Final Reflection

Looking back, i remember how advertising class was the class that would make me most nervous.
1) every lesson, we had to run to class, as the attendance list gets removed at exactly 9 o clock.
2) Section A would always tell us stories about how professor is in a bad mood, or how the work load would be crazy that day.
3) with every presentation, we get so nervous. Sometimes it is because, we do not feel that our hard efforts came up to mark, other times is because we cannot seem to predict what criticism we would hear that day, and what results we would be receiving.

as everyone would mention, one of the things that we are very thankful for, and initially really shocked by, was the fact that we were not able to choose our own team-mates. E-fei, Lydia, Wei qi and Michelle was my group mates. And i am happy that they were. I believed things would not have gotten half as interesting if it was my usual group of people.

this semester is my last semester in Singapore, in just 25 days, i would be flying over to New york, Buffalo. My mum hopes that i can complete my degree and masters there, that means, 5 years in bufflao, and then i would have to return back to indonesia for good. Professor bob, really made this semester a great one. everyone bonded. it is sad though that section A and Section B had to be seperated. i wished that i had the opportunity to bond with section A people too. But nevertheless, I love my section. I ended up becoming extremely good friends with Xinyu. And i got closer to Weiqi, ka ming, Shem and many others.

I know many thought, and still thinks that i am crazy. But. When i go over to Buffalo, guess that course did i take? ADVANCE ADVERTISING! :) i still am not exactly sure if this is really what i want. but i guess it is the addiction that i have towards the rush of doing the work, the intense emotions, then the final results. it's really an addictive process. Hard as it is, i know that i will miss these times. however, i am not all that excited about taking this course in bufflao. maybe it is because, Professor bob would not be the one teaching there. And i am not sure how the lecturer would plan to torture his students! :) but i guess, the fun in life is in the unknown right? plus, i love that roller coaster ride!

Advertising seems like a very tough job. Not because of the work, but because of how it really is not all that it seems. what do i mean? i have a friend working in the advertising industry, and according to her, she says that it is tough, as she has to 'suck up' and 'boot lick' alot of people. it's tough, as she is the kind of person that loves to speak her mind, and for me, i think that it's going to be tough, cause i never, ever want to be someone who does that. Not that i feel that it is wrong or anything, it just feels hypocritical, and i never want to end up being someone who has two faces.

The semester is coming to an end now. Timbre was most probably the greatest ever. Goodbyes were all said, tears all shed. My one last final lap in Singapore. the only thing i wish to happen would be that, 10 years down the road, when we all have grown up, some with family and others with high position jobs. i hope that we can all gather together, remain friends, and reminiscence.

Goodbye Prof, Goodbye Friends, Goodbye love, Goodbye Singapore.

finally managed to catch Julie and Julia last night. prior to watching the movie, i heard alot of comments from other students. i heard that it makes one hungry, i heard that it was extremely boring, i heard it was great, and i heard that it inspires one to get up and try to learn cooking. frankly, i didnt not share the same thought as any of my friends though. But i did wonder about something when the movie ended, and up till now, i still have not figure out the answer, was the whole movie just trying to advertise julie child's cookbook? was it just a 2hour long advertisement trying to convince us how great the cook book was?

why would i think so? jia min asked me, if there was alot of brand names being flashed on the movie. my answer was no. but, funny thing about this movie, i wonder if other people felt it too, after watching it, i felt like buying the julie child's cookbook. i felt more interested in this cookbook, and i sincerely believed that this cookbook would make me a much better french cook then i am now. (not that i can cook very well at this point, i'm one of those servant-less cooks that has never poached an egg.)



Having this thought in my mind still when i got home, i Google-ed and Amazon-ed this cookbook.not to my surprise, this cookbook was the second best selling book in the food and beverage category.




has anyone ever realized how expensive cookbooks are? and the most fascinating is that, not all the recipes taste nice. my second brother is a chief, he explained to me that most chiefs do not really give the proper and correct instructions to make the food extremely great. they are unwilling to share their 'greatness' in that sense. i guess this is because they fear that if they do reveal all their recipes, then no one would want to pay elaborate amounts of money to eat at their restaurants, when we can all have it at the comforts at our homes and at a much cheaper cost.

Assignments

according to Prof Bob's comments, and i quote ' it has been the best and worst of times'. he gave an explanation on why he thought it was the best and worst of times, but i had my own definition to that quote.

it really has been the worst and best of times. our first assignment, we got the worst results, and this time around, we emerged best. Not trying to boast, but it really feels good. so many times, too many times. we put in so much effort, only to find that our products, and the end result is not up to mark, or some would like to put it blatantly 'UGLY'.

our next assignment was up, the brochure, and truthfully, we really put in as much as or even so much more effort in that assignment in comparison with the print advertisement. so how did we fall in standard this time around? i thought about it, and decided that certain things are dependable on luck. it's sad as there are many things we cant control. like how none of our group members are good in photo shopping or any computer related programs. i am not complaining though, i agree that this is basically life. we just have to deal with it.

today, we just received our fourth assignment. television story board and radio broad cast, i cant decide if the fluttery feeling in my stomach is excitement or nervousness. thankfully, we have 2 whole weeks to complete it though. hopefully, this time around, our efforts invested in, will be able to give us more then satisfactory results.



amazingly, i just realized that i have not mentioned which country our client is. from the picture above, can you figure it out? let me give you a hint, these 5 animals made my client rather popular, thus they are called the big 5. impressive don't you think?

well, if you still cant figure it out, it's SOUTH AFRICA!



beautiful, don't you think? this country?



to be honest, when we found out that we has to do South Africa, we were kinda surprised and really excited. i believe the professor was extremely surprised at our decision to stick to this exotic country. but that is exactly it! my group members and i did not want to do on a country we already knew about, we did not want to do Japan or Korea or Malaysia, ( no offense to those doing those countries though) we felt that these countries were 'boring' in a sense that we always see advertisments on those countries all the time. 'Malaysia, truely asia', or 'Sparkling Korea', even i can memorise them already. imagine how tough it actually is for these companies to be amazingly creative doing advertisment for these countries?

now, i really am not sure if we ,made the right decision. it seems awefully tough to be able to find out more information on a country that is still developing. i know to many, it may seem that our team may not be on the best of terms, but i guess differnt groups work differnt, although we do have our differnces at times, but for most of the time, we still are very collectivistic. we do not shoot down anyone, but make subtle hints when we do not think the idea presented was such a great one. the fantastic thing about our team is that, we have the ability to work with or without the whole team being present. we believe that the work must be done regardless, so by making yourself absent, you give up the right to comment or disapprove of an idea or concept that we had already agreed on, unless of course you have an extremly good arguement to prove and convice all of us other wise. another point that i am extremely appreciative of is the fact that we dont always have to meet up to do the same piece of work. take for example, this assignment, efei, michelle and lydia will be in charge of the production work, where else weiqi and i will be concentrating on the report that we have to complete. some classmates might disagree, saying that it is an unfair dristribution of work, but think about it in a more logical matter, is it really an efficient way to complete the work? doesnt it take alot more time then it should? why must 5 poeple be present to do a job that can be acomplished by 2 people? does this make any sense at all?

Advertising. It is in everything.

Hello everyone. this is me, Diana Rosa Iskandar. I am an Indonesian, and currently, i am a University At Buffalo Student. Today, i will be doing a short reflection on advertising. I'm not exactly the best of writers, neither am i the most exciting person, so i hope that all these photos and videos that i inserted will help.




Turn to your left, turn to your right. if you observe very carefully, you would realize that Singapore has bombarded you with advertisements after advertisements. what do i mean when i talk about advertisements though? are advertisements only those things that tries to persuade you to buy a product? no! advertisements are a certain kind of marketing communication, as long as something or someone is trying to convince you, to persuade you into doing something or think a particular way, as long as it influences you in a certain direction. i would call that advertisement.



As we are in the mid-autum festival now, let me share an interesting story. Today, a friend of mine came up to me and told me how great Goodwood durain mooncakes are. i was so influenced by her that i went all around Singapore, to Vivo city, to goodwood hotel itself, to try and find this supposedly great moon cake, however, even after i went to so many places, i came to realize that all their durian moon cakes were completely sold out.



after being a little frustrated from the complete waste of time, especially since i have an exam tomorrow, i figured that this was Goodwoods strategy. Firstly, it felt like my friend was advertising for Goodwood, not because she was getting paid or anything of course, i believe she really loved their mooncake. but, isnt word of mouth also a form of advertising? and my other friend who drove around with me, was pretty irritated at the fact that she suspected that Goodwood intentionally made alot less mooncakes as demanded. did this work on me? Definately, the fact that they completly sold out by 3pm, just makes me assume that their mooncake is really that good. so i guess i would be going over Goodwood hotel the minute they open up tomorrow.




so which do you like most? interesting isnt it? i love going to you tube watching and randomly clicking on advertisments. from the past, other countries, or the ones that were censored in singapore.



i believe that due to all the advance technology, advertisments have been much more powerful and much more persuasive as compared to the past. after all, in the past, advertisments were just plain old boring pieces of papers, or posters that could not move, or show anything.with the latest technologies and understanding of human beings, advertisments these days plays on your emotions and sometimes all five senses like sight and hearing.












that being said, i do believe that there has been a vast improvement in the persuasiveness of print media these days, there are alot of amazing new print media.