Other Successful Aftershaves

I have choose three successful aftershaves including Hugo Boss, Paco Rabanne, Diesel.

Hugo Boss started his clothes company in 1923 in Metzingen, this is still based in a small town south of Stuttgart. However, due to the economic climate in Germany at that time so Hugo Boss was forces into bankruptcy in 1930. This didn't dishearten Boss and he set up a new business in 1931 and became member of the Nazi party. Because of the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933, Boss's business began to improve as he became the official supplier of uniforms to the SA and SS guards. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, Boss was charged with being sympathetic to the Nazi cause and was denied the right to vote in Germany and ordered to pay a fine. He died in 1948 but his business had survived and in 1953 the company began making suits. The timing of this choice was perfect, as the male fashion industry had began and through the 60's and 70's Boss suits became the benchmark for fashionable menswear. In 1985 the company was floated on the stock exchange and the main stock holder is Marzotto textile. In 1993, after 70 years that it was founded, Hugo Boss launched its first perfume. This important area of the company has been expanding ever since.


In 1987, Boss Orange was launched which was described as sporty and casual, This separated itself from the trendy Hugo brand and also the Boss sophisticated black brand.There is Boss green which is a sporty brand. These are the companies products which are available throughout the world in 103 countries and it has more than 5,000 retail stores. These brands are Boss, Hugo and since 2004 Baldessarini. Baldessarini was named after the former chairman Werner Baldessarini. Baldessarini is mainly a independent business that focuses on the image of the other brands. It sells clothing, shoes, fragrances and accessories. However this doesn't have  the Spring and Summer collection like the other brands do. This is due to the new premium Boss line, the Boss black selection. Baldessarini fashion recently sold for 9 million pounds to Ahlers Ag, who are a fashion brand holding company in 2006. However all of the fragrance brands are owned by Procter and Gamble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZW3GX5dFU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88HATBcODWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G3PeojmiWY

I have picked this in particular adverts as I feel they are the most graphical and I have been looking at other examples that Hugo Boss produce as I knew that this would help me with my own design, I have looked at splash effects which occurs in many aftershave adverts. This is where I will be taking my own magazine advert. I have decided on using blue as the consumer will relate this to an perfume with the splash effect that I will be producing. I was thinking about using photography within my magazine advert however I want to produce a advert which is original. I will be using mediums such as pencil crayons and fine liner to produce a nice crisp look. 

Research on Brut

I have been looking into the history of Brut Aftershave over the years. This aftershave has was first launched in 1964 by Faberge. In 1968, a budget range was marketed under the name Brut 33. This was a budget range due to the fact that the aftershave contained 33% of the original product. It was also packaged in cheaper plastic bottles, this was described as a "lighter fragrance" The company Faberge was taken over by Unilever in 1978 and transferred to the Chesebrough - Pond's division in 1989. From then the Brut 33 range was took over by Brut and the Faberge range was renamed Brut Classic, this still retained its distinctive packaging.

Athletes have traditionally represented the brand including american athletes such as Joe Namath, Hank Aaron, Wilt Chamberlain and the boxer Muhammed Ali. However the star of the 1070s campaign was boxer Henry Cooper who used the slogan "splash it all over". Other celebrities have been involved with campaigns such as Barry Sheene, David Hemery, Harvey Smith and Kevin Keegan. The footballer Paul Gascoigne also starred in a advertising campaign although he was later later dropped because of domestic allegations made by his ex wife.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5tLfiu7an4

Elvis Presley is known to have used this aftershave and also Roger Moore used the aerosol version of Brut in Live and Let Die for self defence. He touches the ignited end of the cigar he was smoking to the aerosol and produces a crude flame thrower. In 2006 Idellle Laboratories launched Brut Revolution and "As Different As You Are" was the theme of the fragrance, which is in a silver and blue bottle. Apart from Brut original the range has grown in the recent years with new fragrances such as Oceans, Identify, Revolution, Instinct, Musk and Passion. The range is available in roll on, spray, aftershave, splash on and shower gel.

Thoughts about Brut

I have been experimenting with many ideas for the magazine advert which I will be producing for our group. The new colours which we have agreed on is blue. I have decided to have the bottle as the main focus point with some graphics around the bottle itself. I'm not sure how I'm going to convey the retro perspective apart from the logo itself. I will further develop this idea on paper and see how it looks. I have researched into the previous TV adverts however I couldn't find any old adverts which is a shame as this would have helped me greatly.


http://www.brutformen.co.uk/gallery/

I looked at the new printed adverts which were on the website. The adverts are very similar to the website design. I may ask Milly to send me her website design and style my printed ads from her website as this is what the company have done already. The adverts which already exist have a slogan, this is something which I would like to produce for my own. I will be producing two different final rendered pieces and I will show a range of thought processes in the PowerPoint, which are currently in my sketch book. I will be scanning these in and putting them in the PowerPoint to show my own personal development.

I have finally decided on my final logo design which I will be showing in the power point and discussing why I have chose that particular design. The colours again are blue for this design. The materials I have used are pencil crayon as I felt that felt tips was too strong for the look I was going for and also too childish. The crayons gives the logo a soft look and fits in nicely with the design. I'm really happy with the outcome of the final logo. I'm looking forward to seeing the final outcome of the printed advert. I may design one on Adobe Illustrator to see how it would look digitally, rather than hand drawn. However I'm not sure if I will have time, we will see.

Lemon Video - A Chance Encounter

We were given a brief which was to make a silent five minute film entitled a Chance Encounter. The week that we were given the brief, only me and tom was in lecture. So because of this me and tom brain stormed ideas around the title itself. We had several ideas which included balloon and a pin. However we agreed that this would be too short. Another idea was a toast and toaster, the idea behind this was to have the bread having a chance encounter with the toaster. This again would of been too short. We wanted to do something random. As we overheard that other groups were making more serious so we wanted to lighten this up.

As the others didn't know about mine and toms idea. I sent the others the treatment over facebook. This is the treatment.

First scene - will consist of the lemon travelling around the kitchen, its quite happy with itself.

Second Scene - will be the lemon meeting another fruit or vegetable.
Third scene - the vegetable warns him that the chef is about. starts to shake in fear
Four scene - He tries to hide however the chef spots him.
Fifth scene - the lemon is running away from the chef across the work surface. He comes across obstacles along his way.
Six scene - the chef is trying to stab him with a knife.
Seventh scene - the chef finally catches up with him and cuts him in half.

I asked if the others would produce there own storyboard as then we would have different ideas from the original treatment. The next session concluded of our group showing our different ideas for the lemon idea. I produced my own storyboard which consisted of seven scenes. I showed this to the rest of my group. We decided to come up a story board from all of our ideas. We changed the idea slightly of having the lemons having a dance and one getting away from the chef and hiding. This would make the film more entertaining. The next step was to think of materials that we would need to produce this. Our items were fishing wire, blue tac, faces, needle and lemons of course.

We used Milly's flat for the filming as she has quite a big kitchen. Tom was the camera man, Milly was the chef and me and Jodie was in control of the lemons. The first task was to attach the fishing wire to the lemons which proved to be more difficult that first expected. We used the needle to thread the fishing wire through the top of the lemon. It took us about 2 hours to film. When we played back the video, I was in stitches. It was hilarious. The film itself was very rough but the frames worked well. If I was to do this project again I would spend more time planning the film itself and also I would of liked to use a tri pod as then our shots would of been less shaky. This would also give other team members to move the lemons as I found that we didn't have enough people to control the lemons properly. But I do feel with the amount of time that we was given, we produced a quite good piece of filming.

Brut ideas

As group we discussed that we would each choose a piece of medium to re brand. I have decided to change the logo and produce a magazine advert which will be in a A4 format. I have already come up with some ideas for the logo itself. I have decided to go "retro" as after researching the aftershave, I noticed that the aftershave is popular within the older generation. I want to keep this audience as well make it more attractive to an younger audience. Retro itself has come back into fashion within the younger generation. So I feel this is a good way of re branding Brut to the masses. I have gone with a font that I have found on a typography website called Dafont.com. I have used this website over the past few years and I have found it very helpful. I have experimented with fonts such as Lobster, Blessed day, Katy Berry and Wrexham. However I found a font that in my opinion fitted perfectly, this is called Black Rose. I showed the rest of my group and they was happy with this text. 

I knew that I needed to get my typography perfect. As I have done re branding at college. I was told that the basis is the typography. The typography itself needs to express what your trying to sell. So after this I began experimenting with different "retro" aspects. Some worked a lot better than the others. Firstly I began swapping the text about to see if it would work any other way, this didn't work well. I thought I needed some of visual logo which incorporated more of my "retro" feel and look. I began researching this on-line so I didn't have a blank canvas to work from. I experimented with suits, hats, music etc. I was beginning to have a mental block, none of my ideas seemed to say aftershave to me. But I thought does it have to say aftershave as you will see that when you pick up the product. 

I went back to the colour blue because as an group we discussed that blue would be colour we would use. This gave me some more ideas. I began sketching out an retro styled man. Straight away this was going to be my logo. I put this retro man above my typography. However I felt it was missing something. I kept experimenting but it wasn't working. I was getting annoyed as I knew that this was the perfect logo. I finally got my logo to work. I used a blue semi circle to surround my retro man which was placed above my typography. I asked my house mates and my group which one they preferred. Everyone chose this logo.

Overall I'm happy with the look of my logo. Even though I had some difficulty. My next stage is to create my magazine advert. However at the moment I'm not sure where I will be taking this.

Brief and Risk Assessment

We were set a brief last week which concludes of re branding of an product. These products are Blue Nun, Mateus Wine, Spam, Skol Lager, Brut Aftershave, Hai Karate, Babycham and Milk Tray. Our group which includes me, Tomas, Milly and Jodie will be meeting on Wednesday in the library to discuss which product we will be re branding. After we meet up, we will individually working on rough visuals for our chosen product. However we need to research this product fully visually and contextually, this will help us with our re branding.

We need to pick a medium which we will be using. I would like to do print marketing campaign as an advert for either a magazine or newspaper. As I believe that this would be the most successful, however I will have to discuss this with the rest of my group and see if they like the idea of this. I will be writing in my journal over the coming weeks to write about our progress with our re branding.

Today's session included a talk about risk assessment which was presented to us by the technician Anthony Hunt. This talk was quite interesting, however some of the information I already knew. I learnt how to fill in an risk assessment form which is something I had never done. We completed our risk assessment in my friends flat. The talk itself lasted three hours. We was shown several videos on health and safety which we had to guess whether they was real or not. The video that shocked me the most was the live t.v broadcast of Anthea Turner being injured. I thought that this video was fake however it was because everyone was given the same signal, major lack of communication. This could of been a fatal accident. We was also shown a clip which I believe was from final destination to show the risks in the home, we had to say what we risks we seen within the clip. This proved to be easier than I first thought. We were shown another photograph and again we had to identify the hazards which proved again to be easier than I thought. Overall I thought that this presentation was interesting and I will taking what I have learnt away with me.

Digital Media in Visual Marketing

This session concluded of getting into groups and looking at the task we were set last week, which was to produce a piece of pre production on any piece of digital media. This could include anything from a t.v series to a magazine. I decided to do a poster which would be for a music festival. My target audience was between 18 - 25 year old's and my poster needed to be vibrant, legible and the composition had to tie in with my festival. I completed this task, however I miss understood some of the brief as it was vague. I did what I thought was asked. However I hadn't completed the task fully.

The next stage of our lecture was to go over our  major brief which is re branding one of the products gave to us. We have to work in groups and present of ideas and final outcome on the 9th January. My group consists of Me, Jodie and Tom. At the moment our group aren't sure what we will be re branding as we haven't discussed our ideas properly yet. However I'm sure that we will meet and go over the brief together. I quite like the idea of re branding spam as it has such a bad name. It classed as cheap and nasty and I would love to re invent this, however it depends what my team want to do as well.

The final part of our lecture was some Photo Shop CS5 tutorials which in this case was image correction. This was something which I had already learnt in college. However it was good to re cap as I haven't been on Photo Shop CS5 for a while. I would like to do more tutorials as I love practical based work. We all learnt how to correct an image as a class, which we followed as Jane went through it on the projector. I found that some people had never used Photo Shop and we was asked as a group to help others who didn't have much knowledge. This is good team building as we will be doing this in a job environment.

Overall I felt that this lecture turned out well apart from the fact that I hadn't completed last weeks task completely and also I'm not too sure about our brief. However I will be looking at this on the staff web website for reference as soon as it has been uploaded.