Task 8 Evaluate the adverts (Unit 20: M3,D2)
Explain how the created media components comply with the codes and conventions of the media sectors (U20 M3)
For our television advertisement, we were heavily inspired by the idea of infomercials by both their large viewerships by our older demographic and the comedic element our younger demographic would see in them. This can be shown by the huge social media views and followings of Infomercial hosts such as Phil Swift, Billy Mays and products such as Oxi Clean, the Flex seal range of products and the Slap Chop. Because of the huge numbers of views and likes the videos showcasing these products by their hosts get, and because those video sharing websites' main demographics consist of teenagers (the younger target audience), it seemed like a good idea to base the video around the infomercial premise. The idea to make the video look old by putting a grainy filter over it and by filming the video in a 3:2 ratio was purposely done to appeal to the older demographic by giving the advertisement an aesthetic similar to that of an old television advert. The bad green screen and purposefully bad editing was also done for two reasons being that it would add to the comedic value of the video as shown in the Jonah Hill Palace x Reebok advertisement (which we ere heavily inspired by) which would help appeal to the product's younger demographic, and because it would add to the idea that the advertisement was a cheap infomercial.
The infomercial theme was carried out in the rest of the advertising campaign. Not only did this add synergy to the campaign, but Phizz Wizzard's drink competitors such as Pepsi use pop culture figures and celebrities in their advertising campaign, so it made sense to use the 'celebrity' Phil Chase. Both the billboard and magazine advertisements show graphics that would usually be displayed on old infomercials such as a 'call now' sign and 'order now' further displaying the campaign's synergy and keeping up the theme of it being an infomercial. However, unlike these advertisements, my billboard and magazine advertisements had the hashtag "PheelthePhizz" to take advantage of the social medias that people would have more access to now than in the 90's. This hashtag also gave the campaign a slogan and engaged the product's audience, presumably the younger demographic a it more.
In both advertisements, there was purposefully placed and edited green screen who's purpose was to create a sense that the advertisement was done in a cheap way suggesting to the audience that neither company took themselves or the products they were selling seriously. As well as this, both advertisements subtly show the products that they are selling whilst using words that put them in a positive light for the viewer such as the use of "delicious" (Phizz Wizzard's advertisement) and "wow (Palace's advertisement) keeping up the idea that the advertisements are mocking themselves and pointing out their own flaws to the public creating a sense if safety with the company whilst also having the ulterior motive of actually selling the product once this feeling of safety has been established.
In addition to this, when showcasing my product in the Phizz Wizzard film advertisement, I purposefully edited in the two other products that come to mind when one thought about Phizz Wizzard which were strawberry laces and strawberries. Because both products are red, as is the Phizz Wizzard logo, synergy is established further implementing into my audience brains when they see the logo that it should be associated with both strawberries and strawberry laces and if they enjoy those consuming those foods, they would enjoy my product.
The Planning of the Television Advert
When planning the television advert, we had to ensure that each component would cater to the listed codes and conventions of what should be achieved in the video and how. Said components include a written plan for our three adverts, a production schedule, the legal and ethical issues, story boards, the treatment, a mood board research into competitor adverts, the legal and ethical issues, visualisation diagrams, a location recce and a risk assessment. Each of these helped us when making the advert with them showing how we should write, plan and film the advertisement.
Written plan: This helped us early on in the process when writing down the ideas we got and helped us explain what we would be doing for each of the adverts in detail so we could see if they made sense. This was the first step in the process of making the advertisement which lead us to the treatment once we finalised the process of choosing one of our ideas.
The treatment: This was a short sentence/paragraph of the advertisement ensuring that its concept would be simple thus ensuring that my team and I wouldn't overcomplicate the project.
Research into competitor adverts: This became useful when it came to understanding the techniques that other brands used to sell their soda products and what genres of advertisements they used. In the end, my team and I decided to use comedy to sell Phizz Wizzard. A genre Pepsi used for their Half Time Super Bowl Advertisement in 2019.
Mood board: This helped my team and I find out techniques other companies used to sell their products. Because we were going to film in an infomercial format to sell a soda, the primary images on the mood board were drink competitors and other famous infomercials.
The Legal and Ethical Constraints: Before we were going to write a script, we had to refer to the legal and ethical constraints to ensure that nothing we were planning to film was going to be over the line or show the product in a negative way. Because of the comedic nature of the script, we had to use the legal and ethical constraints when editing out parts that came across too savoury in said script.
Storyboarding: When choosing what we wanted to be shown in the advertisement, we put it down in the storyboard. Along with the mise en scene, we also included the various visual effects, music and sound effects that were going to be included in the project.
Production schedule: The production schedule's purpose was to show the cast and crew what needed to be done to help contribute to the making of the advertisement and at what time we needed to do said tasks.
Risk assessment: This helped us see what potential risks there might be when filming and how we can avoid these issues. This is a code and convention as we can discuss how we can avoid these issues to get our adverts done in time without any problems occurring.
Visualisation diagrams: This helped us plan the magazine and billboard advertisements and gave us a brief outline of how we wanted it to look. We first drew it on paper as a sketch as to not waste time using resources to actually produce the advertisements. In the end, we decided to keep the idea of the infomercial being the theme of the advertisement campaign.
Location recce: This helped us identify where we could film our video and what potential problems could occur when filming there. This is a code and convention of planning the video as we need to look for where are good places to film and as the entire advertisement was filmed in front of a green screen, similar to that of an infomercial, we decided to take advantage of the fact that our school had one and film there.
Technical
The technical properties of my video were demonstrated during the editing process. Because of the large use of a green screen in every shot of the advertisement, my team and I didn't hesitate to take advantage of this to feature backgrounds that both had to do with the product we were advertising, such as strawberries, strawberry laces and soda as well as more realistic backgrounds to make it seem believable that our actors were being filmed in a real location. These included places such as an office, a school and a living room.
The idea to film in a 3:2 ratio and to purposely make the video grainy, similar to that of a VHS tape was done to cater to the older demographic that my product was marketing towards which consisted of 30-40 year olds as instructed to do so in the brief. Because of this age's large consumption of VHS tapes and Infomercials when they were younger, the idea to make our advertisement parodic of that seemed like a good idea. Another visual technical feature in the advertisement was the idea to use transitional wipes and to have Phil Chase take advantage of said effects and do actions that complimented them. This, in turn, catered to both target audiences as it added comedy to the video (the 13-18 year old demographic which I was told to target in the brief) and was an effect heavily used in films and TV in the 1980s and 1990s (like in the heavily popular Star Wars films) therefore catering to the older demographic.
The editing in of sound in the advertisement consisted of three items. Those being the background music throughout the majority of the advertisement titled Bossa Novak Musak (commonly known as elevator music), the music heard at the very end of the advertisement when viewers were shown how they could order the product and the editing in of the sound made when opening the Phizz Wizzard can. The song Bossa Novak Musak was chosen for two main reasons. The first being that it is prominent in the Infomercial genre to have cheap music that has been heard large amounts of times to faintly be in the background to give the viewer of the infomercial the idea that they have a sense of welcoming with the product therefore helping keep with the genre of the video. The second reason is that the very same song has been featured as the main background music in the highly popular Indonesian rapper Rich Brian's song History. Because of the success of the song and because Rich Brian's fan base consists of mainly 15-25 year olds, the choice of music helped when catering to the younger demographic.
The song heard at the end of the advertisement was chosen because it was going to be the main sound going to be heard by the viewer and when playing around with the sounds when editing the video, it didn't make sense to increase the volume of Bossa Novak Musak. The third and last edited in sound was that of the opening of a can. This was used because the Phizz Wizzard can featured in the video was already opened on a previous take so for the sake of the environment, it was chosen not to waste said can. All the sounds in the video were free for use by the musicians. This was very important for my team because we didn't want to end up like another group who used music illegally without asking and ended up getting copyright strikes on YouTube multiple times which in turn bring down the legitimacy of the advertisement and put the company Phizz Wizzard in a bad light which is the opposite of what the brief instructed us to do.
For our television advertisement, we were heavily inspired by the idea of infomercials by both their large viewerships by our older demographic and the comedic element our younger demographic would see in them. This can be shown by the huge social media views and followings of Infomercial hosts such as Phil Swift, Billy Mays and products such as Oxi Clean, the Flex seal range of products and the Slap Chop. Because of the huge numbers of views and likes the videos showcasing these products by their hosts get, and because those video sharing websites' main demographics consist of teenagers (the younger target audience), it seemed like a good idea to base the video around the infomercial premise. The idea to make the video look old by putting a grainy filter over it and by filming the video in a 3:2 ratio was purposely done to appeal to the older demographic by giving the advertisement an aesthetic similar to that of an old television advert. The bad green screen and purposefully bad editing was also done for two reasons being that it would add to the comedic value of the video as shown in the Jonah Hill Palace x Reebok advertisement (which we ere heavily inspired by) which would help appeal to the product's younger demographic, and because it would add to the idea that the advertisement was a cheap infomercial.
The infomercial theme was carried out in the rest of the advertising campaign. Not only did this add synergy to the campaign, but Phizz Wizzard's drink competitors such as Pepsi use pop culture figures and celebrities in their advertising campaign, so it made sense to use the 'celebrity' Phil Chase. Both the billboard and magazine advertisements show graphics that would usually be displayed on old infomercials such as a 'call now' sign and 'order now' further displaying the campaign's synergy and keeping up the theme of it being an infomercial. However, unlike these advertisements, my billboard and magazine advertisements had the hashtag "PheelthePhizz" to take advantage of the social medias that people would have more access to now than in the 90's. This hashtag also gave the campaign a slogan and engaged the product's audience, presumably the younger demographic a it more.
In both advertisements, there was purposefully placed and edited green screen who's purpose was to create a sense that the advertisement was done in a cheap way suggesting to the audience that neither company took themselves or the products they were selling seriously. As well as this, both advertisements subtly show the products that they are selling whilst using words that put them in a positive light for the viewer such as the use of "delicious" (Phizz Wizzard's advertisement) and "wow (Palace's advertisement) keeping up the idea that the advertisements are mocking themselves and pointing out their own flaws to the public creating a sense if safety with the company whilst also having the ulterior motive of actually selling the product once this feeling of safety has been established.
The Planning of the Television Advert
When planning the television advert, we had to ensure that each component would cater to the listed codes and conventions of what should be achieved in the video and how. Said components include a written plan for our three adverts, a production schedule, the legal and ethical issues, story boards, the treatment, a mood board research into competitor adverts, the legal and ethical issues, visualisation diagrams, a location recce and a risk assessment. Each of these helped us when making the advert with them showing how we should write, plan and film the advertisement.
Written plan: This helped us early on in the process when writing down the ideas we got and helped us explain what we would be doing for each of the adverts in detail so we could see if they made sense. This was the first step in the process of making the advertisement which lead us to the treatment once we finalised the process of choosing one of our ideas.
The treatment: This was a short sentence/paragraph of the advertisement ensuring that its concept would be simple thus ensuring that my team and I wouldn't overcomplicate the project.
Research into competitor adverts: This became useful when it came to understanding the techniques that other brands used to sell their soda products and what genres of advertisements they used. In the end, my team and I decided to use comedy to sell Phizz Wizzard. A genre Pepsi used for their Half Time Super Bowl Advertisement in 2019.
Mood board: This helped my team and I find out techniques other companies used to sell their products. Because we were going to film in an infomercial format to sell a soda, the primary images on the mood board were drink competitors and other famous infomercials.
The Legal and Ethical Constraints: Before we were going to write a script, we had to refer to the legal and ethical constraints to ensure that nothing we were planning to film was going to be over the line or show the product in a negative way. Because of the comedic nature of the script, we had to use the legal and ethical constraints when editing out parts that came across too savoury in said script.
Storyboarding: When choosing what we wanted to be shown in the advertisement, we put it down in the storyboard. Along with the mise en scene, we also included the various visual effects, music and sound effects that were going to be included in the project.
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| My film was shot frame by frame to the storyboard. However, because of scheduling conflicts, my team and I didn't have access to a couch or to a table top so we decided to cut them from the scenes. All of the shots used directly from the storyboard have been the same distance from the test subject as planned. All graphics added and special effects described in the storyboard were used in the final product. |
Production schedule: The production schedule's purpose was to show the cast and crew what needed to be done to help contribute to the making of the advertisement and at what time we needed to do said tasks.
Risk assessment: This helped us see what potential risks there might be when filming and how we can avoid these issues. This is a code and convention as we can discuss how we can avoid these issues to get our adverts done in time without any problems occurring.
Visualisation diagrams: This helped us plan the magazine and billboard advertisements and gave us a brief outline of how we wanted it to look. We first drew it on paper as a sketch as to not waste time using resources to actually produce the advertisements. In the end, we decided to keep the idea of the infomercial being the theme of the advertisement campaign.
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| The visualisation diagram was almost exactly the same as the finished product with the few differences being the background aesthetic and the attention to detail regarding the payments accepted |
Location recce: This helped us identify where we could film our video and what potential problems could occur when filming there. This is a code and convention of planning the video as we need to look for where are good places to film and as the entire advertisement was filmed in front of a green screen, similar to that of an infomercial, we decided to take advantage of the fact that our school had one and film there.
Demonstrate how the technical and aesthetic properties of the media components meet the client brief (U20 D2)
Technical
The idea to film in a 3:2 ratio and to purposely make the video grainy, similar to that of a VHS tape was done to cater to the older demographic that my product was marketing towards which consisted of 30-40 year olds as instructed to do so in the brief. Because of this age's large consumption of VHS tapes and Infomercials when they were younger, the idea to make our advertisement parodic of that seemed like a good idea. Another visual technical feature in the advertisement was the idea to use transitional wipes and to have Phil Chase take advantage of said effects and do actions that complimented them. This, in turn, catered to both target audiences as it added comedy to the video (the 13-18 year old demographic which I was told to target in the brief) and was an effect heavily used in films and TV in the 1980s and 1990s (like in the heavily popular Star Wars films) therefore catering to the older demographic.
 |
| Mid90s was a 2018 film with a 3:2 aspect ration made on 24mm. Both choices were made to appeal to a 20-30 year old target audience |
The editing in of sound in the advertisement consisted of three items. Those being the background music throughout the majority of the advertisement titled Bossa Novak Musak (commonly known as elevator music), the music heard at the very end of the advertisement when viewers were shown how they could order the product and the editing in of the sound made when opening the Phizz Wizzard can. The song Bossa Novak Musak was chosen for two main reasons. The first being that it is prominent in the Infomercial genre to have cheap music that has been heard large amounts of times to faintly be in the background to give the viewer of the infomercial the idea that they have a sense of welcoming with the product therefore helping keep with the genre of the video. The second reason is that the very same song has been featured as the main background music in the highly popular Indonesian rapper Rich Brian's song History. Because of the success of the song and because Rich Brian's fan base consists of mainly 15-25 year olds, the choice of music helped when catering to the younger demographic.
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| The video and therefore the song's popularity is demonstrated through the amount of views and likes it got. |
The song heard at the end of the advertisement was chosen because it was going to be the main sound going to be heard by the viewer and when playing around with the sounds when editing the video, it didn't make sense to increase the volume of Bossa Novak Musak. The third and last edited in sound was that of the opening of a can. This was used because the Phizz Wizzard can featured in the video was already opened on a previous take so for the sake of the environment, it was chosen not to waste said can. All the sounds in the video were free for use by the musicians. This was very important for my team because we didn't want to end up like another group who used music illegally without asking and ended up getting copyright strikes on YouTube multiple times which in turn bring down the legitimacy of the advertisement and put the company Phizz Wizzard in a bad light which is the opposite of what the brief instructed us to do.
Aesthetic
The aesthetic of the advertisement was shown on screen by the actors involved as well as in the editing of the advertisement and by extension of that- different effects used. Because the advertisement, in nature, was meant to be parodic of that of an infomercial, the main actor's upbeat attitude towards the showing of the product was meant to be a mimic of infomercial hosts such as Phil Swift, Billy Mays and Vince with Slap Chop who use language such as "Hi (insert name here) with (insert product here)" or "Don't just take my word for it! Here are the words of some satisfied customers)." This aesthetic was also carried out with the secondary actors, the "satisfied customers" who, like in infomercials, were not genuinely excited to share their good experiences with the product, yet were speaking highly of it. The aesthetic was also shown in the editing of the advertisement with the grainy layer, 3:2 ratio and wacky transitional wipes all of which helped add to the idea of that the advertisement was meant to be similar to that of a 1980s/1990s infomercial.
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