesto. As an advertiser, I need to strive to reduce and eliminate all types of stereotypical thinking

#23 I stand with the hat.

A big deal on the University of Oregon campus this past week has been the firing of President Lariviere. He was the president when I first came to the University in 2009 and due to recent complications with the OUS looks like he won’t be the president when I graduate.

Here’s some more information about the situation.

NY Times

There’s been a lot of talk about how this is awful for the university and I agree. But let me first off say that I completely understand why OUS is doing this. Lariviere wanted to help push Oregon to become a private university. This is because we are one of the most under funded universities in the nation. However, I’m sure we are one of the biggest money makers for the OUS. They couldn’t just have their flagship university leave. They would be done. So they did what they had to. Get rid of the problem maker for them.

But that wasn’t the best thing either. Firing Lariviere destroys the brand that is the UO. It destroys all the progress that has been made to transform the UO into one of the best universities on the west coast. They’ve angered the students, professors, faculty, staff, alumni and donors. But most importantly, they angered Phil Knight.

So,

#22 The University of Oregon as a brand

In the fall of 2009, I started my college career at the University of Oregon. I was excited, scared and ready to take on everything that was going to happen. I chose Oregon because I saw how awesome a university it was. But one thing made me highly dissapointed in the university.

This.

I absolutely hate this ad. It seems so unprofessional, so lame. How do you inspire students to come to the university with this? I mean, it is somewhat inspiring, and has a great thought behind it. But it just wasn’t hip enough. It just didn’t fit the university.

Luckily, after a great football season, and the introduction of WTD or Win The Day. Oregon’s brand came together in this.

This is perfect. This inspires me. This is hip. This shows our great campus. It shows people. It connects people to the UO.

Let’s continue to make great stuff like this.

Go Ducks. WTD

 

#21 Mayhem from Allstate

The Mayhem Campaign from Allstate. Now that is some funny stuff. Memorability at its finest. I had asked a couple of my fraternity brothers about it and they listed off 10 different commercials. It’s that recognizable.

Is it good advertising? I’d say so. It gets the job done. But that’s where it ends. It doesn’t go any further than that. But we all need some comedy in our life. So here’s a commercial from the campaign.

#20 Beats by Dr. Dre

Wow, look at how much Beats by Dr. Dre has blown up. Founded in 2008 by rap artist Dr. Dre, these head phones are seen all over. I feel like I can’t walk anywhere without seeing them. That’s amazing because of how expensive they are. The over the ear headphones start at $200.

It’s crazy how this brand exploded. It’s because of Dr. Dre’s name.

When brands cooperate on a product, one of them can become overshadowed. Beats has accompanied with HP computers and that is a good partnership. Both brands are prominent enough that they don’t over power each other.

Check out this video

Beats Audio totally overpowers HTC. When I first saw this commercial, all I could think about was the Beats in ear headphones. I didn’t even realize it was a commercial for a new phone. In these circumstances, the partnership is completely dominated by one brand and the other is ignored. It’s dangerous for a brand to be in these partnerships. It just nullifies all the work done to create your brand.

#19 My Dream Job

It’s hard to say what my dream job is right now. I feel like I haven’t experienced enough in the advertising field to decide what I want to do. I know that I wanna be creative. I’ve managed people and resources throughout high school as an editor for the school yearbook and in college as the vice president of my fraternity overseeing 70+ people and a quarter of a million dollar budget.

So the planning side of advertising is not what I want. It’s something I could do, and I know the experiences I’ve had will help me.

Something I really enjoy is creating new things, brainstorming ways to fix stuff and coming up with new ideas. I fell like that’s exactly what a creative does. Hopefully, I can combine this and my management skills to become an art director.

But, for an entry level position I want to be a creative, working in a team to imagine, create, and push boundaries.

 

A close friend who graduated last year worked as an intern for Adidas in their marketing and product design and now works for Under Armour doing similar stuff. That’s also something that sounds extremely interesting. I would love to work for a company like Adidas, Under Armour or Nike. I love their brands and all they stand for.

“Impossible is nothing.”

“Are you from HERE?”

“Just Do It”

So here goes my dream for a future in creativity. It’s time to take the steps to get where I want to be.

#18 Media Planning Seminar

In mid-October I had the opportunity to attend a media planning seminar held by Dave Koranda here at the University of Oregon. It was open to any student who was interested in media planning. I decided to check it out, and while I may not want to be a media planner, it has given me skills needed to succeed and has opened doors for me. This weekend I will have the opportunity to flex my skills as a media planner with some other students and work on promoting the Olympic Trials coming to Eugene, OR.

I’ve already talked about how I would like to be a creative, and being a media planner is much more business oriented, but there were two things that stuck out to me.

1) Advertising is about opening up a dialogue, talk with people not at them.

2) Over-saturation is annoying. Everyone in the Eugene, OR area knows about the Kiefer Kia Commercials and how annoying that is.

Finally, the main thing a media planner does is what attracted me to advertising in the first place. The need to get inside people’s minds and be able to send out the right message when they are most receptive to that message.

#17 Everyday items used in creative ways!

I think it’s pretty awesome when people take everyday things and take them to the next level. I’ve always been amazed by people who could use watercolors especially since as a kid I could only draw blobs. Another thing that shocks me is how people can create amazing drawings using Etch-a-Sketches.

But I stumbled upon this a while ago and thought it was pretty neat. Some people can make amazing sidewalk chalk designs. At first I thought they were photoshopped, but it turns out that people can do this which leads me to say, “WOW!”

Anyways enough talking. Pictures.

Amazing Art

Here is a link to more.

 

#16 Americans’ Use of Electronic Devices

I was stumbling the other night and found this picture. It shows where people utilize their phones, tablets and e-readers. It really shows how much media is integrated into our lives. This is also extremely useful for media planners to use when deciding how and when to send out their messages.

Nielsen information about Device Connectivity, May 11, 2011