Research Portfolio (U20: P1, M1 U24: P1)

Learning Outcome 1 (U20): Know how existing advertising campaigns embed advertisements across a range of media products 

Learning Outcome 1 (U24): Understand the products that are produced within and across media industries

P1(U20): Describe an existing media advertising campaign


Campaign 1: iPhone XR 449 Campaign

Aims and Objectives $449 XR Campaign - Beginning in November and ending in December 2018, Apple introduced a new ad campaign in an effort to boost sales of one of their latest products: the iPhone XR which previously hadn’t been selling many models due to the lack of difference in price between it and its luxury models being the iPhone XS Max and iPhone XS. The reason behind this was because consumers realised that if they were going to spend $700+ on a new iPhone, they might as well get the one with the better features such as a dual camera and AMOLED screen. During Apple’s ad, their main image was of the iPhone XR with its reduced price ($449) if consumers were to trade in their old iPhone as they realised that people buying a budget iPhone would most likely trade in an old iPhone that they would have no use for which could be used for parts making it useful for Apple.

Approach/Choice of Media 
The campaign was made up of two main components being the social media campaigns on YouTube and Instagram as well as the physical billboard campaign with the main purpose being to get iPhone users to purchase their product while Apple gets a piece of hardware that they could recycle when making a new device.

Call to Action
The viewer of the advertisement would go into a mobile shop or an Apple store to make the purchase because it says in the advertisement that they would need to trade in their old iPhone for the reduced price meaning they couldn't purchase it online. Apple measured the awareness of their iPhone XR sales by using social media and videos online such as YouTube and Instagram which would measure how many times their advertisement campaign was viewed and more importantly how many times people liked it.

Representation
In both components, the billboard and social campaigns, the main message was that buyers could trade in their old iPhones and receive a new iPhone XR for the reduced price of $449. The campaign also tried to convince viewers that the iPhone XR was Apple's best performing iPhone by showing its strengths such as its better battery life, faster performance and similar photo quality to the company's more luxurious models, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. This was Apple's attempt to convince customers that the iPhone XR, despite overall being worse than the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, was better in some ways in order to get customers to buy it for the cheaper price. This was because at the time Apple were focusing more on the iPhone XR because it was their lowest performing iPhone sales-wise and the company could afford to lose iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max sales.

Every year Apple announce the arrival of their new phones for the next year in a video showcasing their features, their improvements from the year before and how the phones could be used in real life settings. Before announcing the iPhone XR, Apple showcased the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. When showing the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, a multi cultured women in her twenties was shown filming a man sand boarding in the desert representing that the phones are to be associated with youth and adrenaline related feats. The phones were also shown to be used by two women in their twenties, one being Asian and the other being white in a village appearing to be in Africa. This clearly suggesting that the phones should be associated with wealth and traveling. However, when the iPhone XR was showcased, it was shown to be in a neon, futuristic potentially asian city with a large amount of the photos (shown in the video to show off the phone's camera) having neon with the models and actors who were typically in their twenties and of all races. This suggesting that the phone should be associated with youth, multiple cultures and vibrant cities.

Choice of media/Target Audience
The reason why Apple chose to advertise their campaign on YouTube and Instagram was to appeal to its primary target audience being teenagers. The reason why they knew the product and price would be appealing to said target audience is because Apple knows that teenagers would have no use for their old iPhone unlike adults who may want to keep them in order trade them in at work. Because of the reduced price, teenagers would be attracted to the product because they may not have the same sort of income and therefore money to pay full price for the phone or for one of Apple's more premium models of phone such as the iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max. This can also be shown from the product's many choices of colours, suggesting that the product is meant for a younger audience. The range of colours also suggests that the product is meant for all sorts of people inside the teenager demographic, which is evident because as well as a large amount of the community priding themselves with being vibrant, hence the yellow, orange, red and blue products, some are less outgoing and would prefer a blander model hence the black and white models. Because the majority of teenagers wouldn't use their iPhones for high performance apps or for doing tasks such as writing emails, but rather for tasks such as taking photos, scrolling through social media and listening to music, the advertisement perfectly encapsulates all of the product's major selling points being its screen camera battery life and most importantly price.

The billboard component of the campaign was meant to target the secondary target audience being adults above the age of 20. This is because the billboards were placed in front of places such as train stations which would attract large amounts of people, particularly those travelling to and from work. The colourful aspect of the product and therefore the billboard was meant to capture people's attention. It was very important that on the billboard the phone's long battery feature was included because, as the billboards were meant to be shown to people travelling to or from work, as there would be roughly a fifty-fifty chance that the secondary target audience would be travelling home and their phones would possibly be out of battery or near it, the billboard could help convince them to upgrade to the iPhone XR for a reduced price.

Legal Constraints/Ethical Issues/Regulatory Bodies There would be no legal constraints when making this campaign, however, it may be considered ethically wrong for Apple to sell their iPhone XR for such an inflated price at it costs roughly $350 to make an iPhone XS Max and likely even cheaper to make its statistically worse devices: the iPhone XR and iPhone XS.

It would also be considered unethical by some that Apple didn't mention that they could get the iPhone XR for a minimum for $449 when trading in an old iPhone and that the price wasn't flat not dependant on what phone was traded in as the campaign suggested it was.

The regulatory body that would allow the advertising campaign to be shown in the UK was the ASA. There were no issues as the campaign doesn't infringe on any of the ASA's guidelines.

Campaign Logistics
Originally the iPhone XR's release was announced by Apple on October third 2018 along with the announcement of the releases of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The three phones were later released to be sold to the general public. However, in the first month of the phones' release, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max were doing significantly better meaning that Apple were considering to halt production on the iPhone XR.

On the third of December 2018, Apple released a new advertising campaign solely meant to increase the sales of the iPhone XR by selling it for $449 when a customer trades in their old iPhone. Apple purposely wanted to highlight the vibrant colours a user could get of the phone especially in comparison to the more luxurious models as well as some of the features of the phone that were better than that of its more luxurious counterparts. Apple also purposely notified viewers of the campaign that the trade-in deal was only for a limited time only and that they could have potentially only gotten the iPhone XR for more than the promised $449 price depending on the iPhone they traded in obviously so that Apple could generate more revenue from the phone's sales.

Apple purposely released the campaign in early December for two reasons. The first being that it was nearing the time of Christmas so the phone would be making a good gift and that consumers would be in a buying mood already. It was also a good idea because the phone's release was relatively recent and most consumers would know that new iPhones release at the same time annually so they would most likely not buy the latest iPhone in March knowing that a new model would be released in six months. As it was two months after the release, consumers would still be keen to buy the phone.

When first releasing the campaign, Apple had the design of the billboard on their website's homepage. This was most likely done to have its viewers, who were most likely already in the market for a new iPhone as they were on the website, to see it then go into a store to trade in their old iPhone for the reduced price iPhone XR. The campaign was then brought onto social media and billboards to reach a wider audience who may not have necessarily wanted a new iPhone until seeing the advertisement.

Campaign 2: Unicef ENDViolence Campaign

Aims and Objectives
Unicef has always been a charity that had a mission statement to protect children. As Unicef is a charity that has been operating for more than 70 years, they have a large team of people who can spot trends happening and that can use social media very well in order to gain attention for various campaigns. As the #ENDViolence campaign started just before the #metoo campaign started in a time where more and more people were using social media in favour of cultural issues regarding women.

Choice of media
ENDViolence Campaign- As Unicef is a charity that has been operating for more than 70 years, they have a large team of people who can spot trends happening and that can use social media very well in order to gain attention for various campaigns. As the #ENDViolence campaign started just before the #metoo campaign started in a time where more and more people were using social media in favour of cultural issues regarding women.

Target Audience
Because large amounts of different types of people are on Twitter, and because money would donated to the charity when retweeted, Unicef's main target audience socially conscious people who use Twitter. They purposely chose Twitter because they knew if some of their target audience wouldn't donate to the cause, they'd share it meaning that two things would happen. First being that money would still be donated to the campaign because they people sharing the link would recognise that they would still be donating to the campaign without losing any of their own money. As well as this, more people would still see the campaign after it was shared meaning that it would have the potential to restart the cycle over and over again reaching social medias like Facebook until everyone saw the campaign and it eventually lost steam.

Approach

The ENDViolence campaign was retweeted on the social media platform Twitter millions of times meaning that it could potentially have been seen by hundreds of millions of people. As well as this, Unicef have sponsored multiple sports teams in the past including the Football giant Barcelona for a number of years meaning their brand would have been seen by billions of people around the world for that sponsorship alone. Overall the campaign was extremely successful as Unicef measured a large percentage increase of funds for the cause. They did this by having people answer whether or not they were aware of the campaign when donating money. Unicef will measure the impact on cause awareness by tracking how many people follow them on social media, how many people have viewed their campaign videos, their celebrity and sports team endorsements.

Key Messages

When shown the campaign, viewers would understand that its ultimate goal is to end violence against women and children as Unicef rebranded their website homepage to display the main photos of the campaign and whenever the hashtag was used on Twitter, a hyperlink to the website would accompany it. As well as this, viewers were notified that $1 would be donated to the campaign when they shared the link giving them an incentive to do so as the campaign's target audience was socially conscious people. This way people would keep on seeing the campaign on different social medias donating money be either sharing it or donating themselves until the campaign was seen by everyone.

Approach

Originally, Unicef used their footage on photos on their website first before encouraging Twitter users to share the hashtag. This was so they could receive donations from people interested in the charity as a whole or were giving to the cause anyway. This was purposely done by Unicef as their primary target audience was socially conscious people. Because users of Twitter who viewed the advertisement were notified that $1 would be donated to charity each time they shared the link, the campaign got around quickly. Therefore, approaching the campaign by putting it on Twitter was Unicef's smartest decision, especially considering that users tended to share and use hashtags more often on Twitter than other social medias such as AOL or Facebook.

Representation

The main message in the EndViolence campaign was to urge people to donate and share to help Unicef on their mission to 'End Violence' against women and children around the world. This was a specifically chosen issue because despite Unicef usually only focusing on children and children's rights, they also wanted to focus on women's issues because a large amount of people at the time were focused on the subject partially due to the viral nature of the #metoo movement which most likely caused Unicef to also have Twitter, the main platform of the #metoo movement, to be the main medium of the #ENDViolence campaign.

Campaign Logistics

The campaign originally started on June 11th 2018 when Unicef uploaded the campaign's facts and footage onto their website before adding an interview of a young girl who experienced corporal violence when growing up onto their Youtube channel. This was a very smart move by Unicef because it allowed them to give information to people who visited the website, and those who saw their videos on more mainstream forms of communication such as Twitter and Youtube who wanted to find out more information about the cause could click the link included to do so where they could also donate to the same cause.

A week later, Unicef brought the campaign onto Twitter which ended up being the main platform as the campaign went viral eventually having the hashtag shared millions of times most likely because users were notified that $1 would be given to the cause every time they used the hashtag. The adding of the campaign onto Twitter lead to its viral nature mainly due to two reasons. The first being that there was already a large following of the campaign because of the several videos added by Unicef onto Youtube and because of the information on the website which lead to donations. The second reason being that Unicef already had a large following on Twitter (now at 7.6 million). Because the target audience of the campaign consisted of socially conscious people who were on Twitter, the hashtag quickly spread eventually making it to Twitter's top trending topics for several consecutive weeks during the beginning of the campaign causing it to spread even more especially because the K-Pop band BTS helped promote the campaign and helped raise over $1 million for the campaign. Unicef most likely had BTS help promote the campaign because they are known widely in Asia and are becoming increasingly popular in the Western mainstream.

Originally, Unicef used their footage on photos on their website first before encouraging Twitter users to share the hashtag. This was so they could receive donations from people interested in the charity as a whole or were giving to the cause anyway.

Choice of Media

Unicef decided to advertise their campaign on social medias such as Facebook and Twitter because they have seen other social movements, such as #metoo, become viral because of the sharing nature the sites have. They could therefore reach more people, therefore ensuring more donations.

Call To Action

When confronted with the campaign, viewers would most likely click on the hashtag if they saw it on social media. From there they would be redirected to the Unicef account on said social media which would have information about the cause and would provide a link to their website where they could donate any amount of money they deem right.

Legal and Ethical Issues

When making the campaign no legal issues came across Unicef. However, when taking photos of the women and children they were trying to help in struggling countries, ethical issues began. This is because most of these women and children probably didn't consent to photos being taken of them because the photographers most likely took advantage of many of these developing countries' consent laws to take photos of them possibly without their knowledge of what it will be used for or if a photo is being of them at all. Therefore, if the majority of people found out about these potential unethical problems from Unicef, there would most likely be large debate about the legitimacy of a charity that is truly trying to do good which could have potentially hindered the EndViolence campaign's earnings and therefore success.

Regulatory Bodies
As the campaign wasn't shown on television, OFCOM wasn't involved with Unicef. However, if Unicef planned to show an advertisement on television and wanted to use similar images and footage as what they used on social media, there may have been an issue. This is because the footage of children and women in less than desirable environments could be considered to not be appropriate for some audiences, such as children. This would most likely have resulted in Unicef having to air the advertisement at non-prime viewing times ultimately meaning that they would get less viewers of the advertisement and therefore less money donated to the cause.

Because it was a campaign shown internationally primarily on social media, the ASA was not needed when Unicef wanted permission to show their advertisement in the UK. This would have lead to the ASA potentially not allowing to show their advertisement on mediums such as billboards or on television. If Unicef's marketing strategy was to mainly use these types of advertising then their campaign would be most likely unsuccessful. Therefore no regulatory bodies were needed for Unicef's campaign in the UK as Unicef made the right choice by using social medias as their main advertising medium. However, if Unicef decided to use advertising mediums such as billboards and television ads and didn't show any graphic images, meaning there would be no issue from any regulatory bodies, they could have potentially shown it to more people resulting in more money donated to the cause.

M1 (U20): Evaluate different cross media advertising campaigns for consistency of message

iPhone XR
The iPhone XR had a focus on different mediums of advertisement strategies ranging from social media, billboards to their own websites. This strategy worked especially well because their products are bought by most people and their campaign was aimed to target most people, hence the billboards, but more importantly teenagers, hence their use of social medias. 

Throughout the campaign the message was fairly consistent as for advertising mediums such as billboards, most of their social media campaigning and the homepage of their website, the same graphic was used showing the iPhone XR, its strengths compared to the other iPhone models and most importantly, its price (most important because it is bigger and bolder than the other points and because it was Apple's main selling point). Overall the campaign was a massive success because it successfully hit Apple's goal which was to improve the iPhone XR's sales from the previous quarter. In fact, the devices sales were so good that it outsold the company's more luxurious models, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max in January the next year.

Synergy can be demonstrated in the advertising campaign through this Indian poster and this American billboard for the product. Despite having different backgrounds, both advertisements show the same shot of the product displaying what the screen looks like, the back of the phone and most importantly what the phone would look like in black demonstrating that the phone could have colour, appealing to Apple's younger target audience as well as its older who would most likely opt for a neutral tone. Most importantly, however, both advertisements show the same phone with the same colour displaying the same image overall creating synergy for the campaign.

Apple's iPhone design has become iconic, with its shape easily identifiable. Therefore, a consistent message is created by letting the phone 'do the talking'. The phone itself is always featured in their advertising, with the page generally uncluttered. This emphasises the phone's sleek, modern design, and its overall usability. The US poster is especially effective because there is virtually no text on it - simply, the name of the product. Apple always do presentations when new phones come out, in which the CEO describes the phone's features. These are shared via press releases and social media, and generate a flurry of interest as a]soon as the new iPhone is announced. For this reason, the ad campaigns themselves can afford to be fairly minimalist. In the CEO talks, the same uncluttered design is used for the backdrop of the stage, all of which is used to demonstrate the phone's ergonomic design.

Overall, the message is very consistent, and this is why the brand can essentially sell itself now; people will buy it simply because of the associations the company has already built up in the public eye.

UNICEF #ENDViolence

The #ENDViolence campaign was set up by Unicef as a way to 'end violence' against women and children in struggling nations around the world. The campaign was originally meant to be solely on Twitter and on Unicef's website homepage, however the cause was so successful that it was eventually shared onto Facebook becoming viral on there as well. The main message of the campaign was shown on Unicef's homepage, their Twitter and eventually on Facebook explaining Unicef's mission to end violence against women and children to the campaign's viewers. As the message was shown on all of the mediums of media Unicef used, there was overall a good consistency. Overall the legitimacy of the campaign's success is debatable. The campaign did in fact raise a large amount of money for the cause and awareness was spread throughout the internet due to the viral nature of the campaign, however despite the campaign's name, Unicef were most likely unable to 'end violence' against all women and children throughout the world. Therefore from a practical standpoint the campaign was a complete success, however from a literal standpoint it wasn't.

Above are the two images Unicef used for their ENDViolence campaign on their Twitter and on their website. Unicef most likely used these two images to draw in a mainstream audience on the platform with the larger amount of users, Twitter, with a celebrity sponsor and an image that didn't show what the campaign was truly about. The image on their website was then more conveying of what the campaign was really about and trying to solve. Despite using this strategy to bring in more donations, Unicef lost synergy for the campaign.

One way in which the message is consistent, and synergy exists, is through the use of colour. The blue used is the same as that of the Unicef logo. This is a recognisable 'brand' around the world, and the blue is associated with it. Therefore, using that colour as the main palette across the different media reinforces the branding. Similarly, across both of the adverts, a plain, sans-serif font is used, which is the same as that for the logo itself. The use of sans-serif font demonstrates the simple message the brand is conveying, and this is supported by the plain, bold hashtag: End violence.

Additionally, in both the ads, the use of children reinforces specifically who the charity is supporting. The use of different races and ethnicities suggests this is a global programme aimed at helping people in many different countries across the world.

Overall Apple's campaign had a much more consistent message. This was shown through their social media and billboards which consistently showed the same images and messages with the same points about how the phone is better than its competitors and its functions that are better than Apple's previous models. Despite the ENDViolence campaign's success, it had less consistency of message through its advertising. This was mainly due to the different mediums of advertising they used varying from social media, to their website to celebrity endorsement. The problem with using so many mediums of advertising is that there are different standards of wording depending on the platform. For example, Twitter only allowed 140 characters per tweet meaning that Unicef wouldn't have been able to share as much information on their Twitter end of the campaign (the large majority) as they would have on their website resulting in an unbalanced consistency of message throughout the campaign. As Apple's campaign was very minimalistic with images only of the product, a black background and little wording about its price, name and features, Apple were able to streamline the consistency of their advertisements' message throughout the campaign ultimately resulting in Apple's message being more consistent.



Describes the media products for the advertising industry, including an assessment of the way in which products are adapted, and institutions create brands and cross-media products across platforms to engage audiences. You must add in supporting visual images.  (U24:P1)

There are many platforms a business cold use to promote a product. These include:
Radio
Billboards
Television
Internet
Mail
Social Media
Transportation
Sponsorships

The iPhone XR $449 campaign that took place during 2018 consisted of:
Billboard
Internet
Social Media

Social media had the original intention of being a streamlined way in which friends could send messages and pictures to one another via the internet. However recently, the businesses running the social medias realised that there was huge economic potential from other corporations willing to use their platforms for advertising. On the social media Instagram, companies would tend to pay the social media giant Facebook (the owner of Instagram) directly to advertise their products. Instagram would then use their algorithm to advertise the companies' products to users of the social media that have shown interest in said product. During the iPhone XR campaign, Apple made use of their 15.9 million followers by showcasing their latest phones, including the iPhone XR. This is because Apple realised that a higher percentage their followers would be more interested in the iPhone XR than the percentage interested in the phone that made up the entire Instagram user base simple because those following went out of their way to follow Apple to find out about the latest updates in the company. As well as this, Apple used Instagram's algorithm to have paid advertisements for the phone to show up in people who have shown interest in the product's feed.

Throughout the Instagram campaign, the same font was used with the same background using similar images suggesting a strong  consistency of aesthetics. Because the same deal on the product and the same points arguing for the strengths of the iPhone XR compared to its more luxurious models there is an overall strong consistency of message throughout the campaign.

Apple also used Facebook to advertise the iPhone XR to their secondary audiences (over twenties) despite having the majority of their social media campaign on Instagram. This was because of Instagram's younger user base than that of Facebook and because the product's primary target audience being teenagers. Because of the younger user base, Apple realised that it would be more beneficial to advertise more on Instagram because younger audiences are much more impressionable. However, Apple used a similar technique to advertise the iPhone XR on Facebook as on Instagram, mainly because the two social medias use the same advertising algorithm because Instagram is owned by Facebook. Not only did Apple advertise the iPhone XR using Facebook's algorithm to people who have showed interest in the product, but they also posted it on their personal page for free publicity that they could control. The reason why Apple used Facebook to advertise the iPhone XR for its secondary target audience is because Facebook's user base is significantly older than that of Instagram's despite both social medias having the same minimum age to sign up being thirteen.

Throughout the Facebook campaign, the same font was used with the same background using similar images suggesting a strong  consistency of aesthetics. Due to the same deal on the product and the same points arguing for the strengths of the iPhone XR compared to its more luxurious models there is an overall strong consistency of message throughout the campaign.

Billboards usually have large amounts of colour and lightly coloured backgrounds to attract onlookers, pictures of the product being advertised and the name of the product or campaign that is being promoted with very little writing as to not distract the onlookers from the main image usually being the product advertised. Traditionally Apple have had very successful campaigns that stuck with a similar formula with a minimalist design and a splash of colour when showcasing their campaign or product. This can be shown in Apple's 'think different' campaign. However, unconventionally for Apple, the iPhone XR campaign showed a black background, a large amount of writing and the iPhone XR products taking very little space in the billboard. This was most likely because the campaign was to promote a price reduction for the product which Apple rarely do. Because the campaign was designed to help convince consumers to buy the iPhone XR over its more luxurious models, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max (because they hindered the iPhone XR's sales in the first place), more writing was required to help sell the model.

Throughout the billboard aspect of the campaign, the same font was used with the same background using similar images suggesting a strong  consistency of aesthetics. Due to the same deal on the product and the same points arguing for the strengths of the iPhone XR compared to its more luxurious models there is an overall strong consistency of message throughout the campaign. However, in an unspecified amount of billboards (like the one below) there is a lack of points arguing for the strengths of the iPhone XR suggesting that there is a loose lack of message across the iPhone XR billboard campaign.

Apple have traditionally used their website for two things: to help customers with their products in the comfort of their homes by communicating via the website and to sell their products. However recently Apple have been advertising the products, deals and often prices of their products on the homepage of their website. This is because Apple realise that not all customers may know about various deals and price breaks that the company is offering. As well as this, the company realised that if customers are on their website in the first place, they would be more likely to be in the market for a new product than the general public.

Throughout the internet aspect of the campaign, the same font was used with the same background using similar images suggesting a strong  consistency of aesthetics. Due to the same deal on the product and the same points arguing for the strengths of the iPhone XR compared to its more luxurious models there is an overall strong consistency of message throughout the campaign. However, as shown below, a price change was given with a separate deal advertising to customers that they could also get the product for $19.99 a month rather than the one time fee of $449 suggesting a lack of consistency of message in the internet aspect of the campaign.