GilLETte Yourself

For our campaign project I was very happy to find that I would be working on Gillette with Claire, Sam, and Jenny. Our assignment was to create a global campaign for Gillette’s new ProSeries line for men consisting of preshave thermal scrub, cooling after-shave moisturizer, face wash for sensitive skin, and a UV moisturizer. Our objectives are to launch a three month campaign, raise awareness by 40%, and increase product sales and revenue by 25%. Although these are our formal objectives, our main goal is to get the consumers actively interested and involved.

We started by coming up with the overall idea of the campaign and then thinking of a slogan to match. After going through many options, we came up with “GilLETte Yourself” as a play on words and also the main focus of our campaign. The idea is that you can be who you want to be when you just let yourself, or in this case “GilLETte yourself.” To create awareness and buzz for our campaign, we came up with having mini bathrooms on wheels be rolled through 15 major cities around the world. We would invite men to come inside and “GilLETte themselves” with the products in the ProSeries line. Afterwards, participants are invited to make videos of their experience and post them to the campaign facebook page. This will kick off our digital campaign with people posting videos of themselves telling how using the Gillette products helps them be who they want to be. People can post whatever they wish to be, whether it is a rock star or a ladies man. The video with the most number of facebook “likes” wins $5,000 cash and an opportunity provided by Gillette to help him reach his goal. Our campaign is focused around cyber features but we would also have TV commercials, print ads, and outdoor advertising such as billboards. Each print ad would be a different scenario of a face blacked out creating the idea that any man could be that guy. The commercial would have different scenarios flashing one after the other every couple seconds making consumers believe that they could be any of these things.

Being a business major in Terry, I had never done any kind of campaign project until this. I honestly hadn’t even done group projects so I really enjoyed working with a group and bouncing ideas off of each other. Even though I think our campaign would definitely need more work before becoming a real campaign, I was surprised at how we could come up with, what I think was, a great idea in such a small amount of time. The budget would definitely need more work because it was hard for us to estimate how much the different aspects of our campaign would cost. Overall, I enjoyed this project and I think the competition aspect of it makes it more fun for everyone.

Commercial 5

            My last commercial critique is one of my favorites from the film awards ceremony. The “You Look Dumber with Your Mouth Open” Campaign consists of two commercials and won a gold lion in the pharmacy category. My favorite of the two commercials is called “Classroom Craft” and starts out in a long range shot of a teacher giving her students a pair of scissors. The camera then zooms in on each child as the teacher walks down the row giving out scissors. At the end of the row, the teacher gets to a student who has her mouth open breathing as if she were snoring. The teacher looks at her skeptically and gives her a pair of safety scissors from the box. The child looks confused when the punch line, “You Look Dumber with your Mouth Open” appears on the screen. The commercial then shows Otrivin nasal spray and their slogan, “The Pleasure of Breathing.” I thought this commercial was very funny and able to reach a broad audience. The only way I thought it could have been better was if it had been more noticeable that the first students were getting real scissors. Many people may not have noticed at first that the last student got a different kind of scissors which is a very important point to the commercial.

Commercial 4

           I started to watch the film entries in the Public Awareness category and got about halfway through them. Although many were good, only one really stuck out to me. It was a public service announcement about honesty and values. It starts out in a medium range camera shot showing an older lady and a teenage boy sitting at a bus stop. The commercial also starts with playing “Where is the Love” by the Black Eyed Peas and it continues throughout the whole commercial. The teenage boy is listening to his IPod and has kind of a grungy image. When the bus comes, the old lady gets on but accidently leaves her purse behind. The teenage boy looks around, grabs the purse, and looks inside. He then puts it under his arm and takes off running full speed through ally ways and around corners. At this point the viewer thinks that he is stealing the lady’s purse. Suddenly he arrives at the next bus stop as the bus comes to a stop and the old lady gets off. He walks up to her, gives her the purse, and tells her she left it at the last stop. She is very grateful, thanks him, and walks away. Then, a cop car pulls up and the cop says to the boy, “Nice move kid.” After that, the commercial ends with the word honesty across the screen. I thought this commercial had a great message and the song choice made the execution of the commercial even better.

Commercial 3

           The first set of commercials that I viewed at the festival were about public health and safety. I had seen a couple of these before but I liked the truth.com one. The entire commercial is in the same setting, which is an office. It starts in a long range shot of the interviewer who works for a tobacco company asking the potential employee some questions. Then, the camera zooms in on the interviewer when he asks “What could you do if a health company said your product killed millions of people every year.” The potential employee is caught off guard and doesn’t really know what to say. Then the camera pans back to the interviewer who makes a face and then the commercial is over. It ends with a screen saying truth.com. In my opinion this commercial is informing, persuading, and reminding the consumers about tobacco use. It informs by giving a statistic and encouraging consumers to go online to read more about the truth with tobacco. Also, it is persuading people who do use tobacco products to stop by telling how dangerous they are. Finally it reminds all consumers about the dangers of the products and that just because companies put them out on the market, doesn’t mean they are safe to use.

Commercial 2

           Skol beer from Brazil had some really great film entries into the alcoholic drinks category. The commercial starts with a group of four guys that are all on a skydiving trip together. They are sitting in the plane when one of them shows that he has brought a cooler. When everyone realizes that it is Skol beer, they are delighted and happy that it is on the plane with them. Suddenly, the cooler gets pulled out of the plane and starts falling down. Recognizing their love for the beer, all of the boys quickly jump out after it not realizing that they don’t have parachutes. The camera goes into a close range shot of the boy’s faces as they fall through the air. There is slow music playing and they are all screaming. They reach the cooler but then crash into a barn, still with the cooler of Skol. They reward themselves from the stressful dive with some Skol beer in the barn. The slogan is then showed on the screen, “All for one, and one for all.” I liked this commercial because it was funny and it makes consumers remember Skol when they think of beer. It is an exciting commercial that will persuade consumers to buy Skol next time they go to get beer.

Festival Day 7 (Saturday 6/25)

           Yesterday was the last day of the festival with a short day of seminars and the film awards and closing gala at night. We tried all week to get tickets to the gala but unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. The seminars ended early and we woke up so late that we weren’t sure if we could make any of them. Since it was lunch time when we woke up, we were starving. The paninis and sandwiches with ham and cheese are getting really old so we tried to think of something different to eat. Karly said she saw a sign for a McDonalds in Juan Les Pins so that sounded like an amazing American meal. We followed the signs to the McDonalds but ended up having to ask people along the way. I’m sure the French people got a laugh out of four American girls walking to find a McDonalds. Miles later, we see the flags with the yellow M on them. After celebrating we ordered some delicious meals and rested up for our long walk back. I was disappointed at the fact that they don’t give free refills here, but at least I got a McChicken and fries.

            When we got home I did some work for class and then started getting ready for the film awards! We all got dressed up which was really fun. What wasn’t really fun is that I got to Cannes and realized I had forgotten my invitation. Luckily, Bridget and Maggie were coming over on a later train so they could bring it to me. So I just stood by myself waiting outside the doors while Jenny saved me a seat in the auditorium. When I finally got into the grand auditorium, I kind of felt like it was the Grammy awards. It was so nice and I loved all the lights. I thought all of the winner’s commercials were really well done. My favorite was by BBDO Argentina for the non-alcoholic drinks category. It is called “Braids” and I just thought it was so funny and well executed.

            After the awards, we grabbed some dinner because we were all starving! Then, we caught the 10:40 train back to Juan Les Pins were we celebrated the end of an amazing festival.

Commercial 1

          I watched the whole household cleaning product category and I really liked the febreze commercials. They start out by asking random people on the street to help them with an experiment. If they except, then they are blindfolded and taken to a nearby location. All of the places that they are taken to are very dirty and do not look very appealing. Since the volunteers have blindfolds on though, they have no idea what kind of environment they are in. The place has been sprayed with febreze and they are told to use their sense of smell since they are not able to see. All of them say that they smell something great using descriptive words like “fruity” or “beachy.” After smelling the wonderful smells they are told to take off their blindfolds and look at where they are. All of them are completely caught off guard and surprised that the place looks so gross. This commercial uses a demonstration with real people to show how well their product works. It is also humorous when the people take off their blindfolds, so it makes the viewers laugh and think about their brand in a good way at the end of the commercial. The slogan is “Breathe Happy” and I think that it was a great demonstration to show off their product.