Julie and Julia

An interesting movie about french cooking and relationships, 'Julie and Julia' came across as a heartwarming show to me and I had fun viewing it with my girlfriend.

The movie started a little slow as there was a need to set the timeline for both characters in order to make it apparent to the audience. The past-present concept was fun to view as Julie Powell (Amy Adams) embarked on her 365 days French cooking challenge in order to prove to herself that she could focus and reach a goal. While we see Julia Child (Meryl Streep) learning to be a cooking meister in France, Julie is following in her footsteps nearly half a decade later in her cozy home setting.

The development of Julie and Julia's characters were also well portrayed. Both women were thrown into new living environments and they used cooking as their outlet for peace and also as their art. I thought it was really nice that the husbands Paul Child (Stanley Tucci) and Eric Powell (Chris Messina) were so supportive of their wives. They were the unsung heroes that motivated their spouses to forge ahead and accomplish their tasks.

In addition to this, Julia and Julia also gave deep insight of challenging relationships in life and it encompassed parents, colleagues and friends. Julia had to deal with a poor co-writer with her cookbook and also manage a proud french women who was in charge of her cooking school. On the other hand, Julie had obnoxious friends who only wished to show off about their life and her job as a customer service officer had a strong emotional toll on her. This gave a very personal touch to the show as it went beyond a simple feel good show about cooking by exploring interpersonal relationships.

I actually found it easier to relate to Julie Powell's character

as she came across as the more realistic character while trying to follow in Julia's footsteps. She seemed to have more trouble with cooking than Julia did, and she had to juggle work on top of her cooking project. I admired the character's resilience and was silently cheering when she finally accomplished her goal.


The inconsistency in the show was at the last part of the movie when Julie had a call with a comment from the very senior Julia in the show saying she hates her. I'm not sure how that was relevant to the movie and was pondering on this for quite awhile.




For those of you who have watched the show what do you think of this? How did you find the movie? Share your views!

The Black Eyed Peas flash mob

Taking a break from talking about advertisements, I would like to share my thoughts on flash mobs. The term is usually used to describe a random gathering of people who perform any action for a time on their own accord and are not influenced by public relations firms. In particular, I would like to talk about the The Black Eyed Peas flash mob which recently took place in Chicago at Oprah Winfrey's 24th season kickoff party.

I was impressed at the amount of coordination needed to pull off a successful act like that and the group of dancers in front must have trained pretty hard for this event. I couldn't tell from the video if the people all the way behind were dancing in perfect synchronization with the ones in front, but even if they weren't the dance was infectious and a few thousand people were doing the same moves in the mosh pit. I thought this was pretty amazing. I guess Oprah would agree with me as well since she had her mouth agape the whole time on stage.

Whether this was a paid publicity stunt by Oprah or The Black Eyed Peas will only be known by them. Based on their looks of wonder I'm assuming they were kept in the dark about this. Whatever it is, this event has generated a lot of good publicity for both The Black Eyed Peas and Oprah and it is almost a free advertising campaign for them. The power of the public certainly is able to generate a lot of hype in today's technological age, and this video found its way to online streaming portals like YouTube really quickly, getting millions of hits. People might start buying more albums of 'THE E.N.D' for the song 'I gotta feeling' because of this. People might think the dance moves are cool and start to learn it with the song. Basically, a myriad of effects can happen just from one flash mob that materialized at a show.

I enjoy listening to the group already prior to this event and found this video very entertaining. I am happy that the flash mob turned out be so successful and it was a very good twist to a regular performance. How about you folks? What are your views on flash mobs or The Black Eyed Peas? Mr Potato signing off!

Kit Kat's latest Campaign

The two videos above are part of Kit Kat's latest 'Working like a machine' campaign. In the videos, the main element working here seems to be humour, although one might interpret both advertisements as being totally irrelevant to Kit Kat. The central idea of the characters in the series of advertisement is people behaving like machines. In the first, we have the karaoke lady standing behind a television singing and in the second we have a cashier scanning products with his teeth. These out of the ordinary actions were obvious to me and it immediately grabbed my attention. The way Kit Kat was introduced into the advertisement was pretty smooth also as one was on a snack dish and the other conveniently rolled over to the cashier.

Keeping in mind that Kit Kat would be targeting children and younger people for these products we see a clean advertisement which is quite creative. Although I was a little annoyed at the end of the commercials, my younger kid brother enjoyed it as I saw him chuckling to himself so I guess it has the desired effect on people which is 'Come Grab a Kit Kat'. I preferred the Cadbury cartoon advertisement where the world was portrayed as chocolate, but I guess this campaign might work out as well for its humorous approach. Featuring real people in the advertisement also gives it a more personal feel.

What are your views on Kit Kat after watching this? Would you follow their slogan and 'Have a break, have a Kit Kat'? Share your views!

Army advertisements

The above advertisement is from the army.

Recently, on the way back from school I happened to notice the change of a very familiar camouflage print. The uniform that got me through my two years of sweat and blood in national service has finally been "upgraded" to the third generation. This brought back some fond memories, but more importantly after starting my advertising module it made this advertisement come to mind.

Having served in the infantry, the advertisement for the army and tag line "The Steel Within" was meant to represent what I did during national service. Those three words in the advertisement made us sound macho and respectable. The advertisement did resonate with me when I was doing my stint in the army, but after regaining my civilian status, I felt that trudging through the forest and storming buildings wasn't cool anymore. Not too long ago, I asked a friend who was about to enlist about his reaction when seeing this advertisement and I was surprised by his reaction! The poor sob was in fear! He was intimidated by the whole image that the army was presenting to the public via this advertisement. Apparently, this worry was shared by friends from his cohort as well. Notice the contrast of a person's reaction of one who has gone through the army and another who hasn't after viewing the same advertisement.

As I tried to calm him down and give a more accurate and less daunting description of what he should expect, this made me stop to ponder on what had happened. Wasn't the advertisement meant to inspire people to sign up with the army as a career? Granted, the advertisement gave me a sense of connection, but I probably wasn't the only target audience. If I looked at it from an objective view, perhaps only your active athletic male will be interested in this career opportunity. For the rest of the Singaporean male population that is about to be drafted, this image has a higher chance of intimidating someone rather than inspiring him. This reaction also shouldn't be scorned at, as the standard of living in Singapore has generally become better over the years and males may have become more tame. As my sergeant used to tell me in basic military school, each new batch is "nua" or "softer".

I think that it is commendable that the army is taking an active effort to reinvent themselves and live up to its name of being called a "3G" (Third Generation) army. The advertisement gave a quick teaser to what sub division is within the organisation (Armour, Infantry, etc.) and to showcase what equipment we have at our disposal. It was informative and true in its delivery to the audience. However, perhaps for the next advertisement the organisation may consider a softer approach like showing how is training like and the kind of bonds one forges in the army. I have made some good friends that I would trust my life with doing my service days and we still talk about the tough times or silly things we have been through.

Hence, I hope this entry has given you my insight on this advertisement and my personal experience. If you have any interesting stories to share or comments about the advertisement, don't hesitate to contact me! Mr. Potato signing off!

Fresh Start! Here we go!

Ah! After a one year break from this page I have returned!!! I hope I can share some of my views on advertising with everyone and let's have fun discussing about new issues once again. Advertising COM 443 has been a roller coaster ride recently but it really shows me what being a communication student is all about... so let's get the ball rolling people!

Feel free to drop me comments and I will reply as soon as possible. Cheers!