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Fresh start. more concise, more me.

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One whirlwind later, my first set of tight roughs is complete!

Product: Airborne
Photo 1: Apple
Photo 2: Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup
Photo 3: Purell
Photo 4: Digital component 

Short Myers-Briggs Personality Test Results

I am ESFP

ESFPs live in the moment, experiencing life to the fullest. They enjoy people, as well as material comforts. Rarely allowing conventions to interfere with their lives, they find creative ways to meet human needs. ESFPs are excellent team players, focused on completing the task at hand with maximum fun and minimum discord. Active types, they find pleasure in new experiences.


ESFPs take a hands-on approach in most things. Because they learn more by doing than by studying or reading, they tend to rush into things, learning by interacting with their environment. They usually dislike theory and written explanations. Traditional schools can be difficult for ESFPs, although they tend to do well when the subject of study interests them, or when they see the relevance of a subject and are allowed to interact with people.


Observant, practical, realistic, and specific, ESFPs make decisions according to their own personal standards. They use their Feeling judgment internally to identify and empathize with others. Naturally attentive to the world around them, ESFPs are keen observers of human behavior. They quickly sense what is happening with other people and immediately respond to their individual needs. They are especially good at mobilizing people to deal with crises. Generous, optimistic, and persuasive, they are good at interpersonal interactions. They often play the role of peacemaker due to their warm, sympathetic, and tactful nature.


ESFPs love being around people and having new experiences. Living in the here-and-now, they often do not think about long term effects or the consequences of their actions. While very practical, they generally despise routines, instead desiring to 'go with the flow.' They are, in fact, very play minded. 


Because ESFPs learn better through hands-on experience, classroom learning may be troublesome for many of them, especially those with a very underdeveloped intuitive side.


-http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/86gSvA/www.usefulcharts.com/psychology/short-myers-briggs-test.html

The AWKWARD Years: Survived

Dave asked us to come up with a memory or two from the ages 9 through 12, and, of course, to include a photo. 500 words or less. Here's my response!

My best memories from the ages 9 through 12 can be summed up in two words: Lake Nemahbin. Every summer, my family and I would pack up our bags with bathing suits and sunscreen, and move into our lake house on Lower Nemahbin in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I lived for those summers. Underneath the perfect warmth of the Wisconsin sun, surrounded by flowers, dragonflies, and open air, I would escape reality.

On top of the garage was a deck with a bridge that attached to a hill steeped in flowers of all sorts: tiger lilies (my favorite), gardenias, tulips, roses, hydrangeas, hastas, and geraniums, just to name a few. Underneath that bridge, I would camp out for hours, occupied only by my imagination. There, I built houses for fairies, not really convinced by their existence, but intrigued by the magic nonetheless.

I had two friends out at Lake Nemahbin from which I was nearly inseparable: Brighid, an adventurous and quirky girl always wanting to explore, and Quinn, Brighid’s little brother with a knack for mischief. With those two, I orchestrated a “shark circus,” an egg hunt (in our hill garden), a few spy missions, and a million multi-mile bike rides. Back then, bikes were our ticket to freedom.

One of the best parts of summers on Lower Nemahbin was the swing my dad built for Bridghid, Quinn, and I on our giant oak tree. It swung out over the hill garden, and if you got it to go high enough, you could see the lake on the other side. Secretly, without adult supervision, the one-seat swing became able to seat two.

S’mores were made, bonfires were had, and perfect Midwest summers were created.

Sadly, my family no longer owns that home, and the new owners tore down our old hill garden to build a guesthouse.

I guess only memories have a shot at lasting forever.

Challenge me

I just got home from my last Concepting class (this post was SUPPOSED to publish at 5:15 pm). Today, we found out which products would be the subject of each of the three campaigns we are required to complete this semester. Each student brought in a list of 40 products (10 luxury, 10 low-involvement, 10 service, and 10 large/durable), and from it Dev chose 3 for us to work on.

Here is my list of 40:

LARGE DURABLE

1. De'Longhi Portable Air Conditioners
2. NordicTrack Treadmills
3. Big Green Egg Grills
1. Doesn’t require lighter fluid
2. Ceramic walls
3.  Fuel efficient
4. No grease flare-ups
5. Charcoal can be reused
6. Can be used year-round
7. Won’t rust
4. GT Urban Bicycles
1. http://www.gtbicycles.com/bikes/urban/city
5. JumpSport Trampolines
6. Thule Carriers and Racks
7. Tivoli Stereo Systems
8. Tempur-Pedic Mattresses
9. Bullfrog Spas
1. http://www.bullfrogspas.com/
2. Sustainable
3. Jet Pack feature that allows for the rearrangement of jets per individual preferences
10. Toro Electric Hedge and Grass Trimmers

LOW INVOLVEMENT

1. Ace Elastic Bandage  
2. Bic Wite-Out
3.  Krazy Glue
4.  Saran Wrap
5. Airborne
6. Oral-B Floss
7. Off! Bug Repellent
8. Tums
9. Band-Aids
10. Sriracha Hot Sauce

LUXURY

1.  Spanx 
2. Prana Yoga Hiking and Lifestyle
3. Karen Walker Sunglasses
4. Hermes Scarves
5. Missoni Home
6. Tag Heur Watches
7. Giuseppe Zanotti Shoes
8. Vertu Cell Phones
9. Frontgate Outdoor Furniture
10. Louis Vuitton Luggage

SERVICE

1. Princeton Review Test Prep
2. Match.com
3. OpenTable.co
4. MTA New York City Subway System
5. Weight Watchers
6. Spotify.com
7. Yellow Cab
8. Monster.com
9. Orkin
10. Netflix

The products that are listed in bold were some of my favorite options before today's class. The products that are listed in maroon-colored type-face are the products Dev (my Concepting teacher) chose for me to work on this semester. To be sure, they are...

The Big Green Egg Grill

Airborne

Princeton Review Test Prep

I really wanted to do Princeton Review, and Airborne I'm pretty non-plussed about. However, The Big Green Egg Grill? There's my challenge. A student in last semester's Concepting class tried to advertise for The Big Green Egg Grill as well, but "failed" (Dev's own word choice). Not only will my work and progress be compared to that of the past student, but I MUST make GIANT improvements upon both.

After Dev chose the grill for me, I realized an inherent dilemma with which I will be presented upon beginning the process of advertising for this grill: it's a gimmicky product overflowing with features. Without even seeing the other students work, I know that in order to produce something better, I will have to de-gimmick the grill and be careful not to over-do it on the product benefits/features. I will need to keep my campaign simple and unpredictable, and of course relatable/truthful.

For which product will I design my first campaign? Hmm... 

The challenge is on.

Rice and beans is the Mexican equivalent to the black and white cookie

I was out to lunch with my wonderful boyfriend at a Mexican place the other day when this little revelation struck me: rice and beans is the Mexican equivalent to the black and white cookie. 

See, every one has the same problem with the black and white cookie: they want a little chocolate frosting and a little vanilla frosting in each bite, but they don't know how to do that without dismantling the cookie. I experienced the same problem with my rice and beans the other day, but I wanted a combination of rice and beans in each bite. 

So I ate down the middle of the plate, where the rice and the beans met in one delicious union. Half-way through lunch, a landing-strip-shaped space had appeared between the rice and the beans. So, I pushed the rice over by the beans, and started the eat down the middle process again. 

I'd recommend repeating this process until all rice and beans are gone.

While the perfect bite conundrum can easily be solved for the Mexican rice and beans, it cannot as easily be solved for the black and white cookie. 

Without dismantling the cookie, your options are slim. I think in this case, your best bet is to take a HUGE bite out of the middle of the cookie, and then switch to smaller, gentler bites, still in the middle, so that you continue to get the combination, but do not break the cookie in half. 

If you are fine with dismantling the cookie (many are uncomfortable messing with its mystic proportions), then break it in half, put one side on top of the other, and dig in! It's as simple as that. 

For the more adventurous eater, break the cookie into a bunch of little pieces, put the pieces into a bowl, grab a fork, and enjoy a black and white cookie salad (sans lettuce). If you pour some milk over the pieces, the salad becomes cereal (with the sugar content of nine bowls of Lucky Charms)!

Oh, the options. 

SMU economics professor, Michael Cox, and "Would You Give Up the Internet for 1 Million Dollars"

SMU economics professor Michael Cox discusses tangible vs. intangible worth and brings to light the importance of the rich investing early on in a product's life span. 

How do you make your product so ingrained in consumers' lives that they can't imagine life without it? Or so important that they would pay anything to keep it? How do you make the intangible worth of a product greater than that of the tangible?

Since the advent of the internet, it has become a consumer necessity. Most cannot imagine a life without it, and many would pay thousands, or millions, relatively, to keep it.

How did that happen? And how do we do it again?

According to Cox, the internet (or any other technology) would be no where without initial investors. It is most likely that these initial investors are in at least the top 10% of the county's annual income rate.

"During those first few years products are very expensive as those development costs are paid. If everybody waited, then the product would die on the vine, it would never make it to the market. So somebody is paying that cost of the first product to keep it from dying, and that's the rich."-Michael Cox

Never before did I realize how important is the role of the rich in propelling a product past its introduction stage and into a place where it becomes more accessible to the main stream.

Think about it...

...If there weren't rich people around to buy the first iPod, would it be as accessible and as commonplace a product today?
...If the upper middle class wasn't around to buy the first versions of cable TV, would be what it is today?
...How about flat-screen TV's? Or MacBook's? Or just computers in general?

Without rich people buying these products when they are still expensive (and admittedly slightly faulty), they wouldn't live to see the mainstream. Product developers need the money received from initial buys to improve the product, and eventually, make it cheap enough to be purchased by the masses, and good enough to be wanted by them.


PS- I'm sort of getting into economics lately. Part of why I love advertising is the psychology behind creating the "want." Economists are interested in that as well, and conduct research to determine what might spur consumer interest or lack there of. There's also a bit of storytelling in economics... extrapolations, if you will. Personifications. Ways to make the numbers, graphs, and charts come to life. And that is essentially what advertising is: making a product's benefits come to life in a way that excites emotion from the consumer and creates a connection that causes desire and an ultimate purchase.

Hm... maybe I have more in common with all those economics majors than I thought!