Our Concept.

After talking to Lorenzo today, we realized that we really needed to clarify our concept and it would make it alot easier and clearer for us.

So here goes..

You can't understand someone or somewhere without understanding their way of life, their values and their beliefs. We aim to advertise the O2 'your country' offer by highlighting the everyday cultural differences between the UK and a selected country, causing the audience to be intrigued into different ways of life, wanting to connect to other countries and learn more.

We feel the best way to get this message across would be to catch our audience off guard, and place our advertisements in secluded environments, where they have no choice but to look at the advertisement, such as lifts, telephone boxes and toilet cubicles.

Japan Culture Differences.

Cultural Tips for Japan

Remember the comment from Bridget Jones' mum about the Japanese being cruel? Forget it. There are cultural differences, but people who visit Japan on a gap year are often overwhelmed by how friendly and willing to help the locals are.

Your welcome will be even warmer if you follow some of our cultural tips for Japan while on a gap year…

Number 1 of our cultural tips for Japan - say goodbye to your shoes
Not forever, but at the entrance to homes and many public buildings. Slippers will usually be provided for you to change into, although you may be asked to remove those at a certain point inside. Don't panic - just remember that this is simply one of the cultural differences in Japan, and observe what others are doing. The shoe-for-slipper exchange often happens at the toilets, too.

Number 2 of our cultural tips for Japan - don't be unfashionably late
If you're not good at being on time, put your watch forward. Being late won't go down well. And if you're going for a train, these cultural tips for Japan could be the difference between you missing it and catching it!

Ps If you're coming to Japan from Africa or Latin America, this cultural tip might take some adjusting to!

Number 3 of our cultural tips for Japan - mind your chopsticks
Bad news! It's not enough to learn to eat with chopsticks, you also have to know how to handle them. Ideally anyway - don't get too hung up on these chopstick-related cultural tips for China. If you can remember: standing your chopsticks up in your rice is something that's only done at a funeral, and crossing them and pointing with them are no-nos. Our cultural tip is to lay them down, pointing to your left.

Number 4 of our cultural tips for Japan - open wide!
Eating sushi is a must in Japan but try to eat the mouthfuls as they were intended to be eaten - whole. Cultural differences mean that cutting them up is a sign of disrespect. Obviously, if you're in danger of
choking, you can ignore this one!



Number 5 of our cultural tips for Japan - empties need filling!
Think back to the HSBC ads from a while ago - where an unsuspecting foreigner is served an eel, and, having a managed to force that down, is brought an even larger one. This sums up the cultural differences in Japan pretty well. An empty glass is a sign that it needs to be filled again so leave it full once you are. And on the subject of filling glasses, it's not polite to fill your own glass - someone else will do it for you. Taking these cultural tips for Japan will help save your waistline!

Japan.

For the cubicle design.. looked to see if there were any differences between here and Japan. They are big on cleanliness, they remove their indoor slippers before stepping into their bathroom slippers! Even their toilets are hi-tech, they have heated toilet seats. 

I found this quite interesting, the typical flat in tokyo is very small, as accommodation is so expensive. Even if i was just to impose this onto the lift walls, to portray the small flats that some people live in. The image of traditional interior of tatami floors, mutted clay walls, shoji screens and empty spaces is little evident in the average Japanese home. 

So, my research topic is Japan. Quite a broad one! But i think the best direction for me to go to, is to look at everyday life there, concentrating on Tokyo.

I have got lots of books and have started to scan in some visuals. These are the ones i have found most interesting so far. I am going to concentrate on the lift environment first. And then look into cubicles and telephone boxes. Then go onto the poster design. Me and Jai have both decided to work in this way on our separate countries.  

Japan is a land saturated in juxtaposition, where the traditional world continually meets and melds with the modern. The long history of simultaneously adapting and distinguishing the native from the western is a markedly singular Japanese trait. 

Ever since Japan opened its shores to the outside world in the meiji era in 1868, it raced to catch up with the west. The country grew at a remarkable rate.

Our chosen enviroments..

A bit of Primary Research.

Today, we went into Town with the aims of doing a bit of research into O2 and other phone networks/companies. Also to take photographs of our chosen environments (lifts, telephone boxes and cubicles)

Another advertisement, for the older strap line, see what you can do. I prefer this to their newest one, it is just more intriguing. However, for our work we have decided on doing print based design, we might consider documenting some of our work with video, but not to create a motion advertisement.

An O2 advertisement in a bus shelter.

This is the work of another student that i found on their blog (above) I just found it interesting as at first I thought it was just another example of some work by o2, and we were looking at playing with the connect 4 idea too.

This is an advertisement from one of their older campaigns - see what you can do. I prefer their new one, the word connect allows for lots of graphic possibilites! Its good to see how they stick to their theme, with the gradient in the background. That should be something that we definetley include, its part of their trademark really.

The I-phones is their sponsor really, its the only network you can get this phone on. Which is part of the reason O2 is such a popular network and so well known.

The most recent advert.

This is O2's most recent advert for 'we're better connected.'
To be honest, I am not too keen on there animations, mainly because they are not very realistic, which makes it harder for the audience to relate to it. I think they are really good, and has obviously needed skill and talent to create, and it does look good. But personally, It does not appeal to me, and i think with advertising, you need to find something that could appeal to everyone, on different levels.

Collobrative.

Me and Jaimini are going to work together for this brief. We decided to work on the O2 advert because the brief is really open, and we can do pretty much anything.

After an afternoon of brainstorming last week, we decided to do a bit of guerilla advertising.

http://current.com/items/88859345/guerilla_marketing.htm