EOC Week 11: Final Evaluation

I’ve developed a lot of experience working within the classroom. I learned how it feels to be an ad agency coming up with a campaign for a product. I’ve worked alone on multiple projects so I can see the struggles most agencies have when they’re working within a group.

The instructor was a well educated one. He knew his stuff and knew how to teach the class so we all could understand it. Truthfully, some of the work was a little challenging but that’s what we have to face when marketing ourselves or certain products. I also like the fact how he gave us hands-on experience with advertising. He made us research other successful ads and study them so we could see how a successful ad campaign is compiled together. I enjoy being a student of his and I seek to learn from him some more as my life moves forward.

The projects that were given were a little tough but manageable. Once again, it teaches us how the industry functions and we have to learn how to maneuver our way around it. Not everything in life is going to be watered down and handed to us; sometimes we have to put in some work. After doing our studies of other successful ad campaigns, the instructor put our knowledge to the test. We had to apply what we learned to develop a successful ad campaign. I really enjoyed doing this project because it brought out my inner-most creativity. I was determined to make a really successful ad campaign and that’s what I did! I applied all that I’ve learned to this project and finished it off nicely.

Overall, this course was very beneficial and I recommend this course to anybody seeking knowledge in advertising. There’s so much to learn and you can never get enough of it. You won’t be able to look at ads the same way again. I’ve learned so much throughout this course and I’m ready to take my knowledge to the next level. I feel I deserved an A for the course.

Trojan Condom Commercial

Here is a preview of my Trojan Condom Commercial. Enjoy!

Trojan Logo came from the following site:
http://cuzoogle.com/2007/03/19/trojan-sales-drop-in-texas/

EOC Week 10: Art Serving Capitalism

Art serves capitalism in many ways. People walk by many paintings in malls, antique stores, yard/garage sell, etc. If you haven’t noticed, only certain paintings, drawings, or designs stop people in their tracks so they can get a better view. The visual beauty of art appeals to the viewer causing them to prolong their presence of the artwork. The above advertisement clearly shows beautiful art. The colors harmonize together wonderfully as well as giving the viewer an emotional stronghold. The color red stands out the most out of any color so by making the iPod red, it stops the viewer in their tracks (i.e. a stop sign and a red light). The background of the ad is blue, which helps bring out the color of the iPod more. The headphones are white, as well as the music notes, to sort of give a breaking between the two contrasted colors.

How does the art in this ad serve capitalism? The text of the ad is stronger than the visual itself. “Feel the Sound” is what sells the product. The ad is saying that when you have an iPod, not only are you hearing the music and sounds, but you can have an emotional connection with them by feeling the music and sounds. Feeling and hearing music are two separate things. Anyone can hear music but to feel music requires an emotional connection with the listener. Once they established an emotional connection between their product and the consumer, they succeeded in selling. The art of the advertisement is what sold the product, as well as the emotional connection. The beauty of the art was incorporated within the design. The design stopped the viewer. The art of the design and the design itself established an emotional connection between the ad and the viewer, causing the product to sell.

EOC Week 9: Triplets

Evian water isn’t your average purified drinking water. They support their product’s difference by using the slogan “Live Young.” The refreshment of Evian water fills you with so much energy to where you want to jump around and go wild, basically become a young kid again. The ad campaign above displays this message very clearly. In one ad, they have a female model around the age of twenty holding a bottle of Evian water. In the other ad, they have a male model around the age of twenty three holding a bottle of Evian water as well. As clearly as it shows, both models have a t-shirt with a baby’s body on the front of it, which symbolizes that Evian water brings the energy and joy out of them; making them feel like a kid again. There’s different variety of these ads with all sorts of ethnicities, but they all display the same message. Each ad has a male or female holding a bottle of Evian water with the body of the baby of their t-shirt. If you ask me, the creator of this ad is brilliant because he/she structured each advertisement the same and conveyed the same message, differently.

Analysis of Project in the Real World

I learned a lot in the course of this project. "Advertising has no rules" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 136) and "design possibilities are open-ended" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 142). Let your imagination and creativity run wild when developing a campaign. By doing an ad campaign, I was actually able to see things out of an agency’s perspective; put myself in their shoes. A lot of work is put into advertising products. Some work may be harder while some work may be easier. Sometimes ideas generate quicker than other ideas depending on your product and which way you want to advertise it. The steps I took to complete the project were steps agencies take in reality to advertise a product.

Advertising a product requires creativity and patience. In order to make a successful ad, is to add your own flavor of creativity to the mix. "Learning to think creatively is learning a way of thinking" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 174). In order to become creative, you must have patience. You have to be patient to develop a concept, analyze your competition, figure out which way you want to take the ad, find out who the target audiences are, and much more. "The design is part and parcel of your concept, your idea, and helps communicate the idea" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 125). The most effective way to reach out to the audience is to touch them emotionally. "Make them laugh. Or make them cry. Just make them feel something" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 106). The audience remembers your ad if you can touch them internally, making the ad campaign more successful and effective.

Doing this project made me look at commercials, billboards, or any other media of advertisement, in a whole different perspective. When I flip through a magazine, I automatically know "which layouts break through and capture the viewer's interest" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 148). The creator stopped me in my tracks to look at their ad and a successful ad is "something that stopped you" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 150). I look at many different ads to see if I understand what the company is trying to tell me or sell to me. If I understand the concept of the ad then I know it’s a successful ad campaign and I should study it as much as possible.

Creative Content

The plan for the commercial isn’t too complicated. Honestly, I’m keeping the commercial quite simple. The design is a black background with white text fading in and out. "Designing an ad is key successful communication" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 65) so I've decided to keep the design simple to communicate to the audience better. I’m going to utilize text and sounds to emotionally connect with the viewer. The background is going to be black and the text is going to be white to give the commercial a nice contrast; making it easy to read because of the dead space around the text. Who said "all blank space must be filled" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 129)?

The commercial is going to present the viewer with factual information, also known as supports, about unplanned pregnancy and diseases. "A support backs up your claim" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 64).The information is going to fade in with an evaporating effect on the letters and words. After the text has appeared, the text will remain there for a second or two then fade away. The first set of information is going to be targeted towards unplanned pregnancy. The next set of information is going to be targeted towards STD’s. The pregnancy and STD information are suppose to touch the viewer and emotionally scare them. Occurrences, such as these, "happen right under our noses" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 72) but we don't know it. At this time, they would want to prevent themselves from being a victim of unplanned pregnancy and an STD. The message “STOP” and “before it’s too late” will then follow. This message is to confirm their thoughts on what they could do to prevent themselves. Lastly, the Trojan condom brand logo will appear, followed by the slogan (Be Smart).

After the viewer sees the information, he/she is going to think the obvious, which is use a condom. What directs the viewer to buy specifically a Trojan brand condom? According to other condom commercials, they offer pleasure but not safety. This Trojan commercial is going to offer the consumer safety when using Trojan products. Since the target audience is young adults/teenagers, their group’s population will definitely want pleasure before safety. The commercial doesn’t advertise pleasure because there’s already many Trojan commercials advertising that. But does anyone know how safe a Trojan condom is? The commercial does exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is advertise its safety.

Promotion

The way I plan to promote the advertisement is through a commercial. According to CSUN, 99% of households possess at least one television set, 49% of Americans claim they watch too much TV, and a TV is on six hours and forty-seven minutes per day in an average U.S. residence. Judging from these three statistics, utilizing visual media, such as a commercial, is the best way to promote any product. I’m aware that I’m not the only person who contains this knowledge. There are hundreds of thousands of commercials that come on daily so I plan to make my commercial stand out above the rest by "solving a problem" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 174).

The Big Idea

My idea is to target the teenagers/young adults by using a scare tactic. The concept of my idea is going to be a commercial without using any images; just plain text. "Copy captures the viewer's attention first." (Advertising By Design, Robin Landa, pg 191). Many family members lost relatives because of AIDS and many families struggle with family members being infected with some sort of an STD. "People form mental connections between responses" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 119). "Fear of contracting AIDS motivates condom use" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 117). Aside from diseases, another problem the world is facing today is abortion. The feud between keeping abortion and making abortion illegal has been going on for quite some time now. Many people believe there should be a law against abortion so my plan is to utilize the commercial to help resolve the feud, reduce pregnancy/abortion rates, and reduce transfers of STD’s.

The scare tactic was to scare teenagers/young adults into staying safe. The slogan “be smart” is borderline disrespectful and offensive, but it also depends on how the consumer takes it. I’m technically not offending anybody by calling them dumb when the slogan is presented. Some people may think I’m saying they are not smart already, but that’s not the case. I’m reminding people about their decisions and to motivate them to remain making smart ones. "People want the ads to act like an inner voice, pushing them to do something" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 84).

Competitive Analysis

After my research on different brands of condoms I came across something unique. Condom brands, such as Life Styles or any other branded of condoms, only advertise the pleasure and sensation you receive when using one of their condoms; they never clarified how protected and safe you are. Many Trojan condom commercials advertise pleasure as well as protection. If you ask me, not clarifying safety to your audience isn’t a bright thing to do. Wouldn’t you think safety comes before pleasure? That's a major factor that other companies are missing. Since other companies are ponging, I'm going to ping and "take the least traveled path" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 182).

Comparing Trojan condoms to other company products "can be a strong premise" (Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 79). By other companies displaying the pleasure side of the condoms and not the protection side, they draw more customers to buy their product. This is a great strategy to lure customers in but it’s also a flaw that can back fire against the company. Advertising the pleasure doesn’t assure safety and when consumers buy into that, they suffer the consequences.

There are a couple of similarities that companies use when advertising their product. All condom campaigns advertise the pleasure of having their brand of condoms. The ad agency either uses humor or a sexual emotion to reach out to their consumers. The way they put together the information about the product makes it easy to understand.

Trojan Condoms: Be Smart

I picked the slogan “be smart” because I wanted something that was straight, simple, to the point, and powerful. The slogan isn't lengthy because "...a few choice of words can be extremely effective"(Advertising by Design, Robin Landa, pg 193).Everyone knows that Trojan condoms are to protect people from any forms of an STD and pregnancy. A lot of people, old and young, doesn’t use condoms and suffer from the consequences. I developed a positive message that everyone can relate to and instantly know the meaning of. There isn’t any twist or turns to the slogan.

When advertising a product, you must "know your audience" (Advertising by Design, page 142). I know my audience are people who are sexually active and are seeking to stay safe; as well as people who want to stay protected during sexual encounters. The message is preferably to young adults/teenagers because during that specific time in their life, they like to experiment. It's a proven fact that we, as humans, are anxious to perform the acts that people tell us not to do. If someone told you to not touch something, then you're going to feel the need to touch it. Many parents tell their children to not have sex until marriage or until they're grown. Parents also tell they're children, after a certain age, to always wear a condom. As clarified earlier, we, as humans, are anxious to perform the acts that people tell us we shouldn't do. Many teenagers and young adults go against their parents and have unprotected sex and because of their rebelliousness, they pay the price when they have an STD or pregnancy occurs.

EOC Week 8: Really Good Example of Chapter 8

This Crystal Cruise campaign is phenomenally designed. The ad is a full page advertisement so the fact that the background is dark blue, almost black, draws attention to it. The ad stops the viewer in his/her tracks. The contrast between the splash and the background draws the attention to the correct spot, which is the logo of the cruise line. The splash coming out of the bottle forms the logo of the cruise line. “Using the product as the main visual usually puts the potential consumer on alert.” (Advertising by Design, page 143). The viewer identifies the logo within the splash and immediately knows what he/she is looking at. Another thing with the splash is that it looks so realistic to where it makes the viewer thirsty. Here, Crystal Cruises made an emotional connection with the audience so they accomplished success.

The fact of how the splash and the cruise line is corresponds was well done as well. The purpose of taking a cruise is to get away from reality and feel relaxed and refreshed. Who would want to go on a cruise and get stressed about everything? The Crystal Cruise campaign took the feel of being on a cruise and utilized it within the advertisement. The splash coming out of the bottle looks refreshes and relaxes the viewer; giving him/her the same vibe they would get if being on one of their cruises. Again, the Crystal Cruise advertisement established an emotional connection with their audience. In order to make an emotional connection, you must “know your audience” (Advertising by Design, page 142). You must know how your audience feels, what your audience is looking for, etc.

In conclusion, this ad was a very successful campaign. They know exactly who their target audience is and established the emotional connection with them. The campaign’s concept of design was utilized very well. All the basics of design (harmonization, focal point, unity, etc.) were used in this campaign and made this ad successful.

EOC Week 8: Authority

“Make sure text fonts are easy to read” - Denise M. Anderson (Advertising by Design, pg 163)

This quote inspired me to use a basic font for my advertisement. I’m going to be advertising a Smirnoff Vodka bottle and it’s going to be video based. There’s only going to be one line of text so I have to make sure the font is easy to read or I’m going to lose the consumers. The text is going to say “Ay, don’t blame me.” The text of the commercial is what’s going to draw the customer in. The consumer isn’t going to understand what I’m trying to sell only by looking at the visual part of the commercial. As soon as the text appears on the screen, the audience is going to laugh and have that connection between what I’m selling and the visual. In conclusion, it’s very important that I make the text on the commercial easy to read so I can connect the consumer with the visual to persuade them to buy the beverage. I figure a pretty plain text, such as a bold face Arial or Arial Black font, should do the right job for the project.