Marian Buhnici

Respect to Dove. They are doing the things that probably many other companies hate them for. They are promoting the natural beauty. Most of the woman dream to look like the models they see on TV, but what they don’t understand is that beauty comes from the inside. And what is important is to live a healthy life and not torture yourself to be prettier.

But on the other side, Dove is part of Unilever, a company that is part of the beauty industry and that is also selling products like Slim-Fast or AXE. When promoting Sunsilk they even say: “Want hair like Paris Hilton, Nicole Kidman or Posh Spice? It’s easier than you think with the right products and a bit of practice.” (quote from www.unilever.com).

Well, we live in a world where someone would say anything to get more cash. At least in Dove’s case they are saying something good, besides the unsaid “Don’t buy beauty products… unless they are from Dove”. And this brings us to the latest movie from Dove promoting the “Campaign for real beauty“.

Coca-Cola is the same since 1886 what it was first made. The taste is a bit different depending the country you’re in, but this is not because of the recipe, it’s because of the ingredients (for example: the water in Romania is different from the one in US). So in the end you still drink the same thing. Then how can the company continue promoting the same thing for over 100 years? Very simple, they don’t promote the product directly, they promote feelings that the consumers gets when people consume it, they build a separate world for the Coca-Cola drinkers, they promote a state of mind and so on.

This sounds good in theory, but in practice they can end-up having something that is exaggerated. Like this ad.
If Coca-Cola can transform a villain in a good person, then I will wait for Coca-Cola to cure cancer.

Have you seen the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games logo? You can see it bellow.

If you want to do a similar logo, just follow these steps.

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

There you go. You got yourself the worst Olympic Games logo.

Welcome to the world of magic! When do we first encounter magic in our life? I guess it is our childhood, when we see cartoons full of magic, our mother reading us stories with witches and magic potions and so on. Many people say that magic doesn’t exist. But it DOES! And we believe in it every day.

Today, our life is full of products with magic powers. One example is Colgate. I am sure you watched their commercials, but have you noticed the ingredients that Colgate promotes? Here is a small list, I am sure you can find out more.

• Micro Cleaning Crystals
• Mini Breath Strips
• MFP® (Maximum Fluoride Protection) Fluoride Gel
• Calcium and Fluoride Protection
• Cooling Crystals
• Herbal
• Clean Mind (not the dirty one)

What are these things anyway? What crystals are these? Where do they find it? Do we really care? Does it make a difference? Do the guys in the lab actually know about it, or it is just something that the marketing department came-up with? I would personally go for the second.

But we like to believe in these magical ingredients. We buy Colgate because “Hey, this one has Cooling Crystals! It has to be good.”

Next time you buy Colgate try to think different “I am buying Colgate because… I am out of toothpaste.” Any other product will do more or less the same thing.

There are many products on the market and for those that want to satisfy the same needs, it is very hard to be different. Soap is just a product that helps you be clean and smell nice. But there are many types and brands of soap. How easy is it then to be different? Many producers adopt different techniques to be better than the others. Better look, better smell, better colour and so on.

But in many cases, the producers use something else (or at least the marketing department does). They use the magic ingredient. Why is it magic? Because nobody knows what it is, but the ads say that it makes it better, more effective and more attractive. The average consumers don’t think too much about and just buy the product because it has the magic ingredient.

There are many examples on the market and in next posts we will go through many products that contain magic ingredients. If you already know some products like this, just leave a comment and I make sure it will make it in a future post.

I am not sure how many of you know the Smashing Magazine but few days ago they launched a challenge for people to design a Halloween logo for them. I am one of those that took this challenge. During one night I worked on an idea I had and I send it. Today I was happy to find out that the logo I sent will replace the official logo of Smashing Magazine during the Halloween day. Read more about it here.