16. Not that great

No matter how hard some try to avoid doing so, everyone eventually makes mistakes. And it goes without saying that even big names and those working for them are going to flub something, rare though it may be. So in an effort to learn from others failings I thought it may be a good idea to scour through the dusty remains of history to bring out some of the worst brand and marketing choices that have been made in recent history.

• Calvin and Klein. There are times that it almost seems that the main focal point of advertising for Calvin and Klein is the shock value of their ads. The two best, and notorious, examples are those that try to sell sex in a manner that just ends up pushing boundaries a little too far. The first ad was from 1995 and was shot in a style that was a bit too reminiscient of underage pornography. While the second, a print ad, showcased what appeared to be semi-clothed teens. Another "great" one from C&K is a ad appearing to depict a rape.

• While the ad for Carl's Jr. starring Paris Hilton may not be on every list of horrible ads, I included for the sheer number of times I've heard people say something about it when talking about commercials they hate. I believe that the reason most people dislike the ad is because Paris Hilton had already been grinding on their nerves, and the commercial doesn't even mention what it's for until the very last seconds of the spot.

• The idea of being able to turn anything you touch into Skittles at first sounds amazing, but it has its drawbacks. The Skittles Midas touch commercial explores this and, frankly, leaves me not wanting a candy I normally love. It's depressing and completely the opposite of the message that Skittles normally sends out.

These are only three examples, but from what I've seen of the worst ads, they depict the three biggest problems that make advertisements bad. 

1. Stepping out of bounds by using a concept that is inappropriate or shocking.
2. Not conveying a message that actually relates to the brand or product.
3. Using images that are the opposite of the qualities your brands possesses.

15. Evolution

As the times change so do the ideals of society in general. A brand has an obligation to make a connection with people using shared values and needs to stay current to do so. So how do the times change how a brand looks and is perceived? Well, why not find out by looking a couple different examples.

Kodak - Originally the logo was designed after the letters forming Eastman Kodak Company, the name when the company started out headed by George Eastman. It then evolved into a simpler Kodak, that only changed slightly through the years, keeping the red and yellow and changing from the older serif to clean, new sans-serif.

General Electric - In all reality, the GE logo has not changed in any significant way since 1900. The width of borders have changed and the fill color, but the shaped letters have remained mostly the same. The largest change was between in 1900 when the GE was encased and altered to be more understandable.

Mercedes - The three-pointed star at the heart of Mercedes-Benz is supposed to represent domination of land, sea, and air. While it has remained mostly present throughout the history of the company, the logo itself has changed and drawn inspiration from history. The current design of the triple-pointed star in a circle in supposed to represent the strength of the brand.

KFC - Kentucky Fried Chicken has always had the ever present face of Harland Sanders alongside its name. As the logo has been redesigned several times, the Colonel has become a happier, more welcoming image than in the past, adding an apron to his more cartoonish figure.

14. Letters and symbols

The design that goes into a brand is rather important and will obviously incorporate letters or symbols in the majority of cases. All font families have a specific look and feel that they communicate and their message can even change if changed from bold to italics. So what do certain typefaces communicate and how can they change a message received by a consumer?

• Dole has a simple design consisting of a red sans-serif with colors that seem fresh and a sunburst that relates to their product.

• The current Absolut Vodka design was created by TBWA and uses what appears to be a bold sans-serif while the rest of the copy is in dark cursive figures, which really draws the eye to "Absolut" which is color coded for flavor

• Adidas has a nice lowercase sans-serif in all black which ties the whole thing together. The triangle-like logo represents a mountain and the rugged, adventurous life that Adidas encourages.

• Campell's has a sloped sans-serif which has been a part of the long running tradition of soup that has established it as an icon everyone recognizes.

So it appears that it may be a bit more popular to currently use sans-serif fonts that call attention to their names. Older designs, such as cursive like figure or serif fonts seem to be related to products that have been around for a longer period of time and have history to their name.

13. A special treat

I was poking around the internet the other day and came upon a rather natural occurrence for those parts, namely a cat video. However, this cat video struck my fancy a bit more than usual as I discovered that it was created by the advertising firm John St., an agency located in Toronto, Ontario.

This may have been posted back in November and likely talked about by many of my classmates, but I'd still like to put my two cents in.

The thing I like most about this video is that John St. decided to not to have it star an actual cat in an attempt to exploit internet culture. The agency shows that they understand videos starring cats and other cute animals have a large following on the web, but at the same time this obsession with all things cat related is a bit absurd.

Not pictured: serious business.

Creating such a video allows the public to see what kind of people work at the agency and assures us that they're not just a group of robots churning out work for big accounts. Having the video seem like a serious reveal of a new business method is entertaining without the dull non-humor of lolcats or the bubbly cuteness of most cat videos.

A++ Would watch again.

12. Around town

People get hungry. A university campus invariably has a large number of people. So it goes without saying that the immediate area around a college campus is a prime location to have restaurants. In the name of doing something fun with my time I decided I would evaluate the logos of some popular eateries near the University of Oregon.

Like poor, hungry zombies.

Cafe Yumm! - Regardless of the fact that I love the place, Cafe Yumm! does a great job of just being itself. Its  red and gold logo, depicting a steaming bowl of food, reflects the warm and inviting atmosphere that can be found inside the restaurant.

Bonus points for having a logo that's so happy.

Sy's New York Pizza - While the website and logo for Sy's may seem a little dated, I honestly think it matches the character one conjures up when thinking of New York pizza. Sy's has been in the same location since 1978, and it feels like the near permanent fixture that it is.

Ron's Island Grill - I like the food, but the sign for Ron's doesn't appeal to me in any way, although it is better than the website that appears to be a remnant from the late 90s.

I always get this weird feeling I'm going to
 run into Magnum, P.I. era Tom Selleck.

Yogurt Extreme - Of the three establishments near campus that serve frozen yogurt, this one stands out solely for the promises made by such a name. While there may be many toppings to choose from, all the word "extreme" does is remind me of the design choices seen on the inside.

11. Condescension

Closely related to the questionable practices and methods used to advertise Ubisoft's new game, I've decided to briefly talk about something find happening all to often in advertising, regardless of medium. That being a condescending tone or message relayed to the target audience. I find that this happens either through not being able to truly understand what it is that the audience may actually like about a product and thereby creating an advertisement that misses the mark while simultaneously making the audience feel like their interest isn't something worth caring about. The other being the creation of ads that tries to sell their product in a way that isn't worth paying attention to, such as the blatant attempt by Ubisoft to associate a boxom reality star with a video game.

The limited-time Special Awesomeburger,
 now only $4.99 for all you meat-eating heathens.

The first time I really took note of this was during an ad being forced into my head while listening to Pandora. Starting off by saying that some wildly different genres could all be present on a single album due to the jungle-like quality of the current music world, the spot then went on to say that their amazing selection of three burgers would satisfy all those crazy preferences. Honestly, I don't think that a genre I like was even mentioned, but at the same time I felt as if the ad was specifically talking down to me. Also, the logical connection from varied musical genres to burgers is kind of a big leap and felt completely out of place, furthering my resentment towards the ad.

10. Sexy or sexist?

Since a topic relating to video games was just recently covered I've decided to address a video I saw a few days back and originally chose to ignore due to its stupidity. It's doubtless that at some point in our lives we have all heard the phrase "Sex sells." To a point I believe this is true, but there are obvious boundaries where using the alluring qualities of the human body stops appealing to all but the horniest of teenagers. The ad for Ubisoft's upcoming title Ghost Recon: Future Soldier deploys the questionable talents of a reality television star Coco.

What a role model for female gamers؟

As of right now the statistics of those that play video games are changing. Those people that played games as children are continuing to play well into adulthood and adult female players now outnumber males that are of high school age and younger (Source). The biggest problem I see with some current video game advertising is that they seem to forget the varied demographics of the audience and end up alienating potential customers.

For this advertising campaign, Ubisoft put together a team of questionable talent, additionally consisting of a rising football star Justin Blackmon, rapper Kendrick Lamar, and Timberwolves player Kevin Love. Now I understand that it's nice to have a have a group of recognizable faces to sponsor an upcoming title, but why not names connected to the gaming industry or someone that truly knows guns?

There are a lot of games that sell themselves solely by being good games, so I have to wonder if maybe Future Soldier won't be as great as is hoped. Or maybe it's just hard to sell a game when eleven other games have "Ghost Recon" in the title.

9. The art of boxes

While video games continue to see massive increases in popularity and sales, there are certain aspects of them that many simply do not think about. Though sales that happen entirely in the electronic world are becoming more and more common, the style of the box that goes through retail transaction is often the public face of the game, showing up in promotional images and tying it directly to the image of the game people hold in their head. And much like promotional movie posters, this can sometimes be a bad thing.

Like wrapping a delicious caramel in used hypodermic needles.

The early days of gaming were much more at fault when it came to using horrible box art; as technology has improved so has the general quality of design for the covers of games, no longer relegated to horrible hand-drawn images or 8-bit representations.

Another interesting aspect of video game box art is the way that it changes from place to place. Just as games need to be localized by a team to fit the specific needs of the region, such as spoken dialogue or in-game text, so to does the cover often change. Many wonderful examples of the differences between Japanese games and their North American counterparts can be seen over at BOX VS. BOX.

It's interesting to think about the ways that game design companies and their publishers market a game. In the past, choices were often decided by word of mouth or by what game had the flashiest cover, instead of the current methods of beta testing, community reviews and extensive gameplay footage.

Also, take a look at some of the worst video game art ever at Heavy.com.

8. Special artists

While listening to music may not be all that conducive to quickly or efficiently doing work, I often do it anyway. Although I've been a fan of electronic music for a relatively long time and there have always been interesting artists  to discover and love, the last few years have really seen an increase in the fan base for artists across all genres of electronic music.

No longer just for ravers.

Making a name for oneself that allows an artist to stand out from the rest of the crowd has always been a challenge. The ease with which the internet now allows artists to easily publish their work also guarantees that they must have a strong presence to compete with so many new voices. A quick look at the electronic music scene reveals that artists are now creating and living as brands to be more identifiable and these styles can be roughly broken up into three categories.

1. The Unique Performer. This kind of artist has been around for a long time and usually stands out from the crowd by either having a unique performance style or appearance. See Skrillex.


2. The Logo. There are a lot of DJs and groups that aren't hugely popular but produce good music that attracts fans from around the globe. Many of the artists that I like can easily be remembered by their custom logos that are instantly recognizable and easy to associate with their names. See The FatRat for a prime example of name and logo, or the more popular Feed Me for an icon that almost has a life of its own.


3. The Living Symbol. Sometimes an evolution of a logo, symbols often have a unique aspect to their performance or stage appearance, such as the instantly recognizable attire of Deadmau5 and Daft Punk, or the incredible stage of Pretty Lights.