Brand Idea - Cafe De Coral

Cafe De Coral Logo

My first idea for a selected brand for this brief is to base the advertising around research conducted about a Hong Kong situated fast food brand called Cafe De Coral.

The reason I have chosen this brand as good material for research in order to produce ads was due to the potentially interesting challenges I may face when trying to bring a brand from an area I'm not to familiar with (Hong Kong) and bringing it to a market that I somewhat am (UK), rather then doing the suggested vice versa mentioned in the brief. Selecting this brand would also allow me to be learn more about advertising in Eastern regions and what they find interesting in that particular market.

Cafe De Coral is a highly popular and established chain of fast food/casual dining style restaurants designated mostly in Hong Kong. The brand mostly caters value quality chinese and western food to its customers, offering quick and efficient service and pretty low prices.

An example of a Cafe De Coral restaurant 

The brand promotes itself by describing it's fame, value and excellence of service, an example of this can be found on the translated company website, in which this could help me understand along with helping me find the core principals of this particular brand:
"A Hundred Points of Excellence" has been our commitment to our customers and is now a household catch phrase. As part of our on-going campaign to strengthen the Cafe de Coral brand, proactive advertising campaigns are launched on a continual basis. Through the campaign, the brand image has been further enhanced by positioning Cafe de Coral as a place not just for best taste and value meals but also a popular meeting place for all walks of life.


In essence selecting this brand will help submerge me in understanding foreign advertising and allow me more chances in to understanding different audiences especially if said target audiences have quite a cultural gap that would affect such things like visual aesthetics.

Example of Cafe De Coral food

Sources:
www.cafedecoral.com/web/sbu/sbu1_2.htm
https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi

XII: 21st Century Advertising

In this era for advertising the words "Technological Revolution" seems the most appropriate to describe today's society and advertising.

With the introduction of New Media due to a higher dependency of internet sources in society, it is understandable why change has come quick for creative industries. It's best said that advertising has become more based in socialisation rather than integration due to the popularity and demand in social media networks on the internet such as Youtube or Facebook.

New Media inherently has shifted the focus from singularly focusing on a particular and aiming strongly at that audience to shifting to a more wider audience where popularity through a new form of Word-of-mouth or "Sharing" is the key for success. In today's market it is all about popularity to generate an impact and so creatives today have to grasp the technology and innovations around them to stay ahead of the rest and in this we are rich in the latter.

Through these changes birthed the Social Media Campaign, interactivity and socialising being the key to success. These campaigns are produced on social networking websites (i.e Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc) the placement making it what it is.

Here are some examples:

X: Creative Advertising in 80's

The culture of the 80's was quite troublesome.The UK and US were in a Conservative high politically with Thatcher and Reagan in power; this was also the beginning of a more business and capitalist formed society with companies introducing privatisation and financial deregulations. Even though there was a financial growth within the service sector unemployment was at a high causing public outrage.

The look and culture of the era had its iconic images, there was an idea for the "New Man" or "New Woman" for society to latch on to. The "New Man" was more androgynous by being more feminine and showing more emotional sides, this also allowed a more liberal attitude to the homosexual community through music and other art forms; the New Romantic trend in music is a good example of this.

"New Woman" showed a new status as well as confidence, women are more in control with their work lives showcasing independence especially with the image of a female Prime Minister present in that culture. With this trend came a change in women's fashion with the introduction of more masculine clothing such as the Power Suit.

With this present in the background there came a post-modern shift for the world of advertising in terms of production and style.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the ad that redesigned advertising for the 80's era. Levi's "The Laundrette" ad showing a direct snapshot of 80's advertising culture and how it has evolved from it's predecessors. Mostly seen as a template for post-modern advertising utilising what came before to make something new and in this case it was the coolness and style of the 50's. The Laundrette is often seen as a game changer within the industry...

With it's composition lifted from 50's style, music and film composition (seemingly a popular era for young adults at the time) as well as the focus on the male figure playing both to the straight (female) and homosexual audiences this is a great showcase in understanding an audience's interests. A blog post on how BBH developed the ad can be found here: http://thisisnotadvertising.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/levis-501-the-story-behind-launderette/

IX: Creative Advertising in 70's - Context

This is an ad for Burger King during the 70's:-

And this is the same brand advertising in today's market:-

Notice the difference?

In the end it's all about the context of the time that shapes the ad.

VIII: Creative Advertising in 50's & 60's - The Real Mad Men

To a person invested in the advertising industry this period is often seen as the golden age of creative advertising as it was the era in which advertising had it's "boom" moment. Through economic changes came an important moment in advertising history, a moment generated from the minds in Madison Avenue, New York.

DDB (Doyle Dane Bernbach) The agency's first ads were for Ohrbach's department store and they typified the new "soft-sell" approach using catchy slogans and witty humour in contrast to the repetition and hard-sell advertising that was in vogue until then. The new agency was initially successful in winning business for clients with small budgets. Their campaigns for Volkswagen throughout the 1950s and 1960s were said to have revolutionized advertising

VII: The Art of Advertising - LMS Ads

"Modernism, in the arts, a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. In an era characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, and advances in science and the social sciences (e.g., Freudian theory), Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention. New ideas in psychology, philosophy, and political theory kindled a search for new modes of expression"

Art in advertising has always been prevalent, with examples such as Lever Brothers Sunlight soap ads or Letrec's Moulin Rouge paintings, art has been a primary component in what makes advertising happen.








These are ads for LMS train service created during the 1920's.
Following on from what Lever did with Sunlight Soap in which poster ads were commissioned paintings designed to project a certain theme related to the product/service. Here in the case of LMS the posters art  is very much of it's time, contemporary or even modernist in style; with flat colours and bold outlines modernist aesthetics can be seen in the generally simplified design. Overall the composition is suppose to gain an influence on public taste highlighting both the rich country and prominent industrial side within Britain.

VI: Mordernism - Surrealism and Magritte

You've probably seen this picture before haven't you? This painting is called The Son of Man and was painted by Rene Magritte.

Rene Magritte (1898 - 1967) was a Belgian artist well known for his surrealist paintings that highlighted certain aspects of society at that time with the images injected with his own personal wit and his work often garners a thought provoking response with multiple interpretations due to his subtle and simplistic style. Now how does relate to advertising? You may ask?

Advertising has had a history on operating by emulating popular art forms in the case of surrealism it has been quite prominent in an industry where the main focus is on catching the audience's eye and gaining/holding their interest with surrealism offering that in spades. Surrealism in general has been a constant artistic technique added within the visual parts of advertising, mainly with abstract imagery or displacement of object in order to carry the message across. 

An Example:

In this ad the image becomes striking in affect due to the switch from a standard human head for that of a fish. The disposition causes the surreal aspect of the piece to become the main focus which in turn offers the meaning and message behind the ad, reinforcing the message by use of the headline. 

Rounding off, surrealism as a tool for the art is common practice within the industry as causing shock would later cause interest and attention, one of the most important things an ad should do.