Media technologies have played a huge part throughout the course of my A2 media studies portfolio, with the most obvious example, creating this blog. 'Blogger.com' has given me the freedom to display and manage all of my work, where it can all be easily viewed in one place. Videos, sound and images can all be displayed effortlessly alongside text, to give my portfolio a professional feel.
Our research has heavily relied on media technologies throughout the course of our advertising campaign, from basic internet use, to websites such as 'YouTube'. Numerous Internet research was conducted to ensure our product was being targeted at the right audience and most importantly, to ensure our final product is deemed a success. Codes and conventions, market research, cost, audience and theories were all researched from Internet use. However, my partner and I agree that our biggest contributor to the research stage of our product, was the use of 'YouTube'. The involvement of 'YouTube' allowed us to analyse existing energy drink advertisements, produced my large, professional companies that are relevant today. 'YouTube's' comment and 'like' feature was also helpful upon our research stage, as people from around the world can leave their opinion, determining the overall success of the advert.
Various media technologies were used to help us plan for the production of our advertisement. Once we decided to implement slow motion footage into our advertisement, we knew that it would be best to test the camera before use, so we would be prepared upon filming. We used a 'Casio High Speed Exilim EX-FH20' which we tested by using various number of frame rates and different camera angle positions. A slow motion test was published in an earlier post, where we show the flicking of an ear lobe at 1,000 fps. As our advertisement would include close up shots of our product being shown, we knew we had to create an example drinks label to give our advert a professional feel. The label was created in 'Adobe Photoshop' and even though we both had little experience in this particular software, we were pleased with the final product. Basic health information and sponsors were included, with the brand name clearly visible for the viewers to easily understand what product is being shown to them. Media technologies were extremely useful upon the decision of which soundtrack we would include. We wanted a current, popular song, where people could imagine themselves exercising to the beat and tempo of the music. Radio stations, 'iTunes' and 'YouTube' were all contributors to the final decision of our song, where we finally we chose: 'Avicii - Levels'. This song was then used throughout the entire cycle of our advertising campaign, as it proved to be a popular choice from our gathered feedback.
Our main part of construction stage, was the editing of our advertisement, which was done on a 'Apple Macbook', using 'iMovie 9' software. Here we could have full control over our clips, which resulted in our initial colour idea coming to life. 'iMovie' gave us the ability to change the colour of our videos, so this way we changed the start proportion of our video to black and white. We wanted colour to resemble the emotions of our protagonist, so black and white would essentially resemble weakness and struggle. The step back into colour would then highlight the energy from our runner, accompanied with the fast beat of the music. 'iMovie' also gave us the option to include text where we added health information to meet the 'ASA' regulations. Photoshop was again used to create our Internet pop up ad, magazine poster and our end advert image, which is seen in both full and short versions. The end image seen in our sponsorship sequence was taken off my 'iPhone 4s' and then created in a application named - 'ColourSplash'. This allowed us to continue our theme of colour, as 'Regenerate' is the only part of the image in colour. We created an official website, 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' pages to support our product and to help spread awareness of our brand name.
The evaluation of my project is displayed on my blog with links to various related posts, for easy transitions between one and other. Feedback is our main form of evaluation, so using media technologies helped us increase the number of potential viewers. Once our advert was finished we uploaded it to 'YouTube', so anyone from around the world could leave an opinion, or give any constructive criticism. Social networking sites, such as 'Facebook' allowed us to widen our feedback range, to an audience that would be similar to who we are targeting. Overall my partner and I agree that without the use of media technologies, our product would not be up to the same professional standard as it is today.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Monday, 9 April 2012
In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?
We believe that throughout the development process of our television advertisement we have achieved many of the appropriate codes and conventions that were discussed in our earlier post. This also led us to the impact and variations energy drink advertisements contribute, compared to other products in the advertising business. In regards to our product, Regenerate, we believe that we have succeeded in the following areas; 'Continuas showing of brand name/product', 'Using a popular song', and 'Catch tag lines or slogan'.
As we are releasing a brand new product into a very competitive market, we knew it was crucial for our advertisement to receive numerous close ups of our brand name. This helps the viewer to easily recognise the product and not to associate it with any other energy drink brand. This was achieved by slow motion camera shots and editing techniques, which are all cleverly spaced out throughout the video to continuously remind the viewer of our brand name. This was impleneted due to the research of the 'Hypodermic Needle Theory', which suggested, repeated reminders of a brand name will stick in a consumers mind. This theory would benefit us, as a consumer may purchase our product over a competing brand, because our name is fresh in their mind from viewing the advertisement.
Choosing an appropriate soundtrack to an advertisement is vital, as most consumers associate the product, or brand from the song. We are very pleased with the soundtrack we have used, as we believe it succeeds the criteria needed to relate it back to our product. Our chosen song: 'Avicii - Levels' features an up beat tempo, which can be applied to a physical exercise workout. Includes lyrics that can relate to our product - "I get a feeling that I've never had before" and is also fairly new, which will relate to our younger target audience.
The majority of successful advertising campaigns include a tag line or slogan, so we defiantly knew we wanted to include one for 'Regenerate'. Our chosen slogan is - "Prolong Your Workout", which clearly informs consumers what our product achieves. We also believe with extensive usage throughout the course of our advertising campaign, customers will begin to associate the slogan with our product. This slogan features in our main TV ad and also in multiple ancillary tasks, such as the radio and pop up advertisements. We want our consumers to associate the slogan with our product, so by featuring it on different advertising methods, we hope it will be more successful.
Upon researching existing energy drink advertisements, a common convention trend we found was the obvious visual effect the product achieves. From studying our feedback, we believe that we have successfully achieved this and even possibly challenged this, by developing this further with the use of colour. Black and white resembles the runners struggle to perform, whereas colour highlights energy and physical performance. This is also complemented with the volume and tempo of our soundtrack. The start of the advert is shown in black and white with the music fading out. Once the runner has taken the drink, colour is then restored, including the fast tempo and high volume. This makes it very clear for our viewers to easily understand the effects of 'Regenerate'.
As a whole we are very confident in the way our advertisements codes and conventions are being received and how it is compared to competing products. Our gathered feedback reassures us that our advertisements plot and narrative is easily understandable and memorable to a TV audience. Overall we feel that applying these conventions has resulted in a very successful advertisement campaign.
As we are releasing a brand new product into a very competitive market, we knew it was crucial for our advertisement to receive numerous close ups of our brand name. This helps the viewer to easily recognise the product and not to associate it with any other energy drink brand. This was achieved by slow motion camera shots and editing techniques, which are all cleverly spaced out throughout the video to continuously remind the viewer of our brand name. This was impleneted due to the research of the 'Hypodermic Needle Theory', which suggested, repeated reminders of a brand name will stick in a consumers mind. This theory would benefit us, as a consumer may purchase our product over a competing brand, because our name is fresh in their mind from viewing the advertisement.
Choosing an appropriate soundtrack to an advertisement is vital, as most consumers associate the product, or brand from the song. We are very pleased with the soundtrack we have used, as we believe it succeeds the criteria needed to relate it back to our product. Our chosen song: 'Avicii - Levels' features an up beat tempo, which can be applied to a physical exercise workout. Includes lyrics that can relate to our product - "I get a feeling that I've never had before" and is also fairly new, which will relate to our younger target audience.
The majority of successful advertising campaigns include a tag line or slogan, so we defiantly knew we wanted to include one for 'Regenerate'. Our chosen slogan is - "Prolong Your Workout", which clearly informs consumers what our product achieves. We also believe with extensive usage throughout the course of our advertising campaign, customers will begin to associate the slogan with our product. This slogan features in our main TV ad and also in multiple ancillary tasks, such as the radio and pop up advertisements. We want our consumers to associate the slogan with our product, so by featuring it on different advertising methods, we hope it will be more successful.
Upon researching existing energy drink advertisements, a common convention trend we found was the obvious visual effect the product achieves. From studying our feedback, we believe that we have successfully achieved this and even possibly challenged this, by developing this further with the use of colour. Black and white resembles the runners struggle to perform, whereas colour highlights energy and physical performance. This is also complemented with the volume and tempo of our soundtrack. The start of the advert is shown in black and white with the music fading out. Once the runner has taken the drink, colour is then restored, including the fast tempo and high volume. This makes it very clear for our viewers to easily understand the effects of 'Regenerate'.
As a whole we are very confident in the way our advertisements codes and conventions are being received and how it is compared to competing products. Our gathered feedback reassures us that our advertisements plot and narrative is easily understandable and memorable to a TV audience. Overall we feel that applying these conventions has resulted in a very successful advertisement campaign.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?
As mentioned in our earlier post, we uploaded all four of our advertisements to YouTube in order to gather a much wider range of feedback. We also sent our advertisement via Facebook to a group of friends, where we could gather instant, reliable feedback. We thought it was essential to get a varied response from multiple people, so my partner and I can reflect on any achievements, or mistakes that may have been pointed out from feedback. We chose to gather feedback from our main advertisement, as the same clips and soundtrack were used in the shortened version.
From reviewing our feedback we are pleased to see the majority response is very positive, such as praising our song choice and easily understandable narrative. Other positive responses received from our feedback were the use of colour, slow motion shots and the professional feel to the end sponsorship/information picture. All of these addressed points make us feel confident that if we were to release this particular television advertisement it would be easily understood by a UK audience.
However we did also receive some constructive criticism, which we learnt more from than receiving positive feedback. This is because we may be able to rectify our mistakes, or even take them into account when producing a new project. Two criticisms were raised on our advertisement, which both related to the editing. The first criticism noticed was a small continuity error where I appear to be running, which then cuts to a scene where I am just about to start. The second criticism related to the way the clips were cut between each other with the soundtrack on the sprint scene. The first criticism could easily be corrected, however we were aware of the second point, but found it very difficult to make the clips flow in time with the music. This may be due to the little editing experience we both had, or even the particular editing software that was used. As both criticisms were connected with the editing, we now know that this is something to be aware of for any future project developments.
Aside from our main advertisement, we also received feedback on our ancillary tasks. Our Internet pop up advert response was very positive, praising the codes and conventions that were took into account upon creation. One small criticism gathered from our teacher, Mr Silverwood, was the repetitiveness of the animated slogan - "Prolong Your Workout". Although this may sound frustrating for viewers, it is very effective at grabbing your attention and this form of advertising method has been successful for other companies, such as "GoCompare".
Reflecting back on our feedback we are very proud of our advertisement and how it has been received by the public. Even though only a few minor errors were addressed, it helps us amend any problems, or even use this advice to help us on future projects. Overall we have learned to spend more time on the editing process, to get more familiar with the softwares tools and options, which will hopefully result in a more polished, professional product.
From reviewing our feedback we are pleased to see the majority response is very positive, such as praising our song choice and easily understandable narrative. Other positive responses received from our feedback were the use of colour, slow motion shots and the professional feel to the end sponsorship/information picture. All of these addressed points make us feel confident that if we were to release this particular television advertisement it would be easily understood by a UK audience.
However we did also receive some constructive criticism, which we learnt more from than receiving positive feedback. This is because we may be able to rectify our mistakes, or even take them into account when producing a new project. Two criticisms were raised on our advertisement, which both related to the editing. The first criticism noticed was a small continuity error where I appear to be running, which then cuts to a scene where I am just about to start. The second criticism related to the way the clips were cut between each other with the soundtrack on the sprint scene. The first criticism could easily be corrected, however we were aware of the second point, but found it very difficult to make the clips flow in time with the music. This may be due to the little editing experience we both had, or even the particular editing software that was used. As both criticisms were connected with the editing, we now know that this is something to be aware of for any future project developments.
Aside from our main advertisement, we also received feedback on our ancillary tasks. Our Internet pop up advert response was very positive, praising the codes and conventions that were took into account upon creation. One small criticism gathered from our teacher, Mr Silverwood, was the repetitiveness of the animated slogan - "Prolong Your Workout". Although this may sound frustrating for viewers, it is very effective at grabbing your attention and this form of advertising method has been successful for other companies, such as "GoCompare".
Reflecting back on our feedback we are very proud of our advertisement and how it has been received by the public. Even though only a few minor errors were addressed, it helps us amend any problems, or even use this advice to help us on future projects. Overall we have learned to spend more time on the editing process, to get more familiar with the softwares tools and options, which will hopefully result in a more polished, professional product.
Monday, 2 April 2012
How Effective Is The Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Tasks?
When researching various other sports drinks brand we noticed a trend in each of their advertising methods, they each had more than one form of advertising. We therefore set out to make multiple ancillary tasks, which would accompany our two adverts. Our ancillary tasks consisted of:
- Sponsorship Sequence
- Radio Advert
- Internet Banner Pop Up Advertisement
- Mobile Application Pop Up Advertisement
- Magazine Advert
As well as the ancillary tasks mentioned above, we have also created a website, Facebook and Twitter pages for our product.
Upon planning for our ancillary tasks, we made sure that we would stick to a similar theme throughout our advertising campaign, so it is consistent and easily recognisable for our audience. This also creates synergy for our advertising campaign, as all of our tasks relate to one and other. The chosen theme consisted of our colour scheme, which emphasizes the use and effects of colour. Our two television advertisements and sponsorship sequence all represent 'Regenerate' by bringing colour back into your workout. This is shown by displaying the video in black and white and then once 'Regenerate' has been taken, colour is then restored. This tells the viewer that 'Regenerate' can sustain, or even boost there fitness performance. From here is where we first thought of our advertising campaign slogan - "Prolong Your Workout". From our research, the majority of successful product advertisers had some form of a slogan, so we knew that we had to include one to compliment our product. As it was more difficult to portray the use of colour in an image, we stuck to a similar theme for our magazine and pop up adverts. These colours consisted of orange, grey and red, which all feature our brand name and slogan.
Sound also played a very big part throughout our advertising campaign. The soundtrack that was chosen was: 'Avicii - Levels', which would be played through the course of our various adverts. The song is fairly new which would benefit our target audience, but more importantly were the use of lyrics that really appealed to us. These lyrics featured the words - "I get a feeling that I've never had before', which could be applied to the effects of 'Regenerate'. As the song also features a fast dance beat, we also knew that this could be applied to a fitness workout, such as running.
The most important part of an advertising campaign is to reach a wide variety of audiences, which we believe has been achieved with the numerous different forms of ancillary tasks. Just releasing a television advert is not as sufficient as it used to be, with new technologies such as On-Demand services and the use of DVR's (Digital Video Recorders). These reduce the amount of advertisements that are actually shown, so by producing different methods such as radio, pop ups and magazine adverts, we have made sure that our product reaches it's potential mass audience. We also want our consumers to relate different aspects of our advertising campaign to the product, such as appearance, music, actors and slogans. So by keeping a consistent synergy throughout the duration of our advertising campaign, helps our audience to easily relate 'Regenerate', opposed to other competing brands. By making sure all of our products are associated with each other, we have made them interchangeable, making for an effective campaign.
Radio Advert
The above clip shows our final radio advertisement. We believe it displays many of the codes and conventions reflected upon our radio advertisement research. The video is a total of 33 seconds, which is average for any type of radio advertisement. This way the listener will not get bored, or maybe switch radio stations, especially as our information is not explained until the end. As the information is displayed at the end, our product will be fresh in the listeners mind. We also include our website towards the end of the advert, so if anyone wishes to find out more information they can do.
Once again we include the same soundtrack to create synergy throughout our advertising campaign. By using the same song throughout our advertising campaign, people may start to associate it with 'Regenerate'. As the song is current it may appeal to radio stations such as "Galaxy FM" as they play the newest songs and there general audience tends to be typically younger than other stations. From our market research we know that our product will generally be consumed by a younger audience, so publishing our radio advert on this station will target this particular audience.
Editing Our Radio Advert
In our previous advertisements we had edited the clips in iMovie, however as there was no video footage, we had to change the software program. Knowing this, we decided to edit our advert in 'Audacity'.
The first task was to create the sound clips for our narrative voice over, which were a total of five separate files. This was created by simply recording the voice into my laptops microphone. The image to the right shows the window for recording voice clips in 'Audacity'.
Once our voice overs were recorded, we needed to add the sound effects, which consisted of running, a heartbeat and drinking. The advert starts with the sound of someone running, then a heartbeat increasingly getting louder to emphasise the runners struggle to perform. From here the sound of someone drinking out of a sports bottle is played, followed by a sound of replenishment. To create synergy for our audience we used the same soundtrack: Avicii - Levels, which follows after the drinking sound effect. The song had to be cut down to 15 seconds, which features the lyrics - "I get a feeling that I've never had before".
When the soundtrack plays, the voice over clips are gradually released throughout the advert. However this became a problem as the soundtrack was louder than the voice overs, which resulted in them being difficult to understand. To combat this we had to lower the loudness of our soundtrack in the 'amplify' option, shown in the screen shot below:
Finally once all the clips were added they had to be compressed as one into a .mp3 format, so it can be played on multiple devices and is the universal format for radio stations. The image below shows the completed radio advert in 'Audacity':
The first task was to create the sound clips for our narrative voice over, which were a total of five separate files. This was created by simply recording the voice into my laptops microphone. The image to the right shows the window for recording voice clips in 'Audacity'. Once our voice overs were recorded, we needed to add the sound effects, which consisted of running, a heartbeat and drinking. The advert starts with the sound of someone running, then a heartbeat increasingly getting louder to emphasise the runners struggle to perform. From here the sound of someone drinking out of a sports bottle is played, followed by a sound of replenishment. To create synergy for our audience we used the same soundtrack: Avicii - Levels, which follows after the drinking sound effect. The song had to be cut down to 15 seconds, which features the lyrics - "I get a feeling that I've never had before".
When the soundtrack plays, the voice over clips are gradually released throughout the advert. However this became a problem as the soundtrack was louder than the voice overs, which resulted in them being difficult to understand. To combat this we had to lower the loudness of our soundtrack in the 'amplify' option, shown in the screen shot below:
 |
| Before |
 |
| After |
Finally once all the clips were added they had to be compressed as one into a .mp3 format, so it can be played on multiple devices and is the universal format for radio stations. The image below shows the completed radio advert in 'Audacity':
Feedback On Our Television Advert
Once our advert had been edited it was published to YouTube to maximise any potential feedback. We also sent the YouTube link of our advert to a group of friends on Facebook, so they could watch it and give any necessary feedback. The screenshot to the right shows me sending our video to a group of friends through Facebook's messaging service.
An example of feedback we recieved off Facebook was from 'Charlie Dennis' who said - "The song choice for this advert is very effective, as it literally makes people feel good, so it portrays a positive message with the energy drink. The use of close ups are extremely effective, as it shows emotion which helps us as an audience relate to the actor. Also, the Olympic logo at the end adds a good touch to the advert as makes people want to buy your drink because if athletes buy it, then it would be good enough for everyone else. However if i had any constructive criticism it would be to cut to the beat of the song."
Another example of constructive feedback we received off Facebook came from 'Beky Denny', who commented - "The combination of the slow motion shots and the change of pace in the song are very effective, as together, they highlight the runners struggle to perform. The transition from black and white to colour is also effective, as it portrays a positive vibe to your consumers."
Uploading our advert to YouTube, also allowed the option for people to comment on the video, leaving any necessary feedback for us. The screen shot below shows some of the comments that have been left by other users:
The general trend of feedback seems to be praising the use of colour and the choice of song. The slow motion shots also seem to have been very effective for the audience and the end picture gives a very professional feel to our advert. Everyone understood the plot and idea of the advert, without us using any dialogue from the actor. However two small criticisms were stated, one from 'Charlie Dennis' off Facebook and from 'rafaliscooltoo' off YouTube. It is beneficial for us to gather critical feedback from a wide audience, as we can use this advice to improve on further projects in the future. Both criticisms relate to the editing when running. We found it very difficult to join the multiple clips together to make it seem fluid and in time with the beat of the music.
Overall we are very pleased with the way our advert is being received, especially praising the colour scheme, music and professionalism. Our main focus was for our audience to clearly understand what we are portraying in our advert, without the use of heavy narrative. So we are happy that everyone understood exactly what our advert was showing and how our product, 'Regenerate', can benefit your workout.
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