Fianl 1 minute Video

Action Plan

How I intend to enhance and develop my skills and knowledge base:


I have subscribed to Campaign magazine, which I think will greatly increase my knowledge of current issues, creations and so on in the world of design. I think it will open my eyes to the industry and give me a better understanding of whats going on within it. It will also help me see existing jobs within the industry and get a wider understanding of the industry giants.


I need to begin reading a broadsheet magazine on a regular basis in order to have a better understanding of the world around me, especially the Monday Guardian as this is the media issue. This should begin as of immediate effect.


I have recently joined Twitter for the purpose of following designers, advertisers and agencies. I need to follow this through and check on it regularly to keep updated.


Attend any possible guest speaker/lecture type opportunities to increase my knowledge span at any chance possible over the next 2 years.


After being given a reading list by Mel I have bought a couple of the books and taken some out at the library in order to broaden my knowledge about both current and past design and I intend to continue doing so. I am slowly getting through them and already have found that a lot of the subject matter and designer names are reoccurring through these, lectures etc. 


I feel that the next 2 years of this course will continue to open my eyes to this industry, learning new skills throughout this time, being guided by course leaders, tutors and lecturers. It is important that I have the best attendance possible and gain as much from these 2 years as I can. 


It would be beneficial for me to gain extra experience with live briefs through live competitions such as D&AD and so on. Any opportunity to take part in competitions I aim to  do over the next 2 years.


Although I am not planning on doing a placement year between my second and third year I feel it is important to gain experience working within the industry, working hands on and getting a real feel for the jobs I could be doing in the future. I intend to take part in placements at some point.

Strengths and Weaknesses

“ …one which causes us to make sense of what we have learned, why we have learned it and how that particular increment of learning took place. [...] Reflection is equally useful when our learning has been unsuccessful – in such cases indeed reflection can often give us insights into what may have gone wrong with our learning and how on a future occasion we might avoid now-known pitfalls …. (reflection)evaporates away unless we stop in our tracks to make one or other kind of crystallisation of it – some evidence.” - Race (2002)

Now that I have completed the majority of work on this project, I have began to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses within this project as well as within my professional life.

I think that my main strengths are that I am hard working, organised and ambitious. Throughout this project I have always kept to deadlines, produced all work that was asked of me and kept on top of everything. I think that working in a team has worked well, although I find I tend to take more of a leadership role which is something I need to work on. Im a good listener and me and my partner worked well at bouncing ideas off each other, joining different ideas together and talking about what media to use and so on. I think that often I am very creative and have interesting ideas and concepts, although sometimes I do become concentrated on one idea that I cannot move on from - this is something that I need to work on. In this module I think I have had a really good insight into advertising and how the process works from the brief to having a set of final ideas ready for creation. 

I feel that my weaknesses within this module have been a lack in previous knowledge, I didn't know a lot about how advertising has developed from the 1950s and what it used to be like. However, after watching a documentary within class called 'she's not a moron she's your wife' I felt I got a really quick, yet deep insight into how advertising has changed, although it was specifically orientated towards women. This over view has helped me to understand a bit more into the history of advertising and why it is how it is today. Another weakness I have is knowing about different techniques - i was unaware of guerilla advertising and other methods, although I feel I am now beginning to learn about these more. I have began reading some advertising based books, some which are on the reading list we have been given, and also some others. I've found already that these have taught me a lot about the industry, job roles within advertising agencies as well as the industry giants and important people within the industry such as John Hegarty. 

So far I feel I have began to gain a grasp of the basics of advertising; how to generate ideas, mock up ideas, develop ideas and apply these to media. I have also learnt what strap lines are, and have a better understanding of how to create them (and a good one hopefully!) I have learnt that the first ideas are usually the ideas that everyone has, but usually it is essential to get these out of the way before you can begin to think of something new and interesting. 

Final A3 Pieces

Below is my visual mark up on A3 for the web banner, I have split it into 3 simple stages to get across what would happen. Simply: As the car drives along with flat tyres the de-icer can drops from the sky in front of the car and prevents it from driving along whilst damaged. The strap line 'love your car' then also appears. Using a bit of almost pathetic fallacy as the can comes down the weather gets good, also suits the idea that de-icer melts ice which ties the whole theme in together well I think. 

Blow is the idea for the bus shelter/stop piece. 

Below is the magazine spread page mark up visual.

Off The Shelf - John Hegarty

Yesterday evening I attended Off The Shelf by John Hegarty. He covered many interesting and valid points during the lecture, but several points stuck strongly in my mind. 


Firstly was all his work for Levi's jeans. He focussed on the idea tat 60 seconds can change anything and everything, and as for one particular advert, where there is a man in a laundrette in boxer shorts, I was surprised to just how much this could effect a society. At the time of the advert launch, Y fronts were the preferred mens choice on underwear, but as this was classed as indecent exposure, boxers had to be worn for the advert to air. And because the attractive man in the advert was wearing boxers (which at the time were seen as American and outdated) they suddenly came back into fashion, and still are today.


Similarly, the Black Denim campaign by John Hegarty for his account with Levi's is one that I really love, the image I find is so powerful and something at the time that was possibly risky, innovative and something that hadn't been done before.

Hegarty spoke about how he wanted to answer the brief given to him by Levi's, but doe it differently.. the focus was on the fact that the jeans were black, so this is what he focussed on.

Focus Group and Research

I found it interesting that Hegarty spoke about his beliefs that focus groups and research don't create good, creative solutions to briefs. He claimed that throughout all his work, if he had carried out research and taken the idea to focus groups none of them would have been successful, but his intuition told him that they would work. I found this interesting as throughout my education I have constantly been drilled with the idea that more research will always lead to greater success.

Throughout the lecture Hegarty showed us many other interesting pieces of his work, as well as example of work which he felt were great too.

Another interesting advert he showed was a K's shoes advert. Where there was a woman with a crashed porshe, and a woman pouring food over a moans head. These adverts contradicted many before it. They showed women as strong minded, successful and clever, compared to the usual patronising adverts previously used. 

Finally, Hegarty spoke about creating space for a brand and how many copy cat ideas there are out there. About how competitive the creative world is and how much hard work needs to be put in. Over these recent weeks I feel I have began to become much more aware of the advertising world and how dedicated and unique me and my ideas need to be in order to be successful! 

Hegarty spoke about how important it is to follow opportunities rather than money. I think this is true, I feel that its better to get experience doing placements and getting a good job eventually rather than settling for something with less prospects and something I dont really want to do. Its nice to hear someone say that you dont have to come straight out of University and into a Full Time job as this is something I think many of us are concerned about. 

As I'm sure he intended, the image which stuck in my mind most after this presentation was this 60 seconds of advert, Hegarty had been continually returning to this concept and I feel this advert completey sums it up..

Working on A3

For our latest task we had to draw up our final 5 ideas onto A3 to present to the group on Tuesday, in my team we split the work into 2, so I have drawn up 3 out of the 5 images in rough, I am currently looking at the layout, sizes and shapes, making sure that they are in the right places and that they are working as we had hoped. Once I am happy with this then I can begin to draw up my final drawings!

Still in quite a rough outline, above is the piece that will take its role as a magazine spread. It could be found in car magazines, but also in home magazines as well as many more. The circles aren't amazing, although I did use references to create it.. However the main purpose of this is to communicate with the client the idea at this point.

Above: this is the idea that could be located on bus shelters, or perhaps other locations. It focusses on the 'empty' of the car. This could also be relevant for people stood at the bus stops, as this may be the reason they are in fact having to get the bus. It would also be in a prime location for drivers passing by to see the advertisement as bus shelters/stops are often on busy, commuter routes. 

Above, I have applied it to a possible situation.

Above is the rough template for our web banner advert. The principle is that as the car, with flat tyres moves forward, the deicer cans comes down, prevents the car from moving any further with its flat tyres and then the 'love your car' strap line will appear on the screen.

1 Minute Video - Ideas

We were given a short task to create a one minute video that included the Blue Star De-Icer. It was not allowed to be an advert. Below are my first 4 ideas and their outcomes, the quality is not great and neither is the photography skills but at this point we are still concentrating on the ideas more than anything else. Once we have decided on an idea in our teams which we like we will create our final version.

This video focusses on the idea of a driver getting into their car then frantically looking around for something, searching throughout their car, and then finally when they open the glove box there it is, Blue Star De-Icer. It was difficult to capture this as I had to go at quite a slow speed in order to stop the image being just a huge blur, however hopefully I captured the idea I wanted to portray. 

This video was a similar idea to that of the car, however I put it into a different location. My mums kitchen, the idea of a family home would suit the target audience we are aiming for. I also think that the fact that this idea is transferable to many different locations means it could work for a campaign.

The above video is probably my favourite, although its probably too advertising based and not random enough, I couldnt get it to rotate though so its on a 90 degree angle.

Looking back over these I think I have probably made the de icer too much of a main point through these videos, but will show them to the other half of my team and we can progress from there!

What came first?

After watching the documentary 'She's not a moron she's your wife' the question of whether advertising influences society or society influences advertising was raised. This is something which I have now began to think about...

Writing Techniques

In todays session with Leonie we looked at the copywriting side of advertising more than the art director side. I found this session interesting as it was something I'd never even considered doing, but I found it a lot easier than I thought I would. Initially, we were given 5 objects on a table that were in an imaginary characters pocket, we had to create a character and write down notes about this imaginary person. I found I got really involved and really enjoyed creating this characters personality, appearance, background and so on. 


We then did a similar idea for a location we got given, focussing not only on image but on sounds too, which as a very visual person I found a lot more difficult to create. Although using visual influences I soon built up a list of sounds to go with my location, which was a prison cell. 


We then found out that all this was to allow us to think about radio advertising, which is once again something I probably wouldn't have considered. but it did open my eyes to other ways of communication other than visual. As well as thinking about the minority of people who are blind/partially sighted and how as an advertiser I would be able to communicate across to them through a campaign without isolating them.

"She's not a moron she's your wife"

After watching a documentary made in the 1990's titled "She's not a moron she's your wife" in one of our advertising workshops, I began to think about how does my gender effect me in my future? 


The documentary talked about how after WW2 women were making all the household decisions such as which food to buy and which domestic products to use. The documentary stated that women were the consumers who would make or break a brand depending on their loyalty, this was strongly influenced by various adverts and their techniques. 


After WW2 many women left their jobs which they had been doing, filling in for the men workers who had gone to war. Although some of them resumed at work many went back to being full time house wives. Many women were now the home maker, and companies used this ti fuel their campaigns; the idea that rebuilding of post war britain would start at home, and this was a huge responsibility of women. The advertising used was aimed at making women feel more valuable and important and that their decisions around the home and about what products to buy had a huge influence on the lives of their husbands, family and how they were presented/seen by others. It was important to be seen as a 'good wife' as demonstrated in a Kellogg's advert shown on the documentary. 


Women feared criticism of other women which turned to guilt, especially when the launch of frozen foods began:


- It was seen as convenient which suggests it is a substitute to the wife as a provider as they are no longer needed
- It was ideal for women who worked and had less time to cook 
- They tried to sell it as it was made for the consumer to BAKE themselves, when actually all they were doing was heating it


Cookeen and Viota came up with a solution to this, although at first they had the problem of already made cake mixes, which discouraged women, they then introduced mixes where you add an egg rather than just water. This made the women feel as though they were a part of making the cake and were getting involved. they could choose the egg themselves etc. Other similar convenience goods such as cheese slices were sold as 'quality' goods rather than the convenience goods they were.


New gadgets and convenience food meant that people were constantly gaining higher standards, it was no longer good enough to just look good things had to smell good and taste good too. There was good vs bad and clean vs unclean. The idea of washing being whiter, therefore cleaner and better became prevalent. whiteness symbolised cleanliness (which is "next to godliness")


Women had anew role after WW2 and advertising campaigns created the idea that they had a new enemy to focus on, germs rather than Germans. 


Unbelievably, I couldn't come to terms with the fact that brands such as Dettol and Flash had a lot of restrictions when creating there television adverts, due to social adverts there was a lot that couldn't be shown on television, for example on these toilet cleaner adverts there was a 9pm watershed before they could be shown, and even then they couldnt show the whole toilet, but simply imply that the cleaner was being poured into the toilet by showing the very top area which included the handle. The consumer was being protected from things they didnt need protecting from.


Here, I found an advert from the 1980's where it was now acceptable to include the toilet in the actual advert, although until about 20 seconds in I didn't think this was going to be the case:






One of the sections that I felt effected me the most throughout the documentary was the idea of stereotypes within women and how this influenced sales and success of campaigns. There was the use of 2 main stereotypes the 'bimbo and the opposite.


Bimbo adverts
-Included light heartedness and ignorance
-e.g hovis adverts
-How intelligence
-Kitchen towels "double thick"
-They were patronising 
-they showed women as a liability
-Eventually they faded out 


Opposite
-Sensible, down to earth women
-Often older, more experience
-Knowledgeable
-Usually over 40
-Scottish
-Bossing children around


For me I felt that the use of these 2 stereotypes, although probably effective was discriminative and patronising, I also though about how it can be seen today. In cosmetic adverts the women are usually more attractive and younger where as with food adverts\cleaning adverts the women are often more mature/family orientated. In modern day I feel these stereotypes work because you can relate to that particular type of women. For beauty products you are more likely to trust a younger, better looking woman that the products work and the same from cleaning products and a more mature character.


At the end of the documentary one woman commented on neotraditionalism and how she felt over the upcoming years women would revert back to housewives, implying that they could have done something better if they wanted but that they would CHOOSE to be a house wife and stay at home. I disagree with this statement and, although I feel she has been proved wrong, as over the last 20 years this has not happened as she suggested. I also feel that women are faced with more difficulties in breaking through this barrier to become as successful as men.


Within advertising, a higher amount of females take part in the degree courses than men, but more men end up working in the industry. Is this because men are more successful? Or because they are able to have both a family and a strong career whereas women have to sacrifice one or the other? 

Bus Shelter Poster Research

We decided a good location to apply one of our campaign ideas would be on a bus shelter sign. The main reasons for this is it will be large scale, it will be on busy commuter routes and school runs where busy drivers will be passing by constantly, creating maximum exposure to the correct audience for our campaign. Being on a bus stop may also target people getting the bus because they didn't have time to de-ice their car, people who didn't drive because of the weather and similar.

I also found a really useful website that can be used by companies to find outdoor locations to apply their campaigns to, such as billboards, sides of buses, phone box's and so on:

Web Banner Research

For the creation of the web banner, I have began to look at existing ones and the concepts behind them. Although we have already decided on the idea behind it, I wanted to look into how other companies had designed and executed them as I felt this would be useful.

Above is a web banner similar to ours, the layout of this is useful as it shows the individual slides. Personally I think this is a little complicated and probably includes too many slides and too much writing, usually on the internet the audience will only view the adverts for a very short amount of time and this particular one contains a large amount of slides so I feel would probably lose the audiences interest. For our web designer we are going to keep it short and simple, for maximum impact and engagement. When we pitch our 5 ideas we have decided to only use 3 frames to demonstrate our web banner as that is all we feel is needed. We have kept it simple and short. 

For the web banner above I think that the use of block colours and not too detailed drawings is really effective. However I think for our campaign we want to take a more photography/sophisticated approach that would be suitable for car magazines, bus shelters and TV advertising, as well as an app which we are creating.

Once we had decided on the layout and the approach, we needed to decide on a type of car we wanted to use. I researched the consumers most favourite/popular cars on websites such as the one below:

http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/consumers-most-popular.html

As I was looking, I was conscious of finding the shape of a car that would not be extremely obvious, this would mean customers would assume it was an advert for a particular brand on car. After looking around I found an Audi car that I thought looked sophisticated, sleek and wasn't extremely recognisable from the side if hand drawn. Here is the image I am going to use as a reference when drawing up this idea on A3:

"Cutting Edge Advertising" Ed. 2 - Jim Aitchinson

I have recently began reading this book, while I wait for the ones off my reading list to be delivered! I havent got through it very far yet, but just came across an interesting section. The book speaks about Psychologist Leon Festinger, and how he showed that "attitudinal change tends to follow behavioural change, not precede it." It continues to talk about his book and recognised how people desire stable opinions. 

Basically, Leon 's experiments explained how people justify their actions by changing their beliefs. This is where advertising comes in, as it plays a vital role by reinforcing a new pattern of attitudes AFTER a change in consumer behaviour. 

His research showed that attitudinal changes occurred after the purchase and not before it, for example.. Anti-smoking campaigns. After many years of health warnings most smokers will now admit that their habit is harmful to them, so therefore although their attitude to it has changed, their behaviour has not (as they are still smoking!) However something that is likely to change their behaviour is a tragic experience such as a death/illness to someone close to them, and if they quit as a result. The campaigns would then support their new attitude and add to it.

I think this is a really interesting idea, how people can change their beliefs and attitudes to something in order to call it acceptable or to justify it. Similarly, many people, such as the smoking example know they're doing something bad, cannot justify it but agree they are doing so.  In severe situations such as this I think advertising has its limitations as its such as personal, private issue that no amount of campaigns can change. Even the photographs of heart disease and lung cancer on the front of cigarette packets do not deter these people. 

Thinking about media

In our team we have now began to think about what media we would like to apply our ideas to. We had to think about different shapes. How different ideas would fit in with different media and so on. when creating the ideas I feel we had had quite a tunnelled vision, simply imagining the ideas on a flat piece of A4, but now is the chance to make them come alive and apply them to more interesting media in order to create our campaign.

We have decided on our final media uses, based on our final 5 ideas created. We will have:

- A web page strip
- A magazine page
- A TV advert/animation
- A bus shelter/stop large poster
- An app for smart phones (most likely iPod/iPhone)

We think using these different mediums we have created a broad range of locations to see our campaign that will capture the attention of our audience.

The web page strip could be used on car websites and food shopping websites in order to attract/be seen by the right audience. If it was on a Tesco shopping sight, you may be able to purchase the item from here so could click to add to basket perhaps?

The magazine page would possibly be in a car magazine, as this is for people who already have a keen interest in cars and are more likely to 'love their car' and want to look after it and protect it. this audience is the one that would be able to most relate to our campaign. Although I don't feel it isolates other groups. The page could also be found in more general magazines.

A TV advert is also another choice of ours. This would target the largest audience, and could be places during specific car programs such as top gear (maybe even sponsor?) as well as more general time tv which could target the more female audience. It would probably be best to show in the evenings as people are more busy in the mornings, and the audience we are targetting would be working during the day. If it was in the evening it would also make them think about their day (if the weather was bad)  and how much better the de-icer would make it.

Applying our idea to the side of a bus shelter/stop would mean that commuters passing by would be able to see it, on journeys it would appear multiple times  and remain in their mind. It would be right in the centre of where the problem would be; on the roads, near cars, near work places etc. It could also be interesting during the winter as people may have chosen to get the bus due to the weather or one of the problems used in our campaign.

We have created a concept for an iPhone app which involves Blue Star De - Icer. The idea behind it is that it will be free with the purchase of De-Icer and you can unlock more material the more cans you buy (possibly?) The app will be 'just as useful' as the de icer, you will be able to set reminders for tax, insurance, petrol, parking times etc.

Now its time to draw them up on A3!

Further Developments

After speaking to Leonie in one of the tutorial sessions we have decided to take our idea down a slightly different route, focusing on respecting your car. I came up with the strap line "love your car" which we are going to use as our final strapline. The concept behind this idea is the campaign will show things that a good driver would do to their car such as:

-Leave the petrol on empty

-Drive with a flat tyre

-Not renew their tax disk

The campaign will use these strong images then in the corner have the strapline 'love your car' and an image of blue star de-icer. 

Below are a few rough mock ups of possible ideas I had came up with:

We then looked at our ideas altogether and chose the strongest visuals and mixed and matched them to come up with our final 5.

I then took 3 of these to draw up onto A3 as instructed, these are the 3 i need to draw up:

Final 5 - 8 ideas

We then had to decide on 5 to 8 of the best to present to our group and recieve a crit on. I found that the crit was really useful as it began to look at what other people found funny and engaging, as well as ideas which everyone had thought of, such as the titanic, snowmen and so on. We also began to think about how different ideas could fit together to create one campaign, whether it from our images directly or taking pieces from other groups ideas too.

Here are my 5 out of the total 8 ideas which we presented:

Now we had to decide on our final idea to take forward and begin to develop. Initially this was the idea of an ice cube.. Below are some of the ideas which we got from this:

Initial idea:

Other solutions using 4 different images:

We began to look at the idea of evolution, and change but the concept that when/where/who is irrelevant but de-icer is still essential. We looked at how other things have changed over tim, such as cars, tools etc. 

After playing around with various ideas, we found that all of these ideas within each possible campaign were probably too similar, and wouldn't stand as strongly on their own as we had hoped. I had come up with a possible strapline of..

"Break through"

Guerilla Advertising

One concept which had kept cropping up in conversation within class was Guerilla Advertising. I decided to look into it and learn a little bit about what it was, who uses it and how it works. Online I found a really useful summary of what it was:

"The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, and consumers are targeted in unexpected places."

I found out that the objective of Guerilla marketing is to create unique concepts using unusual approaches such as encounters in public places, street giveaways or PR stunts. The main common between all Guerilla advertising is that it is done using a minimal budget but creates maximum results. Especially today, technology allows these approaches to soon become viral. They are often used to interact and engage the consumer in the brands campaign.

I also found a really useful website that had a bit of history and social/cultural information about Guerilla advertising that I read:

http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/what-is-guerrilla-marketing/

My favourite example that I found:

I think this works so well because it was the first of its kinda and it was something so unexpected. It creates a feeling of community and collaboration and really creates a 'feel good moment' for the consumer audience when watching.

Initial 50 Ideas

As a team we have began to create our 50, quick initial ideas on A4. Between 2 we had 2 hours to create all of these. Some of which were awful, but some of which we felt had 'legs.' We simply used black markers to create these.

Above is a selection of my own A4 ideas, excluding the ones that got through to the next stage of the process. This doesn't include the other member of my teams images.

'How To Make It In Advertising' - Mark Leigh and Mark Lepine

Aftern reading this book I felt I had a much better understanding of the job roles within an advertising agency. I focussed specifically on the ones I thought would be appropriate to me such as the Art Director ones. I think this book helped me to realise that I definitely want to go down the Art Director route rather than being a Copywriter, it also inspired me to work hard so that hopefully one day I could be a Creative Director, which is my dream role. Overseeing the various creative teams, meeting clients, being able to dabble in some work if I chose to etc. I find that I often end up taking leadership roles within groups, enjoy being organised etc so think this would be the perfect role for me, as I also love creative work and would want to stay within such an organisation. 


This book helped me to realise how hard it is going to be and how much of a competitive industry it is, both with getting jobs, and after that; getting accounts, being successful in campaigns, achieving award and so on.


Initially I had no intention of moving to London to work in advertising, however I think the recent weeks have made me realise it is probably an essential to begin with. It means there are more agencies I could work for, more opportunities so I think it is the place I will need to be.

Designing for Digital

Today we had an interesting presentation from James Boardwell who works for Rattle. (www.rattlecentral.com) He works for a small graphic design company which employ 4 members of staff altogether. I found his talk very exciting as it spoke about areas of design which i rarely consider, specifically relating to data. He himself helped to design BBC iPlayers page, which I was very impressed by, as well as many other apps for big companies. 


He spoke about metadata, which I now know to be 'data about data' and also referred to concepts such as 'thinking about thinking' 


The main points I picked up on from his talk were the idea that ideas and creations become out of date very fast. Often by the time something has been created it is already obsolete and there is already something identical, similar or better out there in the market. He also spoke about design for the attention of the audience.


He also spoke about how it is important to not just focus on one specialism but to have knowledge and understanding about many different disciplines which I feel is an important thing to consider for my future. Although, I feel for advertising this is more difficult as it is a huge subject on its own. It would however be useful when working in industry as there would be less need to employ/use other people in the industry such as illustrators/photographers etc if i had the skills myself!

The Umbrella

Today I learnt about the template used in advertising that i the umbrella. within the umbrella itself is the big idea for the campaign, then under that you are able to add all the different add ideas you are going to focus on. Usually between 4 and 6 ideas are used, they must all work individually but then come together as one larger campaign. These can be a mix of media and usually are. 


                               BIG IDEA
                  |             |             |           |
               AD1      AD2      AD3     AD4


We also spoke about the 'same add 3 times' idea. Where the 3 ideas although you think they are different they are in fact all the same. Stating that we want each idea to be a sibling, rather than an identical triplet. It should use the same concept but different ideas and visuals within these. I think that this was important for me to be told as the ideas I were creating were all very similar and would probably only have worked in one media (most likely a standard poster.)

Flux Task 1 Research - Social

- Social Network sites such as Facebook and Twitter have a much higher audience than any other sites, they are a way of communication so traffic is always high. Has 800 million members on Facebook, 50% of these log on daily. These websites mean advertising can now be digital, interactive, animated and are often a small size to fit in a corner of a laptop/computer screen.

- Environmental issues relating to advertising could include that digital vs paper means less trees are being cut down, less chemicals being used in inks as not as much is being printed.

Ethical and moral? Should large companies be allowed to access you through viral email/pop up on your computer screen and violate their way into your pockets/home? Communication is no longer face to face, sales men at the door and leaflets being posters, flyers being posted. Even this can be seen through students - handing out posters for nights our - now facebook groups and online guest lists instead!

Flux Task 1 Research - Contextual

Physical settings:
From posters and leaflets to Tv/e-mail to social networks and apps. 
Getting smaller and more complex?

Apps: So many already, over crowded and so short lived. Very competitive!

Increasingly mobile and digital, everything can be accessed through a laptop or smart phone.
Everything is becoming more accessible to the consumer, within their own home, in their pocket etc.

This has influenced advertising as people can access it anywhere - not just on a huge billboard in the middle of New York, its in peoples pockets and continually popping up on their screens via viral e-mail, social network sites and so on. 

Flux Task 1 Research - Cultural

I began looking at huge shifts in culture that would influence advertising specifically. Below are some of my findings that I would like to put forward into the presentation...


After WW2
- There was more disposable income available 
- Luxury goods became more popular as people were no longer on rations, men were back home earning money in their regular jobs again
- Women continued to work after WW2 so had their own money which began an interest in beauty and more feminine products
- Advertising was required in a different way.. No longer propaganda (such as Abram Games's work) but now adverts for luxury items that are wants not needs (increase in demand!!)
- Increased demand for fashion and makeup rather than practical/masculine products


Changing behaviours
- People from other cultures now live within our society so it is important that advertisements do no exclude these minorities through very British adverts or adverts that require previous knowledge. this could be as simple as including nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty, which children from other cultures would not be aware of.
- Habits are changing, communication is no longer predominantly through face to face but via web, email, skype, social network sites, phone calls and texts.
-Attitudes and values that inform society?
- Creative commons?

Flux Task 1 Research - Technology

I began to look into the 4 topics within 'Flux' and researched various different ideas relating to them. To begin with I looked at technology as I felt this would be the area which had the most relevance to advertising and how the approaches to advertising have changed in the last 60 years.

I began by thinking of different opportunities that have opened to the consumer due to technological advances.

- Social networking sites such as FaceBook (which has 800 million members, 50% of which log on daily.) Sites such as this mean that due to such a high amount of audience advertisers would be missing a huge opportunity if they didn't have adverts present here. It is probably one of the most viewed websites there is and by advertising here a company would have a huge cross section of the population being exposed to their advertisements. It means that designers are no longer designing for paper, they are designing for the screen which could mean animation, higher quality, smaller images (compare a huge poster to a home computer screen?)
- Twitter (similar to above) People can also follower designers etc.
- The world of e-mail enables viral emails, sending adverts to a vast amount of accumulated web addresses, which can often be bought. It also enables designs and ideas to be easily past from designers to clients for fast feedback in many different formats compared to posting prints and waiting weeks for feedback.
- The internet can now use web browsing history to know what people have been looking at and then for relevant adverts to come up on other web pages relevant to something they have just looked at, does this interfere with peoples privacy? The is where metadata may become relevant as the websites are collecting data about data.
- The largest recent change in technology is the use of smart/android phones and the creation of apps. These can be used by designers in advertising to help create multi platform campaigns, where apps could be used to enhance the campaign through games, quizzes etc. One I came across was the Cadburys Creme Egg Campaign, where although they still used television campaigns and posters they have also introduced a simple app. The app involves a full creme egg then as the used shakes the screen the creme egg will crack/explode. Although this is only a novelty item and will be short lived it means consumers can interact with the campaign, have it in their pocket and so on.

Apps are usually user friendly/centred and mean they can get involved with a campaign. Smart technology allows interaction especially through touch screens etc.
- Television has advanced from black/white screens which were low quality and often small in size to colour, HDTV and now even to 3D films. This has changed how the designers of films, programmes and the adverts to be viewed on them are created, the software needed to do so and the skills of the creatives needed. It has changed how the audience view these too, currently using 3D glasses which can be purchased to a cost of up to £100.
- Design Suites have changed the way designers can actually design, from doing everything on paper/print it can now all be accessed via a computer; images, type etc. Also hand drawn images can be scanned in, edited and still applied to modern technology such as advertisements on the internet.
- Websites such as YouTube, although amazing in creation can promote problems for designers. Open source means that designers can see other designers work very easily so what does influence and inspiration become plagiarism? (Read this in an old Campaign Magazine)
- Music is now seen as well as/rather than listened to?

Flux Task 1 Brief

After being given the brief for this module earlier on in the week, I decided to re read it and begin to look at what was needed of me in order to complete the first task, Flux 1. As a group we spoke briefly and decided to begin with we would all gather relevant information for our specialisms relevant to the 4 topics related to change given; technology, social, culture and contextual.

To begin with I looked up the definitions of these to give myself a clear vision of what each topic could possibly involve:

Technology: "Machinery and equipment developed from such scientific knowledge"
Social: "Of or relation to society or its organisation"Contextual: "Relation to or determined by or in context"
Culture: "An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning"

Now I will begin to look into possible aspects of each of these areas, relating specifically, but not exclusively to advertising (as this is my specialism.)

Creating our own brief

After looking at the composition of a brief we were told to create our own for our Blue Star De-Icer campaign. At first I found this difficult to compile as we didn't want to restrict ourselves too much with our ideas but we did want to make sure we had strong lines to follow and a direction to head in, our first draft looks like this:

Background
The product is a powerful, fast acting deicer suitable for removing frost and ice from vehicle window screens as temperatures down to -15c. Starting prices available from £1.99.

Problem
This campaign should help achieve a larger customer base, allowing customers to know the advantages/properties of this product in comparison to alternatives and competitors.

Proposition
Blue star is extremely effective and more convenient than other alternatives. It is a quality, yet affordable a winter essential for every household.  Blue star de – icer is the solution to all your winter problems.

Tone of voice
Humourous, professional and encouraging

Target Audience
Potentially every car owner; however more specifically commuters and adults with families/children 

Mandatories
The campaign must include the company logo and product name. The existing colour scheme of white red and blue should also be considered.

Strap line
A humourous, relevant strap line should be created an included somewhere on the campaign; it should be relevant to the tone of voice created.

Now we have created our brief we are able to begin to develop our ideas making sure that they are within the briefs guidelines, which I feel will give us as a team more direction for our ideas.