Memes or Maymays?

Internet memes are abundant. With new memes born daily in the depths of 4chan and Reddit, there is a near limitless number of styles and genres available to todays meme-connoisseur. Although memes have come a long way from their humble origins, there are several “original batch” styles that I just can’t seem to shake. Allow me to share.

The Demotivational Poster
This brand of meme parodies the cheery, encouraging posters sold at every grade school book sale ever. The format is simple: a photo, a caption, and disappointment. These memes are designed to give the reader deflating advice (usually humourously). As a huge fan of anti-humour, these memes have a special place in my heart.

The Advice Animal — Actual Advice Mallard
If the last meme didn’t quite sit well with you, just let it roll right off your back. This meme isn’t sarcastic or rude. Actual Advice Mallard exists as a pragmatist. He offers up the best practical advice the internet has to offer. He doesn’t lie to his viewer; he just wants to give it to you straight. From financial advice to cleaning solutions, Mr. Mallard is here to help.

The Rage Comic — Faces of Rage
One of the internets most primitive memes, the rage comic is humour stripped down to its bare bone black and whites (with the occasional splash of colour — c’mon, the internet isn’t that savage). Over 80 of these hand drawn (or MS Painted) faces have done their time in the meme-sphere. Used to communicate various exaggerated emotions and stories, the rage face finds its home in simple “foursquare” comics (typically about someones personal life experience/event). There’s just something so pure about this beloved format and I just can’t let go. Rage-on Wayne. Rage-on Garth. Excellent.

 

Don’t lie to yourself (or me). You know you love memes. It’s impossible to be a responsible digital citizen without a healthy appreciation for at least one type of meme. PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE. Tweet your favourite meme format or specific meme to me! Bless your heart!

Meme receptacle: https://twitter.com/it_ads_up 

Plain Text Docs Are Boring — Infogra-fix

No one likes boring, bulky text documents, especially when they’re trying to convey some sort of new message. For a decent majority of people, this is an inefficient way to deliver and receive a point.

Enter stage left, the INFOGRAPHIC, hero and saviour of boring information.

This godsend, a graphical depiction/representation of information, helps people deliver a message/string of facts/set of data to a diverse audience. Through the use of pictures and relatable themes (representing corresponding data from whichever report it was taken) the infographic is able to reaches a larger group of people. These infographics help condense info into a visually pleasing, easy-to-understand format. Not only that, but they  help make the usually dry document-reading experience a little spicier.

There are four main steps to creating a strong infographic:

1. Choose a story for the infographic — What is it you want your graphic to be about/communicate?
2. Choose a type of infographic — Tons of formats exist for your graphic. It’s up to you to decide which fits best.
3. Collect the data you need — The title says it all. You can’t make an infographic without……..the INFO. Decide which info is most important/that you want to display.
4. Buckle down and design it — Also pretty self-explanatory. The last thing to do is to smash it all together (and check for spelling).

After all of that, your infographic should be ready to go! Make sure that the graphic does indeed convey the proper info. If your data is correct and you’ve spent some honest time making sure the graphic is visually pleasing and easily read, you’re good to go. Get out there and distribute your knowledge in this easy to use, easy to read, easy to grasp infographic.

Have a look at some neat templates and ideas at the link below! Make sure, as always, to check out our Twitter account too!

https://venngage.com/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic-in-5-steps/

Tweets by it_ads_up

https://venngage.com/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic-in-5-steps/

ABC’s of Creative Blog Analysis — 1924

In this post we’ll be examining one of the selected blogs based on some of the core principals of strong blogging. The two blogs that were chosen and analyzed are BackpackingMan and 1924 — with this entry’s focus and main analysis on 1924.

Free image source — Pixabay

The 1924
One of my personal favourites is 1924 — a design studio with a blogging habit and a penchant for anything and everything to do with the early 1900’s. Between their blog and photo blog (an Instagram account which has just recently been taken down — here’s a fan page hosting some of the old images to give you an idea: 1924), the small 1924 team pulls together some amazing stories of adventure, accompanied by striking photography from along the way.
The 1924’s blog type most closely resembles the “Homer” style of publication. Although their posts often fall just short of the 2500+ word count, their still-lengthy, storied pieces manage to mimic this style in a polite, more condensed way that doesn’t fail to include any rich detail.

Layout & Header
The home page of the 1924’s blog is very clean. We’re greeted by an extremely minimal, black and off-white page with some basic links and icons. Navigation is easy, with the four clickable links displayed in plain sight (no confusing rabbit holes to fall down here). The authors intent is clearly to allow visitors to navigate and adventure over the page on their own — there is no strong focal point trying to command the readers attention. The blog is still attractive despite this, while its simplicity entices the reader to dig a little deeper.

Content of Posts
The posts do have a consistent theme — old time adventure. The author writes in an enjoyable style that strives to stir up one’s inner wanderlust. If ever the words have strayed from the path, the accompanying photos are more than enough to pull you back in. The stories are very well written. They are evocative and rich with colourful descriptions of the adventurers personal experiences. There are certainly a few buzzwords (intentional or otherwise) that would more than likely help improve search awareness of the blog, but the author definitely doesn’t seem motivated by click-throughs, rather he produces excellent content that draws in naturally the crowd it wants.

Categories & Tags
The 1924 blog page doesn’t really categorize their posts as anything more specific than “adventure”. Though the entries do differ in content, the overall theme of “blazing new trails” and “heading out into the unknown” persists across all of them. The organization of their content, especially on their Instagram page, is very scrollable and easily digestible. This makes thumbing casually along, while reading posts and looking at pictures, extremely easy. Some reoccurring hashtags that the IG page uses include — #1924, #adventure, #bravewild, #oldendays, #freeyourself.

Call to Action
Most of the 1924’s posts end with a small call to action. The deep stories always seem to aim to stir the readers spirit of adventure, and tend to finish with a soft suggestion for one to “go out and start their own journey”. There is no static sentence that comes copy and pasted from preceding post, only ever a subtle nudge — something I usually find to be more than effective/persuasive.
As far as the objectives of the author are concerned, it seems as if he/they are relatively private people who are more concerned with leaving behind a beautiful legacy than amassing followers. They likely just want to share their experiences with anyone willing to listen.

Source

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to add our Twitter account to keep up with blog news! Your task for the day is to adventure through the Twitterverse and find us! Thanks for reading.

Missing The Target

I think I’d like to start things off with a bit of ad-ception.

The self aware men’s magazine brand from Belgium, IP Press, demonstrates that they know their readership well with this racy ad depicting an alternate version of the Kennedy assassination. This is an ad aimed at advertisers who are looking for a platform to promote content towards a male target market. IP Press, knowing that their audience is predominantly men, is offering up said platform. The ad copy reads “if men are your target, make sure you don’t miss them.” Without a doubt, this is a pretty cheeky advertisement and likely wouldn’t have faired quite as well in America. However, it made its mark and was quite successful in Belgium.

It’s interesting to note that, compared with the actual Kennedy assassination photo/video (where there are plenty of male and female pedestrians on the sidelines), the people in the doctored version are exclusively men (ie. the secret service members as well as the half-cropped people who appear to be wearing men’s suits) — intentionally, I presume.

The bold ad for IP Press was done by the Belgian agency Duval Guillaume Antwerp in July of 2007. Their aim definitely wasn’t off on this one.

https://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/ip-press-kennedy-assassination-10183855/

ABOUT & DISCLAIMER

Hi.

You’ve reached the blog of John “Reid” Smith. Please see the semi-interactive list below to help you in your query.

Ahem.

To help better assist you, here is a short list of options:

For, what is this blog? press 1
ItAdsUp is a space dedicated to the inspection and appreciation of advertisements past and present.

For, why is this blog? press 2
ItAdsUp is the web-child of a digital strategies class in the Advertising Marketing Communications Management program at Algonquin College (I’m a student). The goal is to explore the digital environment, to share the teachings and experiences of the course, and to learn how to create engagements through providing unique content.

For, where else is this blog? press 3
If you enjoy this content, please add these other accounts. John Smith can also be reached —

— on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/it_ads_up,
— on Instagram @ coming soon
— on Facebook @ coming soon

 

Feel free to ad me.

http://writeworldwide.com/find-freelance-writing-clients/

All of the views expressed on this site are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. I am but a humble student looking to share my opinions on the art of advertising. I would also REALLY like a job someday, and genuinely hope not to offend, insult, or plagiarize any potential future employers!

This blog may contain copyrighted material. Their use in on this page may not be specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am simply using the selected content in a way that I believe constitutes “fair use” of the material. I plan only to use this blog as a tool for reporting and researching on, as well as teaching and educating about the subject matter.

Please PLEASE don’t sue me.