NVC BrandBook

I was organizing my computer folders and came across my New Venture Champions’ folder. It was filled with random documents, PDF’s and, of course, the NVC brand book. My team and I worked with a new venture team from the Linquist College of Business called MyHaggle.com. Through hard core research about the real estate business and grasping a full understanding of the MyHaggle brand, we helped redefine the brand in order to create a brand identity and an appealing connection to the target customer. At the end of this course, we created tangible pieces such as a brochure and our brand book that exemplify the idea of the MyHaggle brand as well as a new logo, web graphics and a website with a blog. The following are several pages out of the book that I created and/or helped create, by taking the teams’ ideas and making it come to life, in Photoshop as well as InDesign.

This page was introducing the MyHaggle Team:

These pages reflect the Vision we had in mind in developing our understanding of the MyHaggle brand:

This page is bracketology- which displays our process in determining MyHaggle’s tagline “Online Real Estate Made Easy.”

This page is a MindMap of MyHaggle.com:

This page was “How to spread the word” about the MyHaggle brand:

This last page is a potential design of MyHaggle’s revamped website:

Living the college life (literally)

During my last 2 years of college, my experience living with other people has been interesting to say the least. There are definitely the positives, but you can’t ever forget about the negatives…

1. The kitchen is always a pig sty

There are a number of dirty dishes in the sink and guess what…there is an empty dishwasher approximately one foot away. Talk about lazy. There are breadcrumbs, apple peels/banana peels/orange peels, dirty forks/spoons/knives, and garbage (misc. things such as empty milk cartons, Lean Cuisine boxes, cereal boxes and beer cans) ALL over the counter top.

2. Having things borrowed and not given back to me for a very long time.

3. Why do I need ear plugs for my own room?! Probably to knock out the loud noises outside and inside.

When napping- there is not much consideration for the concept of QUIET.

4. The bathrooms are not as bad as fraternity’s, but they are still quite dirty.

There is hair all over the sink, floor, counter tops and bathtub.
Hair ties and misc. stuff are all over the counter tops as well.
The garbage is never taken out- thus, it is always overflowing with things you don’t want to know…
The toilet is full of pee to go with the motto “Brown flush it down, yellow let it mellow.” I don’t understand why, so don’t ask me or my cell phone.

5. The bedroom door is shut and it being barged open at inappropriate times.

I’ll touch on the positives later, but am I not living the dream?

O’ Leary Workshop & Smart Car

Currently, I have been working with two journalism students, Kim Karalekas and Hilary Jones, on an account for Smart Car. Throughout the ten week project, my team and I have strategically researched about Smart Car and its target consumers. For primary research, we conducted personal in-depth interviews and sent out surveys to students around the country through Facebook in order to gain a detailed understanding of our target audience. I even traveled to Portland to get a better sense of what the Smart Car was and took some photographs. After discovering the target consumer, my team and I found images and music to represent the Smart Car brand and target, leading to the idea that both want to express themselves. We developed copy around this idea of self- expression to compliment the song and images. We.are.driven. Then, we demonstrated our creative strategy in digital format using programs, such as Final Cut Pro and Soundslides, that helped bring the target audience and the brand to life. We presented (or lack there of) in front of a panel of judges including Steve O’ Leary himself. They all enjoyed our video and I hope you do as well. I will upload an actual video soon! For now, to watch it Click Here!

Socially Responsible Advertising

There is a fairly new wave of socially responsible advertising. Some companies use advertising for the “social good” and connect values and products to resonating issues such as the environment or centralization on children. For example, Unilever and its Dirt is Good! campaign is connecting certain values of society to its company. I thought this was a great idea! There is always a huge concern of child obesity in our society, and encouraging children to get outside and play to get away from the T.V., video games and the computer is awesome.

Another amazing project that I admire is the Tap Project. It is “a campaign that celebrates the clean and accessible tap water available as an every day privilege to millions, while helping UNICEF provide safe drinking water to children around the world.” Participating restaurants invite customers to donate a minimum of $1 for their tap water and for every dollar raised, a child will have drinking for 40 days. It went on for a week, but due to the positive outcome, the Tap Project will now occur yearly! This is so awesome. I looked on the site to see if there are any restaurants in Eugene and there are a few, such as Gary’s Coffee, Tararin Thai Cuisine, Glenwood Restaurants, and Sean Martin’s Cafe. I’m sure many people would be more than willing to add at least one dollar to their bill after eating a meal. This is a great example of how the media can be used as a positive, powerful vehicle for change. Help UNICEF provide drinking water by going to a participating restaurant and donate a $1! It’s so simple and so awesome! “It’s about tapping into what is possible.”

Advertising Stereotypes

Today, in my Advertising and Society class, Professor Christy discussed stereotypes portrayed in advertising. There are a range of stereotypes and we are constantly exposed to a variety of portrayed stereotypes If you were to watch T.V. for a half an hour, you could easily develop a list of what you would consider stereotypes. You could encounter the nerd, the super mom, the jock, the dumb blonde, etc. These categorizations are what advertisers tap into. The following example are ads that caused some ruckus in the classroom today. Do you see any generalized beliefs and/or stereotypes portrayed in this ad?

Solar, with lyrics

This is a really interesting visual video I stumbled upon. It is integrating lyrics into the visualizers.

Audio by Goldfrapp-”Lovely Head”

To see how the process was in order to make this click here

Art inspiring art

The following video displays a great idea from brilliant minds of Fallon London. The project was called Tate Tracks and their objective was to find a way to get 16-24 year olds to go to Tate Modern gallery. The music world was used as the vehicle to unite the consumer with the art. Through the use of different types of media and with the help of music artists, Tate Tracks was a huge hit! 

Music is a noun

mu·sic
–noun

1. an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

Since I was a young girl, I have always had the passion for music. My mom would always tell me that I could catch on with the lyrics faster than anyone she knew. I’ve been involved with choir from grade school to highschool and I miss it like crazy. Go Sopranos! Music is such a huge part of my life. I love listening to different kinds, I love singing along with it and I love dancing to it. I was stumbling…and I came across some great sites.
To share my passion, click the following:

1. last.fm The Social Music Revolution. All you have to do is type in an artist to start listening to full tracks!

2. Musgle Free Music Search powered by Google. Just simply type in the artist’s name, a song title or both and you are provided with endless results.

3. Musicovery Discover music. Click what mood your in and the preference of genre, then you are provided with a web of possibilities!

Ad and Society

I’m currently enrolled in a course called Advertising and Society and it is about how advertising affects society we all live in. So far we have been learning about the roles of advertising, how advertising is criticized and how advertising can very well create a consumer culture or negatively portray as well as manipulate certain groups of society. Some great questions asked were: Are people negatively affected by everyday ads? If so, who? Does advertising manipulate or persuade? Could we have media without advertising?

Such questions made me really think if advertising does or doesn’t affect me. Sadly, I think it does…to me as well as the many other people in society.

The following are some ads that were banned.

 

 

 

Blogs, blogging and more blogging

It’s my last term at University of Oregon and one of my teachers, Deb Morrison, helped me come to realize that I need to act fast in making myself become marketable to future employers. Therefore, (along with many other “marketable” things), I need to set aside at least 20 minutes a week to write an entry into this blog on something intellectually stimulating. This sounds much easier than it really is and this type of stuff is actually very difficult for me. Deb even explained to my fellow class mates and I that Seth Godin wouldn’t even think about hiring anyone who didn’t have their own blog, so I’m going to try really hard to writing at least one entry a week.

Life for me thus far

Life for me as a child and into my young teen years were a little rough, but looking back I’ve come to understand as to why things happened the way they did or didn’t. Obviously, I know I have only been around for 22 years and I have a huge life ahead of me, but there are so many things in life I have overcome into becoming the woman that I am thus far (and who I want to be in the future).

Some things I have learned during my short life that really matter to me:

    Family is everything.

    You can’t always get what you want.

    Knowing that the grass is greener on the other side.

    Being humble- A simple smile from a stranger can brighten up my day.

    Not giving into indulgences.

    Eating healthy and fitness does matter.

    You can’t trust everyone, but you have to learn to trust.

    Being happy with who you are and where you come from.

    Don’t judge a book by its cover- Don’t judge someone the first time you meet them.

    Doing what you love with passion.

    Humoring yourself- I love laughing.

    Staying optimistic and not being too serious ALL the time.

    Finding peace in nature.

    Taking the good with the not so good.

    Keeping promises and speaking your mind.

    Loving the people in your life (besides family).

I’m excited for what my future holds.

Side note: “Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change.”