This Thailand Pantene advertisement "You can shine" was released in "September 2008 and showed on television, cinemas and online" (1). It is extremely popular that it has over 6 million views on Youtube. It is about a deaf girl violist goes through all the challenges and finally succeed in gaining others' appreciation and self-confidence. 

It is obviously an unconventional shampoo advertisement because of its long length (4 minutes) and touching story. The common shampoo advertisement always show a beauty's smooth hair only (Below) but not a story about the beauty. Although during the final performance of the girl, the girl's hair is as smooth as the beauties' hairs in other ordinary advertisements, the focus is not on the hair but the amazing musical performance of a deaf girl. As audience has get used to the boring shampoo advertisement, this advertisement can easily catch people's attention. 

Grey Thailand’s (advertising agency of this advertisement ) Chief Operating Officer, Shilpa Swaroop, mentioned that "the campaign’s main objective was more of an emotional connection with Thai consumers” (1). The agency has already succeed in connecting the emotions with Thai consumers and even with the world. In the advertisement, the deaf girl is teased by her jealous classmate, for example, the classmate said "you are wasting everyone's time" to her and pushed her music stand to the floor. Luckily, the street violinist encouraged her to keep on learning violin and told her that it's good "to be different from others". Then her violin was destroyed by gangsters. The climax is that she used plastic tapes to fix her violin and all the audience stood up and clapped for her after the performance.  The message behind the advertisement is to be yourself and glow from both inside (by gaining confidence) and outside (the shiny hair). This explains why the slogan " You can shine" is used at the end of the story. The positive thinking touches the audience's heart and makes the advertisement memorable. Instead of stressing on the effect of shampoo on hair, the advertisement gives Pantene a positive and open image. Pantene is then stood out from all other competitors and audience will have a good feeling about it. 

A good advertisement also needs good marketing, the campaign is not only shown on youtube, but also on blog and metacafe which encourage people to get involved and comment about it. This helps spreading the campaign and further increasing the popularity of the advertisement.  


(1) Reference: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/pantene-violinist-shines-in-chrysalis/

Source: Photo essay: Hong Kong’s urban landscapes
http://matadornetwork.com/trips/photo-essay-hong-kongs-urban-landscapes/

This photo essay consists of 8 photos of Hong Kong’s urban landscapes and each of them has a caption with title. The photos show the urban development of Hong Kong where space is so limited.

I smile at the first photo "Court" because court is also built on the top floor of the parking lot beside my home and that sport ground looks nearly exactly the same as the photo. This shows that Hong Kong government makes a good use of useless space like the roof of a building to satisfy the needs of sport areas. Ironically, not only the government like to build on the roof, Hong Kong citizens always set up unauthorized building works on their roofs too. These illegal constructions cause the government to have headache because they are like wild grasses which is hard to be killed.

I like the 2nd photo "Towering" because the author points out the inside problem, i.e. the cramped living conditions. It is funny that she also advises the reader to watch out for the leaking air conditioners. The text adds more messages to the photo and help the readers to focus what behind the photo.

The author mentions about the mix of old and new buildings in the 3rd photo "Shiny". It shows the reflection of a skyscraper is another skyscrapers but it would be more interesting if an older skyscraper is seen on the reflection of the building as it increases the contrast between old and new.

I appreciate the title "Balcony" of the 4th photo because the scaffolds in the photo really looks like balconies. I wonder if United Kingdom (where the author comes from) didn't have this kind of small scaffold because the author is fascinated about it.

The 5th photo "Geometry" looks really artistic because the monotone regular rectangular patterns looks like a  graphic design poster. Actually many photographers have played with the geometric shapes of Hong Kong buildings and some graphic designers like Johathan Mak have used them as an inspiration to design font too.

The 6th photo "Blocks" is similar to the 2nd photo"Towering" that both of them are about the bad living conditions of Hong Kong. However, this photo is mainly about the author's feeling when staying inside the building. It's funny that the last sentence "get ready for strange offers, stares, and a much faster heartbeat" is similar to the slogan of Halloween party of Ocean Park and it gives a mysterious feeling to the buildings.

 The 7th photo "Quantifying" shows a sentence " Never under value the space you've got" and the author says "what else is there to say?". This shows the author thinks the image and text in the photo already tells the message. The sentence is placed around the small and crowded flats and it reflects that Hong Kong citizens usually get a small living space. The sentence seems optimistic and tells people to make good use of the space they got and be satisfied. On the other hand, the sentence can mean to encourage people to set a high price for the property they got which is obviously deriding the high property price of Hong Kong.

After showing the packed urban development of Hong Kong, the 8th photo "Beyond" reminds the reader the other side of Hong Kong, i.e. the nature. Although the photo essay are in gray tone, the photo still shows the natural beauty beyond the buildings. I appreciate the author captured the narrow space of mountain to show the 2 sides of Hong Kong. 

This is a famous anti-war photo by Washington Star photographer Bernie Boston. It is taken on 21 Oct, 1967. At that time, a non-violence protest against the Vietnam War is held. The title "Flower Power" was actually "the slogan used for the symbol of passive resistance and non-violence ideology"(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power). The photo shows a young man putting flowers into the gun barrel of the National Guard. The contrast between the harmful deadly weapons and the pure, harmless flowers is so large. Although the flowers are so fragile compared to the powerful guns, the flowers still have equal or even more powers against the guns. The flowers symbolize the hope of peace of the citizens and the guns symbolize the heartless, ongoing Vietnam War. This photo is nominated for the 1967 Pulitzer Prize (Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Power_(photograph) ) because it is the decisive moment of one of the most important American History that the American citizens fight against war in a peaceful and civilized way. The photo is captured at a high angle so that both the Nation Guard and the protestors can be clearly seen. It is still used nowadays to promote the anti-war concept but ironically, American still has several wars after the Vietnam War has ended. Some of the wars are still ongoing and American President Obama has even recently proposed to have a war on Syria. But obviously the American people are not with Obama this time after suffering in numerous wars in America. 

The comic shows a new birth baby who looks surprised and frightened holding by a doctor who is saying similar dialogue as the Miranda warning which the police say to criminals when arresting. The doctor mentions “remain silent” while the left side shows lots of cameras and microphones just like the journalists are interviewing and recording the baby. This looks like the doctor is warning the baby to be careful on what he says because he is under surveillance by the agents on the left after he is born. On the cameras, “FBI”, “NSA” and “CIA” are shown and they are all involved in the recent mass surveillance programs in US that are leaked by Edward Snowden. The two man on the left wear detective or agent‘s typical dressing like hat and sunglass and also headphone which audience will related that to overhearing.

Therefore, we can guess that the author is telling the audience that “FBI”,”NSA” and “CIA” are the one who watch the baby. The author is using this ridiculous scene to deride 2013 mass surveillance disclosures that FBI, NSA and CIA’s spying programs such as collecting user information and storing cellphone calls globally. The baby can represent the global or US innocent citizens. The author jokes that we have been watched and overheard since our birth and there is no privacy at all. Thus, the author is obviously against the surveillance programs. 

         I like Stephen Frug's Exercise in Style: Cento. The change of characters and styles which is taken from various comics and books fascinates me. As the character keeps changing in the comic strip, the story seems combining scenes from different time and space. For example, the first strip shows Harry Potter sitting in front of a computer and it seems like he is talking to someone else. However, the next scene shows another man standing behind the chair and the background is obviously not the same as the first scene. Even though the characters, backgrounds and moods have changed, they are connected by the dialogues and similar events and can still successfully be combined to form a whole clear story. Like the middle left strip showing the dialogue “what time is it?” can used to connect the next scene’s dialogue “it’s 1:15”.It’s interesting to notice that actually whenever we look at things that put together, we are intended to connect them by searching for the cause and effect. When we see the character standing in front of the door (top right corner) and see another character stays out of the room (middle left), we will immediately assume the character has walked out from the room even though we do not see the whole process.

          The last two strips also remind me the off-screen space of cinema. By looking from left to right, it seems that the camera pans to right to show the off-screen space and reveals the person behind the character.