In Studio Photoshoot - Day 2!

Today we had our in studio photoshoot with the professional photographer. Following on from our outdoor photoshoot, we went into the studio with a clear idea of the images that we wanted to focus on.

The main shots that we wanted to focus on were that of the different fabrics, so that we could truly show of the concept behind our brand that is all about connecting with the senses, therefore we decided on having a variety of different fabrics stacked upon one another, within a close up shot frame to which would show the soft detailing of the luxurious fabrics and garments.

The photographer instantly grasped our concept and the vibe that we wanted to arouse within our campaign shots, which made it 10x easier, as we were able to direct him within the shots that we had planned out, but also allowed us to get some professional opinions on what he believed may work better on camera.

Overall, the day went better than we could have hoped for. The pre-shoot planning that we did allowed us to get stuck in straight away and make use of the limited time frame that we had in the studio with the photographer! Here are some of our favourite images from the day!

Outdoor photoshoot - Day 1!

Today, we planned to go to Wollaton Park to shoot some shots for our campaign, video and lookbook work outside in the natural light. We specifically chose today as it appeared to be the final day of decent weather before it turned and pretty much slipped back into winter weather! Despite it being (a lot) windier and colder than we had anticipated, the sun was shining on and off which was better than no sun at all!

We decided on the images that we knew we wanted to shoots outdoors beforehand to ensure that we made the most of the time that we had available so that we were able get stuck straight in as soon as we got there! (Please excuse my horrendous drawing skills)

The location itself was absolutely breathtaking with acres and acres of freshly cut green grass and blossom trees neatly dotted around the land. The reason we chose Wollaton park was because we wanted a lot of fresh and clear open space surrounding us to reinforce the idea of getting in touch with nature and enjoying the finer things in life, something that we feel is a major contributing factor behind our concept.

Overall, the photoshoot went really well and we were extremely happy with the outcome of our images as we felt that we managed to capture the feeling of concept to which is all about connecting with your senses, the luxurious high end quality of our product allows the consumer to want to touch, feel and smell the garments that Lavabo has fragranced.

Here are our favourite images of the day!

Our final logo!

After testing out various logo ideas for our brand, we have finally decided to use the one seen below. We feel that the aesthetic of our brand is represented through this logo with its use of subdued sophistication and subtle femininity. The rustic water colour smudge relates to our product as it is presented as a product that is used to simplify your fragrance habits, by being able to purchase a fragrance collection which scents you in one cohesive smell. The colour used is a mature blend of a soft pink and red shade to which we felt best presented our target consumer (female 25+), to which presents femininity yet without being too girly and youthful. The typeface used is natural and flowing, similar to that of a font seen in an old fashioned hand written letter, once again reinforcing the idea of sophistication and maturity.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with our final logo as I feel that it is entirely unique to any other fragrance brand logos that have already been seen within the market, allowing us to engage with consumers due to its quirky and innovative look.

Presentation feedback

In our fragrance groups, we were asked to create a presentation surrounding our brand concept and initial ideas for our ad campaign work. Aswell as getting positive feedback about our ideas, we were also given some things that we need to improve on for our next presentation to ensure that we will represent our brand in the best way possible.

Areas to improve:

- Show all sketches and the journey of how we got to our final idea rather than jumping straight into what our final idea is.

- Show a wider range of inspiration behind our ad campaign ideas, rather than focusing intensely on one brand to reference.

- Showcase how we will carry out our final ad campaign ideas - where will we get the props/model that we need? etc.

- It's all about the BRAND - how do all of our ideas link back to the essence of our fragrance brand? Is our concept clearly presented through our campaign?

Having this presentation was extremely helpful in allowing us to showcase what we have done so far which has gone well, aswell as what has not gone so well, enabling our tutors to give us critical feedback to ensure that we make better decisions in the future in order to better ourselves and truly focus on selling our brand in a way that represents all of its unique and engaging qualities. 

Kendall Jenner for GQ

Creating an online marketing campaign plan - Guest Lecturer

In the seminar session with the guest lecturer, we we asked to define our objectives for our brand campaign idea, as well as defining the intended audience for it also...

- Set your objectives, goals and targets - What is the purpose of your campaign?
- Define your audience - outline profile of customers
- Determine which online channels you will use - consider how the need to align with other media: eg stores, press etc

- Consider the content you need:
- Asset requirements: Videos, Images, headlines and copy etc
- Style and tone you want to use for audience
- Ensure content is useful, relevant and engaging
- How will your content be executed across multiple channels

- Measures, metrics and KPI'S:
- Ensure you know the measures of success

Here are our intended goals and audience..

Objectives, goals and targets:
- Sell 1 scent - Why is it so good?
- To introduce a new fragrance collection that is cohesive within your lifestyle routine within one continuous scent.
- To successfully convert our target consumer to buy into our brand
- To sustain the consumers trust and value for our brand

Define your audience:
- A niche female clientele who appreciates attention to detail within their daily routine. (25+)
- Business woman who wears designer labels
- Does weekly food shop in Waitrose, Ocado
- Social media user regularly

Overall, I found the seminar session really helpful, as it helped us to dig deeper into what we feel is the driving force behind our brand, as well as helping us to better understand the lifestyle of the intended consumer who will be buying into our product and brand.

Building a brand: Online marketing execution - Guest Lecturer

Today we had a lecture and seminar presented to us by an online marketing expert who has worked for brands such as PoundLand, creating their collaborated Gilette campaign with Lionel Messi. He introduced us into the attributes that we would need, in order to create a successful brand and campaign. Here are the significant areas that we found out about...

The Primary online channels:
- Web
- Email
- Social Media
- Mobile

The Primary types of online media:
- Owned: The website, email programme, Social media page
- Earned: SEO, Social media sharing, ratings & reviews

Bought Media:
- Paid advertising is prominent on most online channels
- Requires budget for production and media
- The saying that "Social media is free" is a myth

Most common bought media ads:
- Google PPC (Pay Per Click)
- Web display ads (including behavioral retargeting)
- Facebook and Twitter

Idea behind Cookies:
- Cookies allow people to find out your likes and interests online, in order for them to then be able to advertise through pop ups when you are using your PC on things that have been viewed in your previous online history.

Online marketing "cycle":
- Aquire > Content > Retain > Grow
- Reach > Relationships > Retention > Revenue




Online marketing "funnel":
- Problems may be that there will be dropouts along the way
- Packaging is used to get you talking and to attract you in order to keep you coming back and buying products from the brand



Engagement Pyramid:


Overview of online channels: Websites
- Most prominent online property for a brand

Important considerations for websites:
- Domain names (& Social media consistency)
- Software, platforms, hosting and support
- Desktop, mobile and tablet - & browser compatibility
- Design: responsive vs. templates
- Layout & usability
- SEO: Google is critical
- Internationalization
- Mobile: Web vs. apps

Email:
- Retention: reminding an earned audience
- Acquisition: bought email databases and prospects

Email example: Broadcast: eg. Net-A-Porter & American Apparel
- The "Welcome" email - generic broadcast
- Include early incentives to capture preferences and behavior of consumer
- Emails are tagged with analytics to measure clicks

Segmentation: 
- Same email with different creative, based on gender
- Age, Location, Interests from your sign up, account preferences
- Behavioral targeting

Personalised:
- Sent directly and specifically to individuals
- Happy Birthday, basket abandonment, addressing consumer by name

Email Measures:
- Most email marketing tools include analytics and reports
- Dispatches, delivery success or failure, unsubscribes
- Total opens, open rate, total clicks, click by individual content

Social Media and Mobile:
- Facebook
- Twitter

Video: Youtube, Vine, Facebook
Images: Instagram, Pinterest
Messaging: SMS, IM, Snapchat, Whatsapp

Facebook is the worlds largest social media platform.
- It is owned media
- No social media is free! Especially not Facebook!

Overall, I found the lecture to be extremely interesting as it helped me to better grasp the concept of what goes on behind the scenes of creating a brand, as well as learning about all of the different key elements to which need to be considered when deciding how to promote your brand to ensure that it is within the write context of the background and concept of the brand.

Updated logo- Lavabo

After looking back at the Graphic students designs for our product logo, we came to the realization that it did not present our brand concept in a way that we felt truely showed off what our product was all about. Therefore we decided to test out different possible labels that could be used instead.

From the graphic students work, we knew that we wanted to use a dustier shade of pink so that it fitted in with out nude and neutral colour palette, as well as using a more flowing font instead of the harsh block capital letters.

Therefore I began looking into different design ideas and initially finalised it to a label design and font before deciding on a colour.

I used a pipette tool to ensure that I matched the colour palette that we had decided upon for our brand. After testing out the different colours, we decided that we definitely wanted to follow the dusky pink route for the main label colour, so as you can see above, I tried out 3 different pinks in slightly altered shades. We came to the conclusion that the label seen below was the obvious choice for our final label design as we felt that it captured the relaxed, luxury and high end persona that our product and brand is all about. The shade of pink that we have chosen is powdery and dusky yet without being too girly and sickly sweet pink. The flow of the writing is easy to read yet also having a desirable and feminine edge to it.





















We are very pleased with our updated logo and feel much happier that it will help others to better understand our concept.

Fragrance Photoshoot Inspiration

For our Lavabo fragrance photoshoot, we have decided to focus on appealing to the different senses and nature within our shots. We have decided upon this idea as we felt we wanted to best portray our product in a way that best presents it. Lavabo is a luxury, high end fragrance product which is a scent that is carried through all areas of dressing yourself within you daily routine, from washing detergents, body mists and wardrobe hangings which help to give you 1 desired scent all over rather than a combination of different smells that are involved in a standard daily routine. Therefore our product connects with senses as overall, it is a more defined and overpowering smell, as well as giving the consumer a high end finish with its luxurious and soft edge to delicate garments, as well as the way in which the body mist sits on your skin.

Therefore, our ideas for our photoshoot have been surrounding nature and all things or natural beauty. We have taken inspiration from The White Company and their campaigns to which offer a similar look and feel that we are aiming to achieve within our campaign.

This shoot inspired as as we want to present a similar idea yet in our own way, we have decided to use a tree as our focal point of the campaign and hang different fabrics, jumpers and other garments from the tree using wooden hangers. There will also be a rustic ladder and chair below surrounding by tea lights in order to add the effect of home comforts and rustic elements yet in a modernised form. The shoot will be shot in day time using only natural light from the sun. We have decided to use a soft focus approach when it comes to the post production of our image, as we feel that this will fit best with our natural and relaxed aura for the shoot, as well as fitting in with our neutral colour palette.

Gisele Bundchen calls it a day!

World class supermodel Gisele Bundchen who has modeled for top brands and designers such as Victorias Secret, Chanel and D&G, as well as being the cover star for various high end magazines such as Vogue, has issued a statement revealing that she is set to retire aged 34 following 20 years in the business.

The 24 year old Brazilian mother of two, who is married to NFL quarterback om Brady, has revealed that she wants to spend more time with her family, but has also vowed to continue working in the industry.

As the world's highest paid model (according to a 2014 ranking by Forbes magazine), Bundchen is the face of Chanel, Carolina Herrara, Pantene and other top brands. She also has her own line of flip flop and lingerie designs.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday (15th April), Bundchen wrote, "Today after 20 years in the industry, it is a privilege to be doing my last fashion show, by choice, and yet still be working in other facets of the business". 

"I am grateful that at 14, I was given the opportunity to start this journey", she wrote.

Fragrance Photoshoot ideas

Colour droplets into water

Adidas originals = Pharrell Williams

Singer/ songwriter Pharrell Williams has collaborated with sportswear brand Adidas for a collection of a singular pair of shoes available in 50 different colours.

I personally love the idea of having 50 different colours available on the same shoe design as I feel that it gives everyone the choice to express themselves through the colour that is showcased on their feet. The colours used are a mixture of pastels and OTT bold shades. Yet the variety of colour available allows the brand to be able to cater to all different consumers of all ages.

My personal favourites are the purple and blue hues of colour (seen on the right side).