Stuff

InsideTrips

So here’s my highest circulated ad yet.

This is some of what I’ve been doing for the past few months. We’re launching our new brand, InsideTrips, this Sunday, October 27, 2002, in 6 major US papers: New York Times, Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and the LA Times. (see ad to the left) So basically this means that over 6.6 million households per week for the next 6 weeks will see my work.

For this piece, the exact words “great destinations, great prices”, “best destinations”, “best prices” and “best information” must be in there. So we ran with it, incorporated the “You. This Fall.” that we’ve been using in our Yahoo Monster Ad campaign, and this is the end result.

What I’m learning from all the ads and collateral that we’re creating for InsideTrips.com
is how to better work with clients on creative: the necessity of a well-formed, well flushed out
creative brief makes sure that everyone is happy with the end result. Also I’m
learning how to convey to the client why certain words were used to lure the
consumer in.

Although I’m a web copywriter by trade my heart wants to be in print. Slowly my print portfolio is expanding. . .

Movie Reviews

Bowling for Columbine

Just saw Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and at one point in the film he talks about how white America is afraid of black America because of the news. Well it reminded me of a story about me that my mother told me.

When I was a child my mother noticed that I was afraid of black men (I’m white by the way). I grew up in a Italian-American suburb of New York called Little Falls, New Jersey. I don’t think there was one black person that lived in that town until fairly recently. All that I knew of black people was what I saw on the news. And as Michael Moore pointed out in his film the news always focused on black men getting arrested for a shooting, robbery, rape, sodomy (a child doesn’t know what that means only that it’s bad), etc. So I was afraid of them.

I think my mom noticed that I physically flinched when I saw a black man while walking around the city. Ultimately my mother had to bring me to Paterson, the nearest place that had black people. There we went to a school, dropped off some things, and I talked to my first black “man”. It was a teenager, but to me he was this big scary man. He talked to me, was nice, and I remember getting back into the car and my mom saying to me, “Now Ashley, wasn’t that man nice?” And he was of course, and I said so. She then pointed out to me that “See all black men are not like the bad ones you see on the news. And there are white men who do the same things that the black men do on the news.”

I was 5. A 5 year old shouldn’t have this type of fear. They shouldn’t be racist, especially when they have parents who aren’t.

My fear, and probably valid since “Bowling for Columbine” touched on it, is that there are many people my age whose parents never did that. And they continue to live in fear of blacks for no reason at all.

Uncategorized

First Entry Ever

Well I’ve finally gotten my act in gear and have updated my website after having stagnant content on it for more than a year. I’ll try to update this in a daily basis with stories about my life and critiques on anything from advertising to why I can’t find a decent bagel in Vancouver.
For my first story — I finally bought a cell phone. Part of the reason why I didn’t have one was that I didn’t want to be one of those people who answer them in restaurants, talk really loud because the person on the other end can’t hear you over the noise (or so you think), or one of those nasty drivers who talk incessantly on the phone while they’re merging onto the Lions Gate Bridge.

But the reason why I finally broke down and bought one is because I have this fear that something will happen (mainly bad) and my family can’t get in touch with me. It happened last year. I was in the middle of nowhere heli-hiking and well, the world turned upside down and my sister was in the middle of it. It all turned out okay in the end (I’ll save that story for later), but one of the side effects for me was that I’m always suspecting that something will happen.

I resisted buying a phone the entire year, but the urge didn’t go away.
So now, I have a phone. I vow not to turn into one of those rude cell phone people, but I fear it may be inevitable. The same sort of inevitablity of being a very rude driver when you own a Mercedes. (Another story about someone in my building for another day.)
More stories to come…