Lady Antebellum (Taken with instagram)
Baxter’s First Lost Tooth. (Taken with instagram)
Feets in the Streets.
2/22/12
Workin for the Weekend.
2/3/12
Partying for a Purpose.
1/28/12
Squish Man.
It’s pretty nuts for me to think about how my plain-Jane family from Newberg, OR has started to break into the “big time”. My dad’s company, Hydro Graphics, Inc., has become responsible for the latest football helmets sported not only by college teams, but by the NFL. Colleges such as Florida State, TCU, West Virginia, Pitt, LSU, Maryland, and of course, the University of Oregon have donned their designs throughout the last year. Now, they’ve finally broken ground with the NFL, and it was announced that the New York Giants will be wearing HGI designs in the 2012 Super Bowl.
HOLY. CRAP.
I thought it was a big deal when I got to go to the Rose Bowl with my dad, hanging out during pre-game warm-ups out on the field and snapping pictures with my iPhone. The Ducks gleamed in the HydroChrome finished helmets, provided by our small, family-oriented business. But this is major. Not only will the Super Bowl appearance boost the image and the notoriety of what HGI does, but hopefully even more people will be interested in who the people are behind the scenes, where the helmets came from, and how they can get their own piece of the action.
It’s too bad that a Super Bowl ad is out of the question at the present time for HGI. While texting my dad tonight and talking about tonight’s broadcast on KEZI channel 9 in Eugene, he told me that for a 30 second ad, it would cost $3.5 million, or at $116, 666.67 per second to have an ad during the NFL’s biggest game. MENTAL…
Yes, I realize that the entire country is watching, and the whole world will have access to these famous and super-hyped commercials come Super Bowl Sunday (even before, in the case of Volkswagon and their latest installment of Star Wars themed ads). For now, HGI will have to stick to marketing themselves online, by the means of sharing on Facebook and other social media sites, news coverage from Portland/Eugene stations and The Oregonian, and just overall word of mouth.
People are loving what they’ve seen. I know I can’t wait to see what comes next.
To watch the broadcast on KEZI, go here:
http://kezi.com/sports/237605
Check out Hydro Graphics, Inc!
http://www.facebook.com/hydrographicsinc
http://www.hydrographicsinc.com/
#7. “Bueller…? Bueller…? Bueller…?”: The SEQUEL?!?
Whether it is meant to create excitement and anticipation for a sequel to the iconic 80’s film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or not, it was still freakin AWESOME to see the combination of Matthew Broderick and the iconic “chicka chickaaaaah” music once again.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about a sequel, but I’m pretty sure it couldn’t top the original. The post that I Stumbleupon’d (linked below) suggests that this could be a teaser for a potential Bueller themed Superbowl Ad. The description for the provided video doesn’t exactly deny this idea:
“We hate to be such a tease, but on a day like today, we just have to. Stick it out until the Super Bowl, or take a ‘day off’ on Monday and catch the big reveal.”
Either way, I was still pretty stoked to find it. Using an incredibly famous cult movie that resonates with multiple generations of people will either go over incredibly well and make people feel nostalgic, or it will epically fail. I’m interested in seeing what the ad is going to be a promotion for, and just how much the original movie or characters are a part of the ad.
Besides… what else do we watch the Superbowl for, if not for the ads?
Post Source:
http://www.itworld.com/internet/244843/does-mysterious-10-second-video-herald-ferris-bueller-ii
#6. An Ad-Free City.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006, the “Clean City Law” was passed by mayor Gilberto Kassab. Though it sounds like legislation promoting cleaning up city streets and reducing pollution, Kassab was after eliminating a very specific and different type of pollution: he called it visual pollution. All forms of advertisement, including but not limited to billboards, posters, bus ads, signs in shop windows, all had to be taken down. People were uneasy at first, thinking it would kill local business, but in a matter of months nearly 10, 000 ads were taken down.
I think it’s interesting how the point is made here that people didn’t really notice the architecture and uniqueness of the buildings and city around them until the advertisements became illegal. It makes me think about just how often I see an advertisement throughout a day just walking in Eugene. Whether it be someone’s clothing brand, a restaurant chain, and even seeing “UO Go Ducks!” is branding and advertising.
It also kind of makes me second guess advertising methods as a whole. We, as creators, must begin coming up with newer, alternative forms of advertising so as to not consistently bombard those who are forced to view it throughout their day-to-day lives. Making people become genuinely interested, like “ooh, what is their message?” instead of “damn it, it’s just another obnoxious ad.”
Sao Paolo is very densely populated, with an upwards of twelve million people inhabiting the area. Without ads, the city still was able to flourish and carry on like normal. It’s funny, in comparison, when you think of Times Square in NYC, and everywhere you look you see an ad. Pretty sure without those, the city would still be just as functional.
Don’t let the 20 minute length of this video deter you from watching it. I couldn’t agree more that the public education system is not fostering and supporting creativity the way that it should. Sir Ken Robinson, an educator and former professor, speaks here about the hierarchy that we as a human race place educational subjects in, with mathematics and sciences at the top, and arts at the bottom. When public education was created in the 19th century, this hierarchy was created to produce people who would be the most successful in the work force. The order was also viewed as what was most “intelligent and useful”, though it was not a mold that fit all students. Robinson, however, believes that creativity is just as essential and important as literacy, and should be treated as such.
Robinson says that creative people think they are not because what they were good at in school was not valued or stigmatized. Not having the ability to be wrong, either, is something that disables a student from coming up with anything original or worthwhile. The idea of intelligence needs to change. Intelligence has become more abstract, interactive, and bigger than simply black and white ideas.
Being a former company dancer, who had to quit in order to give up more time for school work, I can easily relate to this perspective. I think that had I been able to maintain that part of my life, I could be more creative now than I feel that I am.
