Advertising Principles & Practice
7th Jan - 22nd Feb '19 (W1-W7)
Jaslyn Tjhai (0333039)
Advertising Principles & Practice
Project
LECTURES
WEEK 1
1st Lecture
Mr. Vinod begin the lecture by asking the class Why are we learning advertising? where along with other students who gave an answer from their own understanding, I provided an answer based on my understanding as well, We learn advertising in order to figure out how to market certain products to customers. Mr. Vinod asked a follow up question about the definition of advertising. A few keywords was mentioned: promoting, attraction, noticing products.
Mr. Vinod begin the lecture by asking the class Why are we learning advertising? where along with other students who gave an answer from their own understanding, I provided an answer based on my understanding as well, We learn advertising in order to figure out how to market certain products to customers. Mr. Vinod asked a follow up question about the definition of advertising. A few keywords was mentioned: promoting, attraction, noticing products.
Mr. Vinod then officially started the lecture. From the lecture, a few things I learned is that advertorial is advert in disguise in the form of article while advertisement is the real advert itself. Where as articles that are not paid for is called publicity. I also learned about the 10 principles of advertising:
- Go to the essence of the product, the core value, unique-selling proposition/point (USP), or single-minded proposition (SMP)
- Make the product the actor of the scene
- Art and copy must be fully integrated as a unit
- Advertisement must pop up, having a visual impact
- It is useless to employ gimmick (overused strategy)
- Honesty, be close to honest, focusing on the positive instead of the negativity of the product
- Relevance
- Simplicity
- Playing safe might backfire
- Stand out
2nd Lecture
Today's lecture was about Advertising & Marketing where from the lecture, I learned that it is a multi-billion dollar industry where it identifies and anticipates customer desire. Mr. Vinod also mentioned how instead of mass-marketing, there's a new current trend where targeted desire is being looked at. He then moved on to the definition of marketing where from what I understand, I summarize the whole definition of marketing as activity to communicate to customers in order to sell a certain product/service to them.
Mr. Vinod explained in his lecture that there are 4P's of marketing, which we won't be diving deeper into is as it is more for marketing students. The 4P's include: product, price, place, and promotional strategy. Promotional strategy is where it is an advertiser's job.
Mr. Vinod also explained how marketing is not just about selling a product but developing demands from customers for them to fulfill their need by using the products marketed.
He then moved on to decoding which is the process of dissecting an advert. Decoding an advert can be done by identifying the proposition (USP/SMP), the creative idea, strategy, and also the elements. He also explained a little bit about Single-Ad, which is an ad with only one concept for that one ad; and Ad-Campaign, which is an ad that has different concepts.
One key thing I learned from today's class is that Mr. Vinod said that you should always SELL YOURSELF SIMPLY.
WEEK 2
1st Lecture
Mr. Vinod begins today's class by giving us an informal lecture regarding design thinking where he define it as a model that designers do to breakdown the processes of thinking. He explained that the first step to this is always empathy, which is the process of experiencing a certain situation where by sympathy is only looking at a certain situation but not experiencing it. We then do researches to gain insights, followed by dissecting the brief and categorizing it, then we start analyzing and evaluating, and finally synthesizing it and coming up with an idea. One thing Mr. Vinod told us during this informal lecture is that explaining the process is very important in order to win the hearts and minds.
After this short informal lecture, Mr. Vinod started the real lecture on the roles of an art director. He started by defining who an art director is where from the lecture and definitions, I understood it this way.
Art Director is the person who's responsible in crafting messages, deciding on visual approaches while working with copywriter to come up with ideas. They are the ones who enhances the overall visual elements and overall effect of the idea.
Copywriter is the person who's in charge of creating the content based on the feel of the work.
Art Direction is how a certain work of art feels.
Mr. Vinod then showed us a statement that says
In advertising, the art director simply 'borrows' from the world around us, and recreates new things out of it.
He then ended the lecture by showing us that
A creative idea = unique selling proposition + something unrelated
2nd Lecture
Today's lecture was regarding idea sketches to get us a clearer understanding on what a right idea sketch should be like. Mr. Vinod explained about the importance of mind mapping as it is where you come up with ideas, develop association between all the keywords, and document your thinking. Mr. Vinod also clarified to us on the difference between idea and a concept. Idea sketch is the idea by itself, while a concept is when there's two or more ideas relating to each other. When we're doing idea sketches as well, shading/coloring isn't necessary unless required so, too much detail is also not encouraged. Then Mr. Vinod gave us an example on mind-mapping as shown below.
Art Director is the person who's responsible in crafting messages, deciding on visual approaches while working with copywriter to come up with ideas. They are the ones who enhances the overall visual elements and overall effect of the idea.
Copywriter is the person who's in charge of creating the content based on the feel of the work.
Art Direction is how a certain work of art feels.
Mr. Vinod then showed us a statement that says
In advertising, the art director simply 'borrows' from the world around us, and recreates new things out of it.
He then ended the lecture by showing us that
A creative idea = unique selling proposition + something unrelated
2nd Lecture
Today's lecture was regarding idea sketches to get us a clearer understanding on what a right idea sketch should be like. Mr. Vinod explained about the importance of mind mapping as it is where you come up with ideas, develop association between all the keywords, and document your thinking. Mr. Vinod also clarified to us on the difference between idea and a concept. Idea sketch is the idea by itself, while a concept is when there's two or more ideas relating to each other. When we're doing idea sketches as well, shading/coloring isn't necessary unless required so, too much detail is also not encouraged. Then Mr. Vinod gave us an example on mind-mapping as shown below.
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| Fig. 1.a. Mind-map from class |
WEEK 3
No lecture was conducted this week.
WEEK 4
Class started with informal lecture where Mr. Vinod shared about the information he gets from watching a very interesting video. He drew something on the board and asked us what we see. He then added other elements beside the thing he drew and explained how we can now categorize that thing and can confidently be sure on what the thing he drew is. With that he also correlate to the fact that the people around us define who we are. Therefore it is important to always mingle around because we are always feeding off each other, which is important. He then advised and encourage us to keep on going around, talking to people.
1st Lecture
It is a given that we should know who is our target audience and test out our ideas. Without testing out, we won't know whether or not it will work. Mr. Vinod started by asking Are you creative? He then explained that everyone is creative. Creativity is the most important. When you're able to create, you're able to solve problems, able to provide solution. It's only a fact of whether or not you make use of your creativity all the time, exercise it. Creativity doesn't only mean that you can draw. Being imaginative and creative is a different thing.
Creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to create something. Creativity requires thinking and doing/producing. Turning imagination into reality.
Why do we create? the following question asked by Mr. Vinod. Fear of missing out. There's a need to create and a need to get response. People want acknowledgements, and thus produce or create content.
In order to be creative, viewing things in different perspective and generating new possibilities is a requirement. Uniqueness, of course, is a part of it.
Creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to create something. Creativity requires thinking and doing/producing. Turning imagination into reality.
Why do we create? the following question asked by Mr. Vinod. Fear of missing out. There's a need to create and a need to get response. People want acknowledgements, and thus produce or create content.
In order to be creative, viewing things in different perspective and generating new possibilities is a requirement. Uniqueness, of course, is a part of it.
Advertising message can be in the form of headline, the main verbal message, or the visual, the main visual message. Some of the key things I learned from this lecture.
Your message is only as good as you understanding of who you are speaking to.
If you rely on what people think, your policies are going to change daily.
You vote people into power, you become powerless.
Your message is only as good as you understanding of who you are speaking to.
If you rely on what people think, your policies are going to change daily.
You vote people into power, you become powerless.
2nd Lecture
This lecture was about advertising message and choice of media. Media strategy is how media will be used to achieve the media objective stated; process of analyzing and choosing media for an advertising campaign.
Integrated Marketing Communication is creating the effective marketing strategy to achieve the goal of communicating the advertising message.
The way you talk or express the message depends on the medium. Factors in developing a media strategy includes:
This lecture was about advertising message and choice of media. Media strategy is how media will be used to achieve the media objective stated; process of analyzing and choosing media for an advertising campaign.
Integrated Marketing Communication is creating the effective marketing strategy to achieve the goal of communicating the advertising message.
The way you talk or express the message depends on the medium. Factors in developing a media strategy includes:
- Market, refers to various targets of media plans
- Money, refers to budget size and allocation
- Media, refers to communication channels available to the marketer
- Mechanics, refers to the timing and type of media
- Methodology, refers to overall media strategy
Research on media strategy for your own work is required to really figure out the most suitable choice of media. Justification is also required based on the choice of media used.
WEEK 5
No lectures was conducted this week.
WEEK 6
1st Lecture
A lecture on creative and effective advertising message for a specific target audience was given by Mr. Vinod today where he also talked about the communication and things to consider when starting an advertising campaign. In order for a campaign to work effectively, it has to work gracefully across different channels/platforms. We were also given a lecture on how to reach specific target audience based on segmentation, which was discussed weeks before as well. All in all, effective advertising depends on the synergy of visual and verbal components where it MUST work gracefully across different platforms. Product differentiation, market segmentation, as well as positioning should all be considered to make your ad more attractive to the target market.
2nd Lecture
2nd lecture is about influences of social, cultural, economic ethical, and political factors in advertising.
Advertising promotes choice, and simply reflects existing cultural values.
Other than that it also tends to promote or normalize certain types of culture where in this context is related to religion. However this is subjective as everyone will interpret differently. Therefore, advertising, other than promoting culture it also normalizes them. Economic factors also play a part. Advertising costs money and so the higher the budget for a certain ad, the bigger and longer the ad will be advertised.
A lecture on creative and effective advertising message for a specific target audience was given by Mr. Vinod today where he also talked about the communication and things to consider when starting an advertising campaign. In order for a campaign to work effectively, it has to work gracefully across different channels/platforms. We were also given a lecture on how to reach specific target audience based on segmentation, which was discussed weeks before as well. All in all, effective advertising depends on the synergy of visual and verbal components where it MUST work gracefully across different platforms. Product differentiation, market segmentation, as well as positioning should all be considered to make your ad more attractive to the target market.
2nd Lecture
2nd lecture is about influences of social, cultural, economic ethical, and political factors in advertising.
Advertising promotes choice, and simply reflects existing cultural values.
Other than that it also tends to promote or normalize certain types of culture where in this context is related to religion. However this is subjective as everyone will interpret differently. Therefore, advertising, other than promoting culture it also normalizes them. Economic factors also play a part. Advertising costs money and so the higher the budget for a certain ad, the bigger and longer the ad will be advertised.
EXERCISES
DECODING EXERCISE
This exercise was done in Week 1 where we were asked to search for advertising campaigns and try to decode them based on their proposition, creative idea, and also strategy. We went through some of our classmate's findings and discuss the ad they'd decoded. I chose the campaign by NIVEA Malaysia where the campaign is titled Turn NIVEA into a K-drama star! targeted towards Malay women.
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| Fig. 2.a. NIVEA campaign poster |
From what I understand, here are the things I identified from the decoding process:
Campaign Title : Turn NIVEA into a K-drama Star
Product : Whitening Skin Lotion by NIVEA
Idea : Film
Strategy : Base the film off K-dramas to capture Malay women's hearts
Elements : Malay actors and actresses
USP : Breaking away from superficial fairness by putting emphasis on both inner and outer radiance, giving women real confidence
Target Audience : Malay women
Product : Whitening Skin Lotion by NIVEA
Idea : Film
Strategy : Base the film off K-dramas to capture Malay women's hearts
Elements : Malay actors and actresses
USP : Breaking away from superficial fairness by putting emphasis on both inner and outer radiance, giving women real confidence
Target Audience : Malay women
One thing that was really bad based on the poster, according to Mr. Vinod, is the fact that there's no hierarchy in the typography and also specific logo on who's product it belonged to and therefore is very confusing for audience to figure out what this poster is about. However, this campaign won the APPIES Award as well.
Reference Link of Article
Reference Link of Article
MARKET SEGMENTATION EXERCISE
According to the researches that I found, here's the definition that I came up with.
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| Fig. 2.b. Behavioral segmentation definition |
Where Mr. Vinod added by saying that the main keyword for Behavioral Segmentation is repeatability as when you mention about behaviours, it's mostly about habits.
Psychographic Segmentation is more on segmentation of consumers based on their mental profile.
Demographic Segmentation is the segmentation based on their gender, age, etc.
Geographic Segmentation is the segmentation based on the consumer's location.
Psychographic Segmentation is more on segmentation of consumers based on their mental profile.
Demographic Segmentation is the segmentation based on their gender, age, etc.
Geographic Segmentation is the segmentation based on the consumer's location.
INSTRUCTIONS
PROGRESS
WEEK 1
We begin this semester by choosing one out of all the briefs found on the D&AD website that we wanted to work on. I was looking in between Workplace by Facebook and John Lewis & Partners. The reason for those two options is because for Workplace by Facebook, it's something that I can relate to since it's a platform for groups or organizations to work together which is the type of platform that I would use frequently. As for John Lewis & Partners, it's more about the experience that customer will receive through their service in gifts and other products. I was interested in this because they wanted the final work to be executed in animation and illustration which is something that I wanted to venture and develop more in terms of design. However, the hurdle from this brief is that the store is only located in the Europe and US and therefore I won't be able to get the full experience which is a disadvantage for me as it's not very clear. While the brief by Workplace by Facebook is more clear-cut and straight to the point. In the end, I decided to try and go for Workplace by Facebook.
Project Brief
Project Brief
For the first week, I mainly explored and read more about Workplace by Facebook on how it works, a few case studies from the website by companies who utilized this platform. I also did a mind-map to kind of just give me a clearer idea on the whole product by Facebook. Since the main thing is to create a campaign that showcases the benefits of Workplace by Facebook, I decided to also list down the strengths based on the researches that I found.
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| Fig. 3.a. Mind map |
I also tried working on the SWOT Analysis based on the case studies and also based on competitors that are out there, but as of now I'm still working on it. The current idea that I have in mind was to create different sets of posters, where each poster highlights different benefits from using workplace and also how all the benefits enables people to connect globally as explained on the brief. Another idea that I have in mind was to showcase the benefits of using workplace through a short animation as Facebook always provides animation to remind people on certain occasion. Example as seen below.
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| Fig. 3.b. Animation from Facebook |
WEEK 2
What I worked on for week 2 was to do some market research on C-suite level managers where as suggested by Mr. Vinod, I was asked to find out about their demographics and psychographics in order for me to decide on a strategy and direction of the integrated advertisement campaign that I plan to do. This was kind of tough for me because Workplace by Facebook is targeting the global community of C-level suite managers. With that I had to read a lot of articles and do tons of research to really understand how to reach out to the managers. Other than researching on C-level suite managers, I also did a SWOT analysis on Workplace as well as a few competitors such as G Suite and Trello. Below are my findings which you can find here.
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| Fig. 3.c. SWOT Analysis |
As for the researches I've done, information can be found in this document where the links to all the articles I read are here. From what I see, majority of the C-level suite managers are all from Generation X, based on age group. I decided to use this information as the target market for the campaign that I will be working on. I started doing some research on Generation X, they are the ones that are born in between 1965-1980, expected to contribute to the workforce by 65.8 million by 2018 (source). With that I found some of their characteristics from an article, as shown below.
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| Fig. 3.d. Characteristics of Gen X (source) |
The reason I chose to segregate them according to age group is because having different age groups makes it clearer on how to target the audience.
WEEK 3
Moving on to week 3, we were required to show some sketches this week once we're done with research. Otherwise, we can continue doing our research before doing some idea sketches. I did some sketches based on the benefits that Workplace has to offer.
From the keywords that I identified from the mind map, I tried to do another mind map based on the keywords, for me to have an idea on what kind of images to use for the words.
After mind mapping everything, I tried to look for free stock images online that I can use for my posters.
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| Fig. 3.e. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.f. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.g. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.h. Sketches |
WEEK 4
On the fourth week, I was still trying to come up with sketches. Having explored what Workplace has to offer, knowing that it's a Facebook but dedicated specially for corporations and organisations, I tried to do sketches based on the benefits I think would suit. Below are a few of my sketches.
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| Fig. 3.i. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.j. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.k. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.l. Sketches |
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| Fig. 3.m. Sketches |
WEEK 5
After getting feedback from Mr. Vinod and having a clearer direction on how I should execute my work, I started doing mind map again, this time, to see which keywords I can use for the poster that I plan to create.
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| Fig. 3.n. Mind map |
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| Fig. 3.o. Mind map based on keywords |
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| Fig. 3.p. Draft 1 |
WEEK 6
On the sixth week, after Mr. Vinod's feedback, I tried to find more visuals for my poster and finally narrowed down to these based on 5 keywords.
Time
Time
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| Fig. 3.q. Poster 1 |
Communication
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| Fig. 3.r. Poster 2 |
Collaboration
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| Fig. 3.s. Poster 3 |
Community
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| Fig. 3.t. Poster 4 |
Connection
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| Fig. 3.u. Poster 5 |
WEEK 7
For submission, we were asked to embed out presentation slide for entry purposes in our blog. Below are also a compilation of all the progress throughout the whole semester.
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| Fig. 4.a. Compilation 1 |
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| Fig. 4.b. Compilation 2 |
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| Fig. 4.c. Compilation 3 |
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| Fig. 4.d. Finalized |
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| Fig. 4.e. Compilation 4 |
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| Fig. 4.f. Finalized |
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| Fig. 4.g. Compilation 5 |
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| Fig. 4.h. Finalized |
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| Fig. 4.i. Compilation 6 |
Mock ups for the posters. I decided to use posters as the medium as it is the main thing people go for when spreading awareness and making it known to public. From my research, it is also found that C-level suite managers tend to travel all the time and therefore in order for the poster to catch their attention it has to be in places that are frequent by the target and it should be visible and therefore I opted for posters to be in billboards, banners, in airports, as well as web adverts as according to my research C-suite level managers tend to go on webs too. Having the posters in places will leave an impression and raise awareness on C-level suite managers and even employees who travels back and forth from home to work to notice.
And below will be my slides for the entry.
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| Fig. 5.a. Mock Up 1 |
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| Fig. 5.b. Mock Up 2 |
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| Fig. 5.c. Mock Up 3 |
FEEDBACK
WEEK 1
I showed Mr. Vinod my choice of brief which is John Lewis & Partners, a department store in UK well-known for their gifts, where the brief required us to come up with an animation or illustration as the final work to show audiences that their products are more than just objects, but also through the experience that customers will gained while purchasing gifts for their loved ones. However, a huge setback was the fact that this store is only available in the UK and therefore I won't be able to experience first-hand the services that it has to offer. Another thing is that I didn't properly dissect the brief yet and so it's not really clear therefore it's not a very good idea. I then presented the second brief that I was considering of taking and that is Workplace by Facebook, which is a collaboration platform from Facebook for companies and organizations to ease collaboration within organizations. Mr. Vinod said that this brief is clearer as the main purpose is to have an integrated campaign showing the benefits of using Workplace and how it can be utilized for global communication. Therefore, in the end I decided to go with Workplace by Facebook.
WEEK 2
For this week, I showed Mr. Vinod my research progress on my brief, where when I decided to mention a few of my ideas, he asked me to not move on to the ideation first before I get myself clear on the target audience and how to market to them. I was asked to continue my intense research on the target market, which is the C-level suite managers, regarding their demographics, psychographics, as well as age group to make it easier for me to categorize them. I was also asked to associate them with keywords and see how I can correlate them with what Workplace has to offer.
WEEK 4
For my second consultation, I told Mr. Vinod what I discovered upon exploring Workplace and reading tons of case studies where most of them link back to how Workplace is just like Facebook, connecting everyone globally but only within the organization or company itself. Therefore, Mr.Vinod told me to try and gather a few keywords (starting with 3) and then find images that can compliment with the keywords. Something that is not too direct but once people see it, they knew exactly what it meant.
WEEK 6
On the sixth week, I showed Mr. Vinod my first draft in which from a few that I showed, Mr. Vinod said that some were good as it is exactly as intended, indirect/metaphorical way. Mr. Vinod also asked me to work on the visuals and add a final tagline to sum up the whole idea of what Workplace is.
REFLECTION
I was interested in learning a lot of things from this module as it is kind of different from the course that I'm taking whereby we don't really learn a lot regarding branding and advertising. This was interesting as it is something that we see everyday in our lives. I was kind of worried at first when we were asked to select a brief that we are interested in working on and since no one wanted the same brief as me I had to work alone. I like doing researches and reading so that part wasn't really tough for me except when I had to come up with a conclusion and linking the whole research to the brief and project overall. But throughout this module I had quite some fun doing it and I definitely learned quite a lot in terms of advertising as well as from Mr. Vinod's feedbacks.
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