THE MILLION DOLLAR HOMEPAGE

http://milliondollarhomepage.com/

'The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator.'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage


The 'Million Dollar Homepage' is created as a base for advertising. Advertising on the 'Million Dollar Homepage' then leads to advertising in books, newspapers and on other websites, the website is also famous around the world making an appearence in New Zealand and Florida. 

'By November the website was becoming popular around the world, receiving attention from Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, TVNZ in New Zealand, Terra Networks in Latin America, the China Daily, and especially in the United States where it was covered in Adweek, Florida Today, and Wall Street Journal. Tew hired a US-based publicist to help with the attention from the American media and made a week-long trip to the US, where he was interviewed on ABC News Radio, the Fox News Channel, Attack of the Show!,and local news programmes.'


'"It is brilliant in its simplicity ... advertisers have been attracted to it by its novelty ... the site has become a phenomenon." Popular Mechanics said.'

PSYCHOLOGY AND ADVERTISING

When researching psychology and advertising on Youtube, I came across this video that explains the science behind the way we think when looking at adverts and how we process them in our brain.

The main points at are of importance from the video

• Advertising's main functions are to INFORM, PERSUADE and INFLUENCE.
• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)- A theory identifying two ways a communications can be persuasive- The central route of the peripheral route.
• Using the central route, you will look at the facts and use logic to make your decision.
• The peripheral route is where the receiver does not think carefully about a communication and is influence by superficial cues. (bright colours, emotional story, music or an attractive speaker)
• The results of the peripheral route are more temporary and are subject to change.
• Psychologists report that colours can report for 60-70% of consumer reaction.
• Adverts usually contain positively charge emotional images and slogans as well as the basic factually information- this then affects the central and peripheral routes.

What colours connote: 

Red= Increases blood pressure and heart rate, grabs attention, and stimulates quick decision making

Pink= Sweetness, used in the sales of sweets and pastries 

Orange= Causes people to feel energetic, is often found in fast food restaurants, long exposure to orange can have the effect of becoming more aggressive 

Yellow= First colour processed by the human eye often used to draw attention

Green= Relaxing, often found in hospitals, represents things that are environmentally friendly

Blue= Favorite colour amongst adults, used to sell jewelry 

Purple= Royal, rich and luxurious 

Brown= Favored by men, strength, represents the ground

Black= Power and formality, used to make other colour pop, normally used for text

White= Purity, simplicty, high technology 

FIRST THOUGHTS

When first hearing about the Extended Project in the assembly I knew straight away that I wanted it to be heavily based around the psychological effects of advertising on the public of the 20th century. I am very interested in how the way an advert is set out, or the colours, or images that are used can change the way someone thinks about the thing that is being advertised. For example colours connote different moods, red=anger, pink=love and blue=being calm.
Advertising is such a big part of society, you can't watch television for 15 minutes without seeing a form of advertisement been put in front of you. The internet is the same more and more websites are starting to put adverts in a side bar on their websites, examples of these websites are:
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.google.com
Youtube (http://www.youtube.com)has also taken to the idea of using advertisements on their website, however instead of creating a side bar they have allowed the people who put youtube videos on the Internet to have an advert at the start of their video, however this advert can be skipped after 5 seconds, but their 5 seconds could make the viewer buy the product that it being advertised or do more research into it.
Adverts have to be cleverly created, a advert can contain, the title of the product and text saying 'Buy This Product' in Times New Roman font, size 12 with a picture under neither of the product, or the things being sold. Example below

However  adverts are now filled with physiological messages to try and make you think or see things in a certain way An example of this is Diet Coca Cola and Coke Zero. The content of the product is exactly the same they are just advertised different, and have different houstyles, to attract different audiences. The diet Coca Cola was originally created with less sugar than the original drink, however people felt the colours, and the adverts for the product were mainly attracting women. This lead to the creation on Coca Cola Zero which is mainly targeted at males