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TV

Girls On Film

Below are a few of my favourite picks screened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox tonight for the Packaged Goods series, where aspiring filmmakers, tastemakers and moviegoers celebrated women’s talent in film.

HTC “One, Freefall”

Director: Sara Dunlop

Take your phone, get outdoors and go on an adventure. Bottom line: have fun.

Dove “Growing Up”

Director: Kathi Prosser

As a loyal advocate for Dove’s Self Esteem Fund, it’s great to see a female director furthering the brand’s vision to help girls with body image and bring an important issue to light. Girls are indeed “growing up” in a turbulent time with too much pressure on appearances and this spot thankfully continues the conversation.

“Skyscrapers” – OK Go

Director: Trish Sie

This music video could easily double as an ad for Joe Fresh or Benjamin Moore. Great colours. Great music. Great choreography.

Less Than Impressed: Cottonelle

“The Name Generator”

Goal: Encourage consumers to use Cottonelle Ultra Comfort Care* Bathroom Tissue and Cottonelle Fresh Care* Flushable Wipes, as part of a personal hygiene routine, which supposedly needs a cheeky name.

How It Works:

To enter contest, entrants submit name suggestions for the routine. The names are then voted on and the highest voted names are added to “The Book of Names.” How unncessary clever.

Otherwise uninspired entrants can develop an idea using 1 of 3 tools in the Cottonelle Facebook app:

The Randomizer: Simply click to get a name instantly

The Personalizer: Answer a few questions for a personalized name

The Customizer: Create a name to add to our Book of Names and enter for a chance to win a year’s supply of Cottonelle products.

 

How It Fails To Impress:

– Supplies and information provided to mommy bloggers to create sponsored posts led to bland content.

– The white text on the aqua blue background is unclear, while the rest of the site is nothing special.

– The commercial (where I first learned about it) is super cheesy. How many families discuss toilet paper while standing in the kitchen? Yuck. It really irks me when people don’t think of social context.

Personally, I’m still amazed that Secret has acquired over a million Facebook fans. As an example of Cottonelle trying to compete with other personal hygiene brands for online engagement, let’s hope they spend more time at the drawing board for their next campaign.

Cottonelle’s Name Generator app is one of the cheesiest advertising ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Personal purchases aside, I prefer toilet paper commercials featuring cuddly bears and cozy robes.

Consider this for a mini competitive analysis:

Charmin promoted another routine by featuring the Old Spice guy, and their video received close to 2 million views.

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Reading Off-screen

As much as I love digital technology, there is something comforting and enjoyable about reading newspapers in print, so when The Globe and Mail offered me a free subscription, I signed up.

Since the periodical has started showing up outside my front door six days a week, I’ve changed my morning routine. It’s motivated me to wake up about 20 minutes earlier, so I can get ready and then read it with a coffee while everything’s quiet before heading to class. On the mornings I don’t have class and I’m not tempted to watch CityLine Fashion Friday, it feels like an additional luxury, as I anticipate how many hours during the day will be spent in front of a screen.

Upon checking Facebook and Twitter feeds in the morning, there are only so many worthwhile links to click that were posted since the night prior. The Globe, however, always has articles piquing my interest and more importantly, in print, there are thankfully no distractions, such as flashing colourful ads leading me to open a new tab, which will inevitably lead to more unnecessary and unproductive Internet browsing.

Last week, a colleague told me about the rush amongst her Ivey classmates to pick up a free copy of the Globe at school before they run out and now that I’m a subscriber, I can understand why. I like to read The New York Times too, but since they limited access to online content to ten articles per month, instead of the twenty permitted previously, I’m more grateful for the Globe’s convenient availability.

As the exam period approaches, I know that it will be a nice break to read the newspaper rather than a textbook. Also, just as course material tends to overlap across my different classes, I welcome the chance to read about the same topics on the syllabus in a more relevant context in Globe stories, such as those about Gen Y versus baby boomers in relation to my sociology of work class and current political scandals that will provide examples to theories about politicians’ increasing invisibility.

I find that when some of my profs point out that they still read a hard copy of the paper, they date themselves in a room of twentysomethings, though I can understand why they proudly announce this habit. Proclaiming that you read the paper in print needn’t be done in a self-deprecating or teasing tone. There are great journalists out there and I think taking the time to read their work, without distractions, is a wonderful way to pay respect, whether they write about fashion, business, tech or anything else.

Take the time to read sans screen and you may be surprised how much you like it.

Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Opens Up Shop Again

Just caught up on Mad Men‘s season five premiere and I’m excited to see what creator Matt Weiner and team have in store for fans in the next few months. Joan needs to return to the office HQ for longer than a social visit and Megan should find a job better suited for her than climbing the career ladder behind Peggy.

As insulting as it is to women, Lane Pryce’s line about the incompetency of the agency’s newest secretaries was funny: “The two of them together couldn’t operate a parking meter,” he said.

 

Less Than Impressed: Award Shows

Sometime after the People’s Choice broadcast and my simultaneous live tweeting session ended, I realized watching the awards show was a waste of time. I hadn’t voted in any of the categories this year. In fact, I waited until the day of to even look at the nominees list. All I knew was that this was going to be a buzz worthy televised event, so I had better watch to stay in the know.

After the credits rolled, however, my response could be summarized as indifference.

There’s usually one winner at each award show, typically a young Hollywood star, who mentions how they’d watched the show growing up and could then only dream about attending, let alone winning and now voila, here they are; it’s so incredible, they boast. I’ve let my dreams of becoming famous on the silver screen subside, with little to no expectations of ever performing or working in a role constituting its own category amongst the likes of Best Performing Actress. Entertainment PR professionals are recognized at less glamorous events, with ironically less publicity.

If it weren’t for the social component of watching the Golden Globes with a group of film-obsessed writers and fans, I wouldn’t have been much more entertained than I was the Wednesday night prior.

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