Evaluate the adverts (U20: M3, D2)

Evaluating the adverts 

M3 (U20): Explain how the created media components comply with the codes and conventions of the media sectors 

When creating our advertising campaign, the codes and conventions selected need to be carefully chosen in order to ensure that the company's themes and messages are successfully advertised. Our campaign material was consistent as we carefully considered using the same codes and conventions throughout to amplify our message and keep the same consistent theme throughout.

Magazine Advert:

Within our magazine advertisement campaign we closely linked its codes and conventions to our billboard and video in order to show a consistent message throughout of our sporty drink. The imagery and colour in our campaign was carefully considered in order to convey our theme of sport (green) and closely linked to the colours associated to the drink and it's taste (strawberry laces- pink/red) in our background. Our planning document from our video storyboard helped to construct our main image used in both advertising materials (the close up shot of the girl holding the can and drinking it) heavily inspired this image. Within our magazine advert, the inclusion of using our social media links, was a convention chosen in order to target our younger audience due to the rise in technological convergence and youths reliance on technology. This would have given the audience an insight into the brand identity as they could have seen new advertising campaigns within our social media marketing (instagram, facebook, twitter and snapchat lens). 

The use of the Carter Soft Drinks logo positioned at the top of the advert was used in order to boost Carter's brand identity and make sure we included part of the companies name in order to show the audience the supplier of our brand for an insight into new drinks they may be coming out. Our price (positioned at the top in bold) was done considerately in order to stand out to the audience and illuminate our cheap price for the drink so that audiences would purchase. 

Our USP, QR code (positioned down the bottom of the advert) was considerately chosen in order to stand out to our customers in order to add an interactive aspect to our company. When the QR code is scanned, the consumer get's taken to the website where they can purchase the drink- we believed this was a modern consideration in order to give the audience a way to be interactive within our company and gives another way that they can actively purchase the drink without having to write in the website online. However, to target older audiences that may not have smartphones, we chose to give the option to look up the website aswell by putting the website on the campaign (top left) in order to show our consideration for targeting both younger (more experienced with technology) and older audiences (who may not have the ability to scan the QR code).

Our slogan (written in the speech mark), was chosen to be a quick and easy catch phrase in order for our audience to remember our brand due to its rhyming and short structure. We decided to use this convention in order to add something to our brand besides our own choice of drink and theme. 

Billboard Advert:

For our billboard advertisement campaign, we used the same codes and conventions for our magazine- in order to promote consistency in our message. The imagery and colour's used of green and red closely linked to our message of sport and strawberry flavour. We decided to increase the opacity of the background in order for it not to ambush the adverts conventions- so it could just be a minimal feature within the billboard. Our pre-production planning document of our visualisation diagram inspired the use of using the main image as we planned for our model to be holding a drink. This was helpful as it allowed us to establish our medium shot type before making the advert and therefore gave us a clear insight as to where everything could be layed out around the main image. Our social media links were included in a large space on the bottom right of the advert in orderr to promote our online expansion. Alongside this, giving the audience a way in which to follow the brand and keep up to date with new drinks made before release mainly for the younger audiences who rely on technology and social media within generation Z.  

Carter Soft Drinks logo positioned at the top left of the billboard was consideratly placed in order to be clear and identify for the audience the drink supplier. The price at the bottom right of the billboard is a convention of all billboard magazines in order to grasp consumers attention, because clarifying the drinks price range can make a difference whether the buyer is interested in buying or not as they can identify immediately if they can afford the drink.

The main part of our billboard (our USP), the QR code was positioned in order to grasp those who know how to use technology and was made as the second largest image within the magazine to show our audiences the accessibility of the product and gives them an easy way in which to purchase the drink. This links with billboard codes and conventions as it gives passers by an opportunity to interact with the advertisement and allows them to quickly save their page without having to remember a website/ the name of the product- a quick and easy advertisement tool to engage our audience. 

Our slogan (written in the speech mark) on both the magazine and billboard, was put next to the drink in order to engage and encapsulate our audience so they can see our message. We cleverly decided to customise our drink can to fit our theme of sport, this was an easy accommodation and helped us to identify our brand amongst other similar brands. Our competitors, Coke and Pepsi Max, tend to not brand their message onto their can and therefore we decided to do this in order to be unique amongst other brands within the same category (fizzy drinks).  

 

Video advert:

The codes and conventions for a video advert are vital in order to promote the brand and engage an audience. Taking this into consideration, our long running theme of sport was used throughout our video campaign. The theme of sport and it's conventions were used from the offset where there is a wide shot of a girl standing in-front of a goal post and fails to shoot . This immediately set up our theme and engaged the audience by enticing sport lovers with an enigma on what this advert may be for. Next, the girl picks up the drink and is accompanied by a voice over' don't give up!' - she then takes a sip and attempts to score another goal and succeeds. This part of the advert was chosen in order to emphasis our message that our drinks gives energy and is a symbolic visual depiction of that. At the end of the advert, we chose to include our slogan, the name of the brand, social media links and a close up (similar to the close up on our billboard and magazine) in order to leave the audience with something to remember. The themes throughout the video would be similar to that of the billboard and magazine in order to show consistency in the message.

Edits within video adverts are extremely important to seize the audience and create an incising message. Competitor brands such as Coke and Red bull use straight cuts in order to create naturalism and order, due to these brands being successful within the drink industry we decided to use straight cuts for the same reason. One voiceover is used before the girl takes the drink and says 'DON'T GIVE UP' which we felt was key in order to promote the codes and conventions of using voiceovers in order to engross the audience.  The advert begins with no music with the background being filled with the sounds of nature to foreshadow the upbeat sound to come. The undertone of upbeat music used, begins when the subject takes a sip of the drink (this accommodates the action in the video and insinuates the upbeat feeling you feel when you drink our drink) and is persistent throughout to maintain that theme of joy and happiness. 

Our video advert includes several shot types varying from long/wide to side-mid shot to wide shot to close up/mid shots to a long shot and a final side close up shot. We decided to include these varied shot types in order to keep our audience watching with the quick paced editing alongside this. Our tv advert was helped by our story-board, which gave a head-start to our planning and ideas on our advert. This was a great tool that helped us to plan our exact shot types, movement and duration of our shots in order to create a successful video advertisement to showcase our brand.

D2 (U20): Demonstrate how the technical and aesthetic properties of the media components meet the client brief

As stated in the brief, Carter Soft Drinks asked us to make an advertising campaign for their latest fizzy drink named Phizzwizzard. This requirement was met as the carter soft drinks logo appears on each component of my campaign at the top of the campaigns and the name of the drink is clearly identified as Phizzwizzard to ensure to expose the brand identity . 

During production, my group and I ensured that the name of the product was the biggest text because we felt is was essential for the audience to see our brand name so they could remember it for purchase. 
Additionally, it’s important to mention the company name (Carter Soft Drinks) because it gives the company recognition and acknowledgement for the client that we have considered to market their product while including their name in the campaign material. 

Our storyboard for our video advert, clearly expressed the brand name largely at the end of the video in order to reinforce our brand identity and market our product name 'slogan spins onto screen and logo info'. This was incorporated in our video campaign to be effective and eye-catching for our audience.

This requirement was also met during our pre-production plan as we made the name the biggest text in the visualisation diagrams, storyboard (at the end) and made consideration for the carter soft drink logo throughout by making it visible in both. 

We considered the incorporation of the brief  'liquid red in colour' coin-siding with our sporty brand idea and concluded with out pink/red/green background to show our consideration.

As stated by the brief, the target audience that our campaign materials need to target were a 'retro audience of 30-somethings who mostly had cans when young as well as major audience of young people aged 13-18'. After reading the brief, we took this into consideration in all of our branding; for the magazine cover and billboard we made sure the message was consistent and clear (keeping our layout simplistic and not too complicated- using images spread out and minimal use of words to target younger audiences who are more likely to be attracted to something concise. For our video advertisement, both our primary and secondary audiences were considered as we used our general message for sport being the main aspect of our drink and incorporated that into our video with a storyline that was short but effective. The use of using an 18 year old girl was spread across our campaign (main image on both the billboard and magazine) in order for both primary and secondary audience to relate and be attracted to. 

In our pre-production planning, our moodboard was cleverly considered in order to target our audience of both '13-18 and 30-somethings' as stated in the brief by our inclusion of colours and images. Our images featured kids and adults playing sports in order to show our inclusion of our target audience and comply to the brief requirements- to not only effectively meeting our requirements but making our campaign eye-catching and memorable, while targeting different audiences.

To ensure to meet the client brief requirement to appeal to a 'retro audience of 30-somethings who mostly had cans when young' we included a website link across both our magazine and billboard to ensure that those that do not have much access to technology can equally discover the campaign and can stay up to date with any upcoming drinks. By using both social media and website links, its is showing to our audience the consideration to make the campaign on multi- platforms where the product can be accessed. 

Moreover, the client brief requires that the drink will only be sold in 'cans' , due to the popularity of this consumption when the audiences were younger to give it a 'retro' feel. We incorporated this requirement by presenting our drink across all our campaigns (video, magazine and billboard) and further making sure the product was recognisable by being large in both the magazine and billboard.This was further applied within our pre-production document from our visualisation diagram as we used this to capture the 'can' in a large image that dominates the campaign as the main image. 

During our planning process and research on our target demographic and audience- we concluded with the idea that our primary 'major audience of young people aged 13-18' are most likely to interact with something if it has an aspect of social media. Therefore our USP of a QR code was included in order to appeal to this age group. This was prominent in both our magazine and billboard as it was a key aspect in order for our audiences to interact as it allows them to scan the QR code with their smartphones and instantly takes them to buy our drink allowing us to complete the requirement to target this age group and make it more likely for 'the campaign going viral'. Furthermore, in order to spread awareness from our brand, with Carter Soft Drinks specifying the words 'viral' we interpreted this as a way in which people can continue to spread the brands awareness, and therefore included the social media links for the company. This was a key incorporation to our components of our magazine and billboard, to ensure that the client is satisfied by including social media links to increase future work chances. We also came up with a slogan in order to aid our brand to go 'viral' which we felt was complementary for the brand- giving it awareness and allowing audiences to remember the campaign by the catchy-ness of the slogan 'One Sip Will Be The Extra Hit'. 

The billboard will be appealing to a broader demographic as it will be aimed at the entire audience targeted as it will be placed where pedestrians can view and therefore will give full access to audiences that may not come across the magazine page (as they don't read magazines) or the video advert (may not purchase a tv or smartphone) so therefore may be the best audience attraction

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The magazine however may be targeting specifically the older audience demographic as it is a less interactive way to view media (less technological). Print-based advertising is a traditional advertising method because it was the only method of advertising before technological convergence. This means that the older demographic (30+) will be more likely to see the campaign within magazine ads than the video or the billboard however we still used the same marketing techniques within both the billboard and video to the magazine if younger audiences do end up seeing the campaign in a magazine due to the inclusion of social media links and our QR code.