Launching a Product

Today we had a lecture about launching products and all the different methods you can go for. I never realised there was so many! 

Pre-launch its all about the planning, creating a message and finding out what tools and media to use.

With the launch you can either use tactics, an event or media. You can also use a range of all of these.

Then post-launch you want to keep the buzz going and review how successful the style of launch was.

Chris then went onto explaining each type of launch, I'm not going to explain each one on here but I will talk about the ones I'm thinking of using in my fragrance essay and also mention any current campaigns I've noticed and pick which style they've gone for.

• dripping tap - a controlled reveal over time.
• lockdown - enforce a strict embargo on all outbound communications until launch.
• ripples - empower key influences to tell your story.
• grass roots - create groundswell from existing fans before opening to a broader market.
• riddle - create an elaborate experience across a range of platforms where they have to solve problems to reveal the product.
• betamode - give early access in order to gain feedback
• stampede - create the impression of excess demand by restricting supply.
• shockwave - court controversy in order to generate headlines.
• sampling - enable customers to experience or try the product for free.
• keynote - live event with key influences to reveal the product.
• fanfare - a big bang launch.
• survey - ask what they want and give it to them.
• domination - dominate a specific platform.
• star prize - offer a once in a life time opportunity.
• alienation - launch in an alien environment.
• coat tails - exploit positivity and work with the famous.
• snowball - start small and grow in it's own momentum (viral).
• playmate - collaborative partnership.
• movement - create a clarion call which people can rally behind.
• crowdfund - pay before launch.
• zeitgeist - capture the mood of the nation.
• bonfires - start lots of small fires.
• sabotage - go on the attack.
• stunt - create a publicity stunt.
• advertain - blur the lines between advertising and entertainment.

For my brand I believe it would be best to use a selection of sampling and playmate. I chose these because the product is quite new to the market so customers would feel the need to sample it before splashing out, also working with a brand/company that already has a similar customer base would work well together. I still need to research into some of these in further detail to decide what else I think would work with my fragrance brand.

Photoshop Tips - Stamp Tool

We had another lecture on Photoshop tools, most that were shown I already knew how to use successfully but one that I really got to play around with and get to grips with was the stamp tool, I'd never really used it before, nor new what you could do with it.

Before: 

After:

Using the clone stamp tool I was able to remove any fly away from the hair and eyebrows from images we had taken for our fragrance promotional photos. This tools works miracles!

My First Year Goals/Success/Failures

We had a very reflective seminar today, where we looked back on our year, what our goals were when started and about all the obstacles, successes and failures we may have had.

Goals at the time -

• Get good grades
• Get work experience
• Enjoy my course
• Make friends on my course as well as outside of the course

What have you learnt? -

• how to handle people not turning up for group work
• how to work in my own time (it's not like school)

Obstacles -

• Getting back into reading/finding extra reading
• people not turning up in group work projects
• dealing with noisy surroundings (halls)

Successes -

• Got good grades in most projects
• starting to enjoy research by discovering ways that work for me

Failures -

• fragrance advert essay

People who have played an important role -

• friends on my course (help each other in projects/referencing)
• friends outside of my course (inspire me, give feedback)
• guest lecturers are very inspiring

Guest Lecturer - Michelle, founder of FrontCover

Michelle from FrontCover makeup came in and gave us a lecture about 'The Big Idea' and how they created this brand. 

In 2007 she noticed a gap in the makeup market, there was no makeup that reflected fashion trends. They decided to make the products good quality but affordable and having well explained instructions on the packaging so that anyone can achieve the looks. 

All the products in one of the boxes can be used to create the look on the front cover of the box as it comes with all the makeup products needed as well as the tools you'll need. 

FrontCover was launched in Boots and then in February 2012 it moved out into Sephora to reach worldwide markets and then also went online by July 2012.

In the seminars she got us to answer 3 questions that would describe our fragrance brands in the simplest way.

What makes your product unique? -  It's a fragrance with skincare benefits

What are the key strengths? - It's packed with vitamins that will help your skin all over the body, not just where its applied.

Which qualities identify with the needs of your consumer? -  It's all in one bottle, no need to faff around with lots of different products.

Answering these questions made it so much easier to identify our brand without having to explain it in loads of words.

Distortion of Seeing

We watched a documentary all about how we look at art, it was a very dated video but still had some very valid points which still work to date.
It talked about how listing to different music, seeing text, looking at related or different images when you're looking at an image can completely change the way you look at it.
I sat there and realised how many articles, adverts and images I've looked at in the past and how they can mean a completely different thing if there wasn't the text around it, or the music going along with the advert.
The power of an image mixed with another aspect is surprisingly strong!

The next chapter went onto women in the western world and about body image.
It mentioned how women want to be desirable, but they believe that 'perfect' women in adverts are desirable and don't realise that 99% of the time there is plenty of photoshop used and they need to realise you can't live your life in a pose. When this video was made there was half as much photoshop and image manipulation used but I'm reflecting on what they were saying and how it relates to us today.

In our seminars we continued to reflect on the documentary we had been watching and how the distortion of seeing is used in visual merchandising, marketing and also then went onto body image.
We noticed how much music and visuals around store effect how people shop and feel whilst in store, also how is also changes the mood of a video advert and catwalk events. We also discussed how what comes before or after an advert can affect how you look at the advert which is often noticed in magazines, TV advertising and also outdoor advertising e.g. buses and billboards.

We then went onto body image and discussed how everyone wants to be individual, but really when you look at the wider picture, you see that everyone is wearing very much a similar style, have similar hairstyles and makeup habits, yet when you ask them if they think they are individual they say that they believe they are. Yes, personality wise everyone is individual but style wise, its more often than not that people are less individual.
Wow, this was a pretty deep blog post!

Brand Campaigns - Jameson's Whiskey Case Study

In our seminars today we were given a case study about Jamesons Whisky and how they wanted to reach a new target market of 25-35 years old men as it is known for having an older market as well as being known for mixing well with ginger beer which is outdated for this new market.
We were given the task to create a launch event that would appeal to this target market as well as selling Jamesons as a brand.

In my group we decided to have an event in each major city in the UK in an underground/trendy bar. The new target market already tend to attend these style of bars for a drink.
There would be free entry and each guest will receive 2 free tokens for a Jamesons with a choice of mixer. This gives people the opportunity to try it out with more than one mixer.
There will be people walking around with iPads castings people's votes of their favourite mixer choice and will be entered into a draw to win a bottle of whisky at the end of the night.

We presented this idea to the class and after feedback I would have also added maybe a special edition style bottle which would be more aesthetically appealing to 25-35 years olds by getting a contemporary artist involved. Also as the brand is Irish, maybe we could've also got the event to tie in with St Patricks day as it is a popular event which many already get involved in.

When I got back to my flat after the seminar I researched a bit to see if they had done any of these to reach this new market and noticed they had done a few special edition bottles.

Post Production On Photoshop

We had a lecture on post production and image distortion and then in our seminars we got to have a go at some of the styles ourselves with some guidance from the lecture where Tim showed us how to do some of these effects.

Making Our Fragrance

Today we had the amazing opportunity of making the fragrance for our brand, Karen Gilbert who has worked in international flavours and fragrances taught us more of the basics of creating a fragrance and how its a way of communicating without using words and also how it makes us, feel, think or react differently without even knowing why. She brought in a supply of scents and mini perfume bottles to use, obviously because of time and supplies we couldn't make the exact smell we probably wished for but could create an idea of what we would want in our fragrance. 

We were given a selection of heart, accessory, fixative and harmoniser notes. After smelling them individually and trying combinations we then started to create the final smell.

Ours included;

Heart Notes

35 drops of Rose

35 drops of Jasmine

50 drops of Muguet

Accessory

13 drops of Aldehydic

19 drops of Fruity

13 drops of Tobacco

Fixative

60 drops of Vanilla

Harmoniser

50 drops of P.E.A (Rosy Floral)

As our target market is 30-40 year old women, we went for a quite floral scent with a bit of depth to it. If we had more essences to use we'd probably add more fresh scents to it.

It was interesting to see how some smells you think would work together really didn't and how ones you'd never imagine would smell nice actually did, for example we used tobacco thinking before hand that it would be horrible but actually worked well with our fragrance.

Guest Lecturer - Jonathan Armstrong for Ellesse

Jonathan Armstrong, an art director for Ellesse came in to talk to us about creating campaigns and logos.

Ellesse was popular for its skiwear in the 1970's, they then moved into also creating tennis wear. They are a glamourous and playful sportswear brand, compared to the basic styles from many sportswear brands. In their campaigns they have worked with many sport stars for example Boris Becker.

Their logo is half a tennis ball and the tips of skis, I had only ever noticed the tennis ball shape but not until today did I notice that there was also the skiing aspect of the brand in the logo as well.

He took us through the process the brand goes through to create a campaign, this was really helpful towards our fragrance project as we were yet to start generating an idea for our advert.

They went for the poster art style for the campaign and the finished result looked amazing, they used the artist Robert McGinnis who is well-known for his James Bond posters. It's different to the average photographic advert, he created a different piece of art for each season so they can show off all the clothes Ellesse have to offer.

Slating Styles of Fragrance Ads

In our seminar today we had to create single sentences to describe styles of fragrance adverts, bottles and concepts.

We did 3 different pairs to compare, masculine Vs. feminine, Luxury Vs. Economy and Past Vs. Future.

Male

• Your girlfriend would rather be with me.
• I don’t need to read.
• Its not eyeliner, its guyliner.
• Listen to me talk shit because I’m Brad Pitt.
• My abs are worth more than my personality.
• I’m too pretty for my shirt.
• I’m great in bed.

Female

• Will it match my dog?
• Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
• I’ve got gappy teeth; therefore I’m a model.
• Bitches love pink.
• Perfume makes my clothes fall off.
• I tried to do the gardening in my lingerie.

Luxury

• I try to look vintage but really I look shit.
• Classy? More like boring.
• No1 most expensive price tag, No2 what I do when I see the price tag.
• What is food when you have Chanel.
• It might be tacky but at least the diamonds are real.
• Commissioned by God.

Economy

• Diamonds? More like plastic.
• *90% Water
• The smell of disappointment.
• Wear it; drink it, its all alcohol.
• No natural ingredients involved.
• So sweet it’ll give you diabetes.
• This ad has been edited in paint.
• Eau de toilet.
• Who said perfume should cost more than milk?

Past

• if you can understand historical references you must be cultured and clever.
• So floral it’s 50 years too late.
• I dated Gatsby.
• I’m not old fashioned, I’m vintage.
• If arthritis was a perfume.

Future

• How the hell do I open this bottle?
• I’m more complex than your phone.
• Do I press start to spray?
• I am too niche for you.
• I’m so emergent.

Analysing the story of an advert

In groups of 3, Tim gave each group a magazine and we had to pick out an advert and then write a short story on what we think is going on in the advert.

We picked out an ad for Prada Eyewear and this is the story we got from it.

Twin sisters had previously been in a car crash together whilst one of them was driving. The now envious sister who wasn’t driving and lost her eye wants revenge on her twin who left the scene unharmed and could pursue their dreams as an actress. The jealous sister is trying to get into her sisters dressing room to poison her to sabotage the show.

We then had to pick out the use of colour, motif’s, props and more.

Colour – Blue, black – spy, envious, sadness

Motif – Shadows

Patterns – lace against a simplistic background – stands out

Choreography – gazing around the corner creating a strong jawline, leaning against the wall and the shadow silhouette in the background is posing powerfully.

My First Module Portfolio

As some of you may know I am in my first year studying Fashion Communication and Promotion at Nottingham Trent University.
We have just finished our first module which was called Visual Awareness, we had to put together a portfolio of all the work we have done since the start of the course, including team, individual work and I also had to do a sketchbook, a reflective journal blog and professionally print my Ted Baker booklet.
If you are interested you can look at my portfolio here at http://issuu.com/alexhowe/docs/portfolio and my reflective journal blog at http://alexandrahowe.blogspot.co.uk
I got my grade back a few days ago and got a 2:1 for this module so I am very happy!
We've now started our next module about Creative Networks and am quite excited about the project we are just starting to get into.
If you have any questions about the course I'm doing or the university I am at, feel free to comment below or tweet me!

Guest Lecturer: Tastebillion

Today we had a guest lecturer, Steven Wallis. He won Master Chef in 2007 which then moved onto him kick-starting his new company Taste Billion in 2013.

 ‘Tastebillion is a specialist consultancy that focuses on delivering semiotic foresight, strategy, culinary and artistic direction to global food, beverage, beauty, lifestyle and luxury brands.’

They have worked with some very successful brands such as Kellogs, Estee Lauder, British Airways and Nestle. The company doesn’t just stick to food that is what we all thought at the start when we heard the name Tastebillion but in fact they do so much more! It was so interesting to see how they create their boards and present their work to their clients; it really helped me think outside the box for presenting my projects and also how to go ahead with some research.