Wimbledon: The Greatest Ever

With summer tennis in full swing, so are the high end advertisements for brands like Rolex, Lexus, and Cadillac.  Those three are always big brands used in advertising for tennis tournaments, like Wimbledon, because they are sponsors for this high end sport.  Accompanying these commercials is tennis legend, Roger Federer.  He is considered to be the greatest tennis player of all time, even better than legend Pete Sampras.

With Roger Federer being considered the greatest tennis player of all time, why else wouldn't you advertise with him to promote the greatest product of all time.  That seems to be why companies like Rolex, Lexus, and Cadillac advertise during tennis sporting events.

A perfect example is this commercial below.

Roger is being advertised showing how he developed into a phenomenal tennis player over the years of his life.  By using him to sell a Rolex watch, it must mean it is the greatest watch of all time, so consumers must buy it.  These type of advertisements have been being promoted for over 60 years, and it is something that will continue to show excellence and be successful.

Proving the commercials ultimate goal, greatness achieved.

Laws to be Enforced

With summer in full bloom, everyone is out and about enjoying the wonderful and warm weather.  People are driving their convertibles with the top down, enjoying a nice evening walk, and of course riding their motorcycles.

Within the past few years, Wisconsin passed the "click it or ticket" law, otherwise known as receiving a ticket for not buckling up in your car.

Personally, I believe it is one of the safest laws to live by because it is so simple to do.  There are too many deaths of people dying in car accidents for not being buckled up.

The other day I noticed a bumper sticker on a car about watching out for motorcycles because they are driving on the road too.

It is a great message and people should definitely be aware of it.  However, on this same day, I saw a motorcyclist riding his bike without a helmet.  I thought, why is it a law for people inside a vehicle to be buckled up, but there is not a law for people who are not covered by a vehicle to wear a helmet?  I think it is just as important, if not more, for there to be a law requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet while driving their bike.  It will only help them save their life if something terrible would unfortunately happen.  

I hope that eventually this will become a law and that people will continue to make bumper stickers to watch out for the bikers.  

Preservatives. Good or Bad?

So far this summer, I have been babysitting for many families.  Each family feeds their growing children different types of foods, meals, calories, and so forth.  It is interesting to see the different types of food there is for children.  I've noticed that all the types of food have different messages they are communicating to customers on them how their food is healthier than others.  One that really stood out to me so far was pre-packaged apple slices.

The reason they stood out to me was because on the it states, "Only 30 calories per bag."  Its a small bag with about 6-8 slices in it.  Apples are fresh fruits that when purchased, only last a little while before going bad.  If they food is pre-packaged, it mus have some sort of preservative in it to keep it from spoiling.  

The first thing I thought was, the 30 calories might attract the parents because they are on a diet and watching calories, but growing children shouldn't need to be that cautious.  They're growing and need as much nutrition as they can get.  

My second thought was, even if the company is communicating that it's only 30 calories per bag, are the preservatives they are using to keep the apples from spoiling healthy? None usually are.  It usually isn't healthy, especially for children. 

It's always a better and healthier choice to go with a fresh fruit, or an food for that matter, because it will have little to no preservatives and have a better nutritional value.  Parents should be choosing food products that are healthy for their growing children, not their own diet. 

It is just interesting to see how all families and parents are different from each other and your own.  To me, I will always go with a fresh, healthier food item, even if it's more expensive, because it'll be more nutritional and better for your health in the long run.

TXTing & Driving

As technology is constantly rising, unfortunately so are deaths.  A weird combination of events, but the fascination of the new technology is so intriguing to people, that is distracts them from important things. Very personal and heart-wrenching commercials have been being shown on TV about true stories of people who were either killed or severely injured while texting and driving.  Many people have tried to communicate how horrific of an idea it is to text and drive, but AT&T captured the soft spot in all of the viewers hearts.

It started with plain, documented information with commercials like these.

Recently, commercials have been being shown of the people who were either friends or family of the victims to show more of a real understanding of the situation that has happened and will continue to happen if people don't realize the harm that can be done if this doesn't stop.

I did more research on their campaign and the message they are putting across to not only teens, who are often accused of texting while driving more than anyone, but to every viewer seeing these terrifyingly real events. 

I came across this short documentary explaining many of the peoples stories that were in the commercials.

It was so real and heartbreaking to watch.  If anyone see's this and continues to text and drive, I'm not quite sure what will change their mind to do the safe thing and wait.  This campaign shared stories of deaths, physical and mental altering injuries, and death of other people due to the drivers reckless behavior.  Each of these stories not only unfortunately affected themselves for the worse, but their family and friends too.  Like the commercial says, "It Can Wait."  By showing these real-life stories as commercials, families can see them together and talk about how it is a bad choice.  Even though it is a terrible topic, it needs to be addressed and this was the perfect way to do so.

It does not only affect the person behind the wheel, but the other passengers, family, and friends as well.  These real stories hit home, and should affect everyone's judgement when it comes to texting and driving from now on.  

It can wait.

Olympic Athletes

With the Summer 2012 Olympics coming up, a lot of commercials have been running featuring Olympic athletes.  It’s a great way to promote and advertise the games coming up so that people can watch it, and to familiarize viewers to whom the Olympians are.  It also demonstrates that these athletes are just like anyone else and use the same everyday products that we do.  It’s a great way to say that if Olympic athletes use them, they must be good products. It’s a brilliant idea by the people creating the commercials for the products.

This one is a commercial of an Olympic swimmer who has damage to her hair from all the chlorine she has been swimming in her whole life. It features Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin.

Pantene has created many products recently for all types of hair.  They have even created an environmentally safe brand that is another great promotion for them as a company.  Chlorine is a very harsh chemical, so by having an Olympic swimmer promote the product saying it has helped her hair, viewers know it must be a good product.

Perfect timing to use Olympic athletes, present and past, to get people excited to watch the Olympic games and promote more products.

Downtown Dining Week

This past week (June 7th - June 14th) was Downtown Dining Week in Milwaukee .  It gives people a chance to experience nice restaurants for a good deal.  It mostly consists of an appetizer, main entree, and desert for either $20 or $30 at the more high end restaurants.  I've been to a few other cities when this has been going on, and it is a great way to bring people into the city and explore what they all have to offer. 

Ryan Braun's restaurant was part of the Downtown Dining Week;

it is located on the Milwaukee River

The summer is a great time to promote this because it's beautiful out and there are usually other things going on in the summer as well.  A few things Milwaukee has to offer are Brewer games, Jazz in the Park, and Lakefront Festival of Arts. 

 Jazz in the Park is held here at Cathedral Square

So, having Downtown Dining Week in Milwaukee is a great way to bring people into the city for a good time and bring in some income and popularity for the city. It's a great way to communicate to people what Milwaukee has to offer not only in restaurants, but the city itself as well.  It's an affordable and an enjoyable experience for people to travel downtown and see how great Milwaukee can be.

Facebook Timeline

Everyone who is on Facebook knows how they are changing everything over to Timeline now to make it more like a story of your entire past life and to include your future memories.


It is explained here...

When I first saw this, I thought it would be a unique and fun change for the Facebook world, but once it arrived and everyone was forced to change, it didn't seem to be much like the explained it to be.  It also seemed to create a look similar to the former popular social media network, MySpace, which is now disliked by most people.  So, why create something that ended up becoming disliked by most people using a social media network site?

The cover photo is a fun and unique way to start off someones page, but after that it isn't to exciting.  Adding all the additional past events to your timeline to tell people about it just seems like too much information to put out on the internet for everyone to see.  I feel like social media networks are beginning to be providing people too much information about their lives, which leads to things like cyber bullying, stalking, and many more.  It leads to terrible fights for the entire public to see as well, which is just unprofessional for everyone involved.

Due to the recall election in Wisconsin between Scott Walker and Tom Barret going on the last few weeks, I witnessed many fights that broke out between Democrats and Republicans.  Politics are a very strong subject to talk about in general, but creating an argument on Facebook about it just isn't appropriate.  I found it very easy to see people's conversations about it that I wasn't friends with because people I was friends with were commenting on it.  It was the middle aged adults that were creating the most drama and it was just embarrassing to see what these people were saying. 

I love Facebook and being able to communicate with my friends from far away, but I would not be opposed to it disappearing as well.  It is a distraction to many people and is proven to diminish grades.  People could be outside spending time with their families, but many chose to stay inside on their computer to go on Facebook.  Technology is great and I absolutely love it, but there are downsides to it as well.  What happened to the days where you called someone to make a time to meet so you could find out who they were face to face? Will it ever be like that again? Only time will tell.