TV Advert Evaluation
1. The brief
a. What was the
brief?
b. What was your chosen product and how / why did you decide, as a group, to
choose it?
Joel had the idea of creating a rebranded advert for Surf
Laundry Capsules after we were asked to change the target audience of a
Unilever product. After watching Joel’s presentation and hearing his ideas we
decided, as a group, to do his advert concept.
The thought was to have a male student doing his washing and, being unable to
work the washing machine, recalls a flashback of his mum telling him how to
work a washing machine and what detergent to use (Surf). The advert then
returns to the present where the student is happy, with the knowledge of how to
work a washing machine and to use Surf. We decided that the new target
demographic would be young students, contrasting with the ‘stay-at-home-mum’
demographic Surf is currently targeted towards. We chose this rebrand as it’s a
polar opposite to the target audience now and we knew the outcome would be
achievable.
c. Who is the current target audience
for the product and who did you decide to appeal to? Why?
The current demographic for ‘Surf’ is, from advertising, mothers and women.
The secondary target demographic would be men and husbands. We decided to
appeal to a younger audience – students – to expand the audience and reassure
young people that it’s easy to do your washing with ‘Surf’. We decided to do
this because we understand what young people want, being young ourselves.
2. The finished
product & feedback
a. How did you
collect the feedback (comments / responses from others) on your finished advert
from your target audience? Provide a summary of the main points.
We have used ‘Survey Monkey’ to get feedback from peers and have each sent out
a survey to 3 of our friends to get feedback. The survey is in a questionnaire
form and uses simple ‘agree’/’disagree’ answers to gain feedback, however we do
have one question (“What do you think we could do to improve?” that requires a
typed answer. We gained very positive feedback from the questionnaire.
Additionally, because the people who completed the survey were young adults, we
felt that it was a good representation of our target audience. Amongst some of
the questions, we asked the recipient;
-whether they though the message of our advert was clear
-whether they thought the advert reached a student demographic
-what age they thought the advert was aimed to
-what we could’ve improved
-how likely they were to buy the product after watching the advert
b. Appropriateness to
audience: do you think you managed to get the main message to your target
audience you specified in pre-production. Would the advert have an appropriate
impact on them?
I think that we achieved in creating an advert targeted
towards our choice of demographic; young students, evident in our choice of
actor and plotline (which is something that students can relate to). I think it
could have been more student-targeted if it had a faster paced energy. Our
advert felt quite slow because of the duration of some of the shots and, as the
narrative made it more of a story, it didn’t have any cut scenes or shots that
would make it more snappy. On the other hand, at the end of our advert we used
quick point of view shots around the 00:40 second mark after Joel has the
flashback, which adds speed to the advert.
Especially after reading the feedback left on our ‘Survey Monkey’
survey, I think we did a good job at getting our message resonate with a
younger audience.
c. Think about the
technical and aesthetic qualities of your advertisement. Analyse your use of:
mise-en-scene; camera; editing and sound.
As our advert was targeted towards the student demographic,
we used a teenage boy (Joel) as the main protagonist so that other students may
relate. Within our advert we used light atmospheric lighting to symbolise
freshness, of both the product, ‘Surf’, and the age of our protagonist. This
juxtaposes with the harsh, grittiness of the flashback memory, showing an aged
memory and a time when the protagonist didn’t know how to use a washing
machine. Before the Surf product was officially announced, within the advert,
we placed it on the top of a washing machine along with a line of other washing
detergents as an ‘Easter-egg’ to what the product may be. Furthermore, we made
sure that Joel was in the same position in front of the washing machine before,
after and during the flashback to show that Joel was feeling the same confusion
now as he did when he was younger.
d. Effectiveness of
content: Do you think your finished advert effectively sells the product to the
specified audience through its storyline/narrative?
I think the narrative tells a struggle that most students can relate to and
does it in a comedic way (when the flashback shows Joel’s mum telling him off).
When someone can relate to an advert, I think they are more likely to buy it
and the fact that we’ve used Joel, who’s around the student age, shows that the
product isn’t only limited to older people. Additionally, humour is always a
good way to get people on side, as your striking an emotion in people. Therefore,
I think it would be effective in reaching a student demographic.
e. What was the
effectiveness of the persuasion techniques you used to sell the product?
We were able to use humour in advert, which is a good persuasion technique
as everyone reacts well to humour. On the other hand, we used a more formal
description of Surf at the end of the advert, showing that although Surf isn’t
meant to be taken too seriously, the advert takes itself seriously which makes
the advert more trustworthy.
f. Clarity of
communication: what was the message you were trying to send to the target
audience? What were the main techniques you used to send that message? e.g., I
wanted to tell teen audiences that drinking Bovril is not just for older people
so I used younger actors and hip/colloquial language to appeal to them in the
hope that young audiences would identify with them.
We wanted to show young people that something as complicated as washing
your own clothes can be completed easily by using Surf. This is why we used a
young actor, Joel, to play the student so that the viewers can relate to our
advert. We also achieved this by having a scenario that most students can
relate to as our plotline.
g. Overall, do you
feel your advert is fit for purpose? i.e., does it look professional and does
it comply with advertising regulations? You must extract information from the
ASA / BCAP code here as it will meet the requirements for Unit 2: GC1.
I think our advert does look professional as it follows the main
conventions of an advert. Additionally, to make sure we followed the BCAP code
we made sure the advert wasn’t misleading in any way (sections 3.1 - 3.53) and
also made sure that the advert would be recognised as an advert, so not to
mislead the viewers (sections 2.1 - 2.5)
3. Personal
reflection
a. How does the final
advertisement compare with your original intentions? Reflect on your
documentation, e.g., you storyboards and other pre-production, final
advertisement and audience/peer/tutor feedback.
Our advert was a good representation of what we aimed to achieve. However,
there were some variations from the shot-list. For example, we wanted to zoom
in to Joel’s face before the flashback and zoom out after the flashback however
this wasn’t something we included in the final version of our advert.
b. Self-evaluation:
Reflect on how satisfied you are with your final advert. Would you do anything
differently if you were to undertake the task again? Finally, evaluate your own
involvement in the project.
If we were to re-do the production of our TV advert, I would
probably make sure there were no continuity errors. For example, in one of the
shots that was used in the advert Joel didn’t have the washing basket by his
feet. However, in a shot, that we decided not to include, we wanted to show
Joels frustration by tapping his feet but the washing basket was by his feet.
This was a random decision that resulted in a continuity error but, gladly, it
didn’t make its way into the scene and didn’t create any problems with
continuity.
I think we all made a good team when producing the advert. I thought I played a
key role in the delivery of the advert. For example, I made sure that all of
our pre-production was done properly, as I had previously struggled in a group
where our pre-production wasn’t at a good standard, and I made a good effort at
editing, being creative with sound decisions and mise-en-scene. One area I
could’ve payed more attention to was the actual camera work, as I’m not used to
being behind a camera I didn’t have much involvement on the technical side of
camera work (aside from pressing the record button, making sure shots were in
focus etc).
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